LALA Land

Bonjour. Me and Shelly are in Paris. It's cold and rainy...so not much different from London. But let's get caught up with my trip home.

So I left off last with dinner at Dong Il Jang. After dinner, we went to Dit Gol Mok in Koreatown. It's this ghetto little drinking place which literally translates to "back alley." It's a shithole, but we love it here.

After a few bottles of soju, I brought out the Christmas crackers I brought from London. I love those things. I bought two boxes at M&S and I've been handing them out to everyone in LA.


We look fantastic!


Connie really liked her present.


Ta-dah! She finished!


Judy rocked her comb ghetto-style.


And then Sara and her friend Stone joined us. I swear, that's really his name...Stone. Weird huh?


And then so did Judy's brother Min Oppa aka the Sexiest Man Alive. That's my cousin Julie behind him. Korean girls do this thing of standing behind people so their face looks smaller.

The next day, we were MAD hungover. I went home and spent the rest of the day sleeping off the alcohol. I haven't been this drunk in a LONG time. These days with all my traveling, I hang out with people that I knew for like a week? I mean, you can't get all jacked up and expect them to take care of you. Unlike chilling with my cousin who I've known since the day I was born and know when I'm with her, I'm always safe. Also, when you're drunk you miss out on so much. When I used to be an accountant, I really needed that escape from reality, whereas these days, my reality's pretty good. So I don't drink as much anymore. My dad's really happy. Money well spent.

So on Friday, I took the train into Los Angeles. Yes, Los Angelenos, there is public transportation in Southern California, only no one uses it! I took the Metroline from Fullerton to Union Station and then from there, you take the Red Line to Hollywood and Highland. When I got up from Metro, I was HOME! I love Hollywood.


Hollywood Blvd.

I did some shopping. I went to Fredrick's of Hollywood this lingerie store, and I saw this guy who was so fat he was wheelchair bound watching some little Asian girlfriend (or some chic he's paying) with implant boobs trying on lingerie. ONLY in Hollywood does this kind of stuff happen. So seedy, so gross, so Hollywood.


Then my friend Miss Daisy picked me up and we went to Sushiya on Sunset Plaza for dinner. My sister works here as a waitress and the sushi guys are all Korean and they love me so they hook it up! This place is YUM. Get the spicy tunu chips. That's the busboy Jose posing behind us in the picture.


Me, Daisy, my sister Elaine, busboy Jose, and some other girl who waitresses at Sushiya.

Then me and Daisy went to Pinkberry...again. Pinkberry is the theme of my trip home.


I forgot my camera thing in London so I can't upload any of my other pictures. Next entry, will fill you in on my fabulous Christmas with my familia as well as on my trip to Paris.

I wish you all a safe and happy New Year's. Bonne Annee!

Why Did I Ever Leave?!

Greetings from California!

It's actually a bit colder than usual out here. Global warming, I guess. It's about 40-50 degrees sometimes! Still a warm day for London, but a freezing day for LA. You see the girls running around with jackets and scarves and Ugg boots...with miniskirts. That's LA. After being away for awhile, I realize how ridiculous LA is. This place really is lala-land. But do I miss it!

I landed at LAX on Monday afternoon. My lil sis picked me up and got me Del Taco which is shitty Mexican drivethru chain, but they have the best hot sauce! Then my sister had to go to work, so I waited until traffic died down so my cousin Michelle could pick me up in LA to take me to my mom's house in OC. She got here and we went to Pinkberry, a yogurt chain that's become this huge hit in LA. A yogurt costs $5, and it's healthy and it's LA. Yeah, it's winter and LA people sit around and eat ice cream.


Pinkberry Original with Strawberries, Kiwi and Pomegranate


Then next door, we noticed M Cafe which is a microbiotic restaurant. That's like that diet that Gwenyth Paltrow is on. And they had these yummy looking brown rice sushi rolls! So I got a couple. :)

We were going to go to Pink's Hot Dog after because it was around the corner and my cousin Michelle is a foodwhore. And the line was actually kinda short for the for a change. But we didn't.

Then I got home and went to Del Taco again with my brother. Yeah, I know it's gross, but I really missed food.

The next day, I woke up, and I had no car or any way of getting around since my mom was gone and my friends were at work. So I sat around and watched everything on my Tivo. Finally, I left the house and got my nails done! For some strange reason, getting nails done is SO expensive anywhere outside the US. Even in China! After I got my nails done, my cousin Michelle, my college roommate Sara, and my friend Shelly came to see me and we sat around at Barnes and Nobles reading magazines and drinking Starbucks. I love that place! Then me, Michelle and Sara had Thai food. Then...we went to Target! My absolute FAVORITE store in the U.S. It's just fabulous. It's the best store in the world. Not cheap crap like KMart or Walmart. It's quality and cheap and they have these $1 bins...it's like Walmart for Yuppies.

On Wednesday, my cousin Julie drove out from Redlands and picked me up to go shopping! We had lunch at Barneys New York and then we shopped. Barneys just started its sale, so I ended up dropping a few hundred. Then continued the shopping down Rodeo Drive. We had coffee at a cafe with our friend Susan who works at Valentino. We just people watched and played fashion police on everyone who walked by us. So bitchy. So Beverly Hills. Then off to Beverly Center where I continued on my little spree. Yes, I spent a lot of money, but I justify it because in London, it'd all cost twice as much!


Papparazzi were hanging out in front of Barneys so I took a picture of them. I have no idea who they were waiting for, but I guess we'll see it in the tabloids next week. I heard the Alexis Biedel from Gilmore Girls was inside, but I doubt it was for her. I also saw David Spade (but not with Heather Locklear), Samuel L. Jackson, and Emma Roberts (Julia Roberts' niece who's an actress too).


Me with Lazy Santa on Rodeo Drive. I'm wearing sunglasses. Yes, there's sun here!

After shopping, me and my cousin met up with our friends Connie and Judy and went to Dong Il Jang, a Korean restaurant in K-town that I love!!! And I GRUBBED. I have not been full in so long...British food sucks.


Me and my cous.


The kimchi bokeumbap at the end of the meal. DAMN, that's good stuff.

Okay, this is taking forever to upload, so I'm getting frustrated. I'll post more later. Lots of good stuff. Stay tuned.

Christmas Shopping

With the holidays coming up and with my first trip home since I came to London a couple days away, I've been doing ALOT of Christmas shopping over the past couple of weeks. I've been picking out gifts for family ever since I came out here, but the big sprees have been lately, especially since I got my finally got some of my plastic back! YAY!

Shopping in London is hell because there's so many stores and so many people. There's also all these outdoor markets...Portabello, Camden, Brick Lane...to name a few that I know of. But yeah, there's a lot of joy in giving, and I've been having fun as well as been extremely stressed, about what to get my family. I won't say what I got for who since that's the big surprise for Christmas day.

Anyhow, last weekend, my friend Magda and I went to Portabello Market in Notting Hill.



It's CROWDED!


Me in front of a house with a blue door in Notting Hill. No, Hugh Grant doesn't live there, and this isn't the door from the movie, but it's a blue door in Notting Hill. Yes, I look shitastic with my granny sweater and no make-up.


My London BF Magda.

Portabello has some great stuff. There's a lot of antiques here. Also a lot of cool little shops and what not. I got some stuff. Magda, despite the fact that we were supposed to be Christmas shopping, bought herself a vintage fur coat for £50. I got really mad at her because she's a bunny killer. I don't wear fur. It's not that cold that we need to kill animals and wear them. Synthetic fabrics are just fine for me.


Magda wearing Thumper's mother. I want to throw tofu at her.

Some of the great shopping destinations in London:
Oxford Street: There's a huge Top Shop and H&M and all the other high street stores out here. A little ways down towards Bond Street, there's the huge department store Selfridge's which is great because it has a high street section.
Harrod's: I finally checked out this famous department store yesterday, but there wasn't anything there. Really...it's overrated. It's freakin' huge and I kept getting lost. Reminded me of Saks on 5th Ave in NYC, which is a great department store and all, but not my favorite.
Harvey Nichols: Called "Harvey Nick's" by Londoners. Great department store. I liked it a lot better than Harrod's. It's a lot less spaced and huge. Reminded me of Barneys in Beverly Hills, one of my favorite department stores.
Sloane Square/King's Road: Just did this today. Has a lot of the same stores as Oxford Circus. It was okay.
The Brunswick: Literally across the street from where I live so I go here often. It's a new little mall type of thing. The closest thing to the shopping malls we have at home. There's a FCUK, Bennetton, Office, Starbucks, etc.
Marks & Spencers: Great place for little gifts. Love it!

I've been shopping ALL over London not to mention the crap I've picked up along the way in Barcelona and France. I'm bloody Santa Claus! But it's worth it if my family likes what I got them. I really miss them. I love going home for the holidays. It makes it more fun than when you see your family everyday and then spend Christmas with them. When you live away from your family, you really appreciate the time you spend with them during the holiday, no? I go home the day after tomorrow. I CAN'T WAIT!

What I Miss Most About Home...

Classes are over. Term papers are due at the beginning of next term. So...I've been doing a lot of studying. Often more staring at my computer THINKING about writing. Papers are hard for me. I was a business major! We rarely wrote papers at Haas and never research papers. It was more about financial analysis or business plan writing, if anything. And as an auditor, yeah, no real research paper writing there either. SO...I think the last time I wrote a real paper was in high school.

But anyhow, as always, when I have studying to do, I write in my blog on my many breaks. And in anticipation of my trip back home, here the are the things I miss most about home.

1. Of course, I miss my family.
2. Of course, I miss my friends.
3.In N Out Burger. A California staple. It's like one of the best parts of living in California.
4. Sushi restaurants on every corner. Yeah, there's sushi here, but it's expensive as all things are.
5. Driving! And people driving on the right side of the road. Although I don't miss parking and traffic. I miss throwing things in the backseat. I saw a car that looked like my Brandon in Nice and I really missed my old Audi. :(
6. Barnes and Nobles. I go to Waterstone's here, but it's just not the same as BN with the Starbucks and all that. Especially since I'm a member and I get that 10% discount. Books out here are expensive and the worst part is lugging them home after since I walk there and back. Whereas at home, I buy a grip of books and then just toss the bag in my car.
7. Korean food. We have Kfood here, but no where beats Ktown. Sometimes, I think Ktown beats Korean food in Korea.
8. Mexican food. Okay, nevermind, I miss Mexican food more than Korean food. There's nothing like it over here. Europeans can't handle the spicy food. Everything here's so bland. I miss Del Sorcho sauce and burritos. MAN, I miss burritos.
9. Forever 21. The "cheap" stores here are expensive. Like Top Shop, H&M, Zara...when you convert to USD, it's so expensive! I really miss the prices.
10. Us Magazine. I get them here sometimes, too, but it's at least a week behind. Also, it's not as relevant in my life anymore since I don't live in Hollywood. I miss reading Us and seeing the hot new club that Tara Reid or Paris Hilton are stumbling out of and then going the next week.
11. The Hollywood sign. My favorite LA landmark...perhaps the only LA landmark, but whatever.
12. My TIVO. I think I miss him most of all. They don't have Tivo in London.
13. George W. Bush. Nah, just kidding.

Yeah, I've noticed. Most of what I miss is food. But really, food in London is really as bad as people say. It's so true that America has WAY too much food. Going to be home real soon. I haven't disconnected my old US cellphone yet so give me a call if you want to eat.

The U.S. vs. John Lennon

I saw the trailer for this film awhile back when I was still in America, and I was really interested in seeing it. It was screened at the London Film Festival, but I ended up missing it because I didn't get to the theater in time. It was raining and all that. But I totally lucked out because my friend Magda noticed it was showing at the theater across the street from our hall and that the director was going to be there for a Q&A session. The director turned out to be an American who is in town because last Saturday was the 26th anniversary of John Lennon's death.

The film turned out to be great. It was a good documentary, but it's kind of hard to determine the strengths of the filmmakers just based on this film, however, because the unique thing about this film was the amount of material and access they had. First off, Yoko Ono collaborated with the filmmakers on this project. In light of the current situation, she felt it was time for John Lennon's story to be told. Yoko is somewhat notorious for the hold she has on John Lennon's legacy, especially post-Beatles, but she gave David Leaf and his co-director an unprecendented amount of access into John Lennon's and her life. From what I've read about this film, the critics were wary because they felt as a result the story would be biased.

Prior to watching this, I didn't know much about John Lennon. He's of my parents' generation. Of course I know who the Beatles are and I know their hit songs because they have resonated through time, and I know that John Lennon was important because people still mourn his death and my parents really liked him and all that. But I never really understood why this British dude was upheld to be so important in America. This film shows that he was important though. He wasn't just a musician, but a revolutionary who people listened to. Yeah, we have celebrities standing up in current day like Bono and the Dixie Chicks, but not to the level of John Lennon where they are a perceived threat to the U.S. government...or perhaps the FBI is collecting information on Natalie Maines as we speak?

The other thing is seeing the footage of the protests during the Vietnam War. It makes me sad. Why aren't we, this current generation, marching up the Mall in a huge flood of protesters against this current war? I asked the director this, and he thinks it's because this war is under such different circumstances. There is a lot of truth in that, but it still makes me wish my generation had the fervor of that time. I started at Berkeley in August 2001, just a couple weeks before 9/11, so I was on the lookout for the next anti-war protests. Berkeley was so instrumental in the 60's and 70's against Vietnam. Our first day of sociology class that following spring, our professor started the class by showing Berkeley during Vietnam and all the crazy protests that had happened on our campus. We all saw that and we were all so inspired, yet it never happened. Yeah, there were anti-war protests at Berkeley. But it almost seemed forced. Like we were only demonstrating because we're Berkeley students and we were expected to because of the legacy left by those in the 60's and 70's. That raw passion of students being crushed by police yet continuing because they genuinely believed in the struggle...it just wasn't there. Yet I understand that it's a very different war. Half the country supports it and the other half doesn't. The country was physically and brutally attacked on 9/11 and while that really had nothing to do with Iraq, I understand it's hard to distance the two for some.

Living in anti-Bush London hasn't made me more liberal. Ironically, it's made me empathize more with the other half. People here are so far from the other side. They look at America and hate Bush and are anti-war and think we're crazy for re-electing him. It's kind of the opposite of what I felt in American being a liberal while I had friends packing up to go to Iraq and had a mother praying for Bush to prevail in Iraq. Don't get me wrong. I am still far from voting Republican or supporting the war. But my perspectives have changed on looking at the people on the homefront.

David Leaf (the director) told me that now's the time to go back to America, but I disagree. This experience of being in another fish bowl from my own has been mind opening. I've made the opposite journey from John Lennon going from America to England rather than England to America, but if I may be so arrogant, I'm learning a lot of the same things he must have.

Also, the director told me that this film will be playing in the States on VH1 so keep your eyes open for it. Knowing VH1, it'll probably play OVER and OVER and OVER again so it probably won't be that hard.

http://www.vh1.com/movies/movie/284644/trailers.jhtml
www.theusversusjohnlennon.com

The Principality of Monaco

So Monday, I got up early and went off to Monaco by train. The public transit in the Cote d'Azur's not great. It's not a big city so it's not necessary, but cabs are all Mercedes so they are pretty expensive. There's a train stop in each town though, and each town is so small, it's not too bad. Monaco's about 15-20 minutes away from Nice by train, but it's not in France. It's actually a small principality between France and Italy. It's not part of either country. They have their own royalty and everything. One famous princess of Monaco is Grace Kelly, American actress turned Monaco's princess.


Princess Grace

The current prince of Monaco is Prince Albert, well-known for being a philanderer with all these illegitimate children that keep popping up. Prince Albert is one of Grace Kelly's children, so I guess you can say he's half-American.


Prince Albert (They have this picture hanging up in stores and stuff like he's Chairman Mao or something.)

So anyhow, if the Cote d'Azur were Los Angeles, then Nice would be Malibu, Cannes would be Hollywood, and Monaco would be Beverly Hills. It's a ridiculously rich city, a large part owned by a company called SBM (Societe des Bains de Mer). Monaco citizenship is granted only to a very rich few, so this place is the poshest of the posh.

I got there and went over to the Palais du Prince for the changing of the guard everyday at noon. I was expecting something more like the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, with horses and all that, but this was much less grand.


Here are the guards getting off duty.


New guards coming in to replace them. (Ok, for some reason all my vertical pictures are coming out horizontal. Please bare with me until I can fix this.)


And then the old ones return to here. Hmm...great. That was all of like 5 minutes.


The crowd was really small though. I thought it'd be like Buckingham where there's a mob everyday even though it's not like the Queen's there or anything.


Me at the Palais du Prince.

Afterwards, I walked a little ways up to the Cathedrale.



A view of Monaco from La Condemine.

Then I went by bus to the Monte Carlo area. After some walking I found the Casino.

Here is the Casino. It costs €10 to go inside so I opted not to. I don't like gambling or anything and I didn't have any money to gamble anyhow. Instead, I had lunch at Le Cafe de Paris which according to my guide book is the thing to do in Monte Carlo. It's a very famous restaurant owned by SBM. I ordered French onion soup and a salad nicois, remeniscent of Via de France at South Coast. It was much better than Via de France, but considering my meal for one cost over €30, Via de France doesn't seem that bad. The couple next to me was an Italian couple who started to talk with me during lunch. The woman is originally from Kazakhstan. And NO, she's nothing like the people in Borat. She looks East Asian for one, and she was super posh from what I could tell from her shopping bags.

After lunch, I walked around the Place du Casino, which is the gardens in front, and window-shopped. There's all the expensive stores here, but since I don't have ANY credit cards on me, I couldn't dare go into the stores. It would probably make me cry. My dad is sooo lucky I got my credit cards stolen before my trip and haven't gotten them sent back to me yet. He should send the thieves a thank you card.


The shopping area. :(

A garden.

Inside the SBM-owned mall.

Then I walked down to the coast to the Grimaldi Forum, but the show I wanted to see had been the day before, so I walked along the coast all the way back to the harbor. I looked at all the pretty boats. The yachts here are amazing. This place is so dripping with filthy wealth. Yeah, I mean, I grew up in OC and LA so I know what wealth looks like, but we have all the dodgy places in between. Monaco is just wealth, more wealth, and then royalty. It's like if the world exploded and all that was left was Newport Beach and Beverly Hills, and somehow they became attached.

I went on a ferris wheel at the harbor to get some good pictures:


Ferris wheel.


I was really scared because it cost only €3.50 and I dunno, I don't think ferris wheels are all that safe. Still, I guess it's much safer than that crazy zipcord ride we did at the Great Wall.


A view of the harbor.


Everything's really close together here since it's so small.

I have ALOT of pictures, but these pretty much sum it up. Monaco is a beautiful, fantastic place, but there's not much to do without a lot of money. Since I couldn't shop or gamble, I ran out of things to do pretty quickly. But one day when I'm rich, I plan to come back with a vengeance. :)


Me at the train station. One drawback of traveling alone is that there's not always someone to hold the camera. But I've actually rather enjoyed traveling alone. Everywhere I go, I meet all kinds of people. I've been blessed with a really outgoing personality and I don't find it very difficult to talk to strangers. My friend Magda says I can have a conversation with anyone because I do all the talking anyhow. Also, it's freeing not having someone nagging they want to go somewhere different from me.

Yes, my life is fabulous. I only wish I had a credit card while in Monaco, but at the same time, I'm glad I didn't so I wouldn't get tempted to make the many phonecalls to Daddy to ask if I can buy a new handbag...and a new purse...and a new wallet...and so on. Seriously, Dad...you are SOO lucky this time!

Nice and Cannes

So this past weekend I went to the Cote d'Azur. I was supposed to go last month, but then I got sick so I had to postpone. It worked out okay, but I was a bit hesitant to go because I have so much to do since it's end of term, Christmas and I'm going home to LA in two weeks...but oh well, part of this whole expatriate decision was so that I could travel around Europe, and so off I go!

The weekend was great. I stayed at a B&B (www.nicehomesweethome.com) instead of a hotel. It was a last minute decision, but this place is RIDICULOUSLY CHEAP and it turned out to be a great place. I highly recommend. It's a large apartment with like 6 or 7 rooms. The owners are French and they rent out the rooms and the wife comes every morning to prepare breakfast and clean. It's nice because it's not as sterile and cold as hotels. Like for one, you meet other people staying there. Also, people who have traveled through in the past leave behind maps that they've circled and written tips on, so you can use their advice for sightseeing. Also, the B&B's stocked with books and DVDs and a kitchen, so it's like staying at a friend's house.

So anyhow, I arrived in Nice Friday afternoon and took a tip from one of the maps left by past travelers and found out that there is a sightseeing tour bus that goes around Nice. So I went for a ride.

Some pictures:

View from the bus.

From the hills where I took the picture in the previous entry.

Along the Promenade des Anglais on the coast. This is the only place I've been where they have as many palm trees as Los Angeles.

The hills. It reminds me of the Hollywood Hills...the roads, the homes. This region is probably most similar to Los Angeles. It has similar weather, and the streets are considerably wide compared to other European roads. It's a condensed version of LA. Like, if the Hollywood Hills faced the ocean and we didn't have all that city in between.

All the buildings look like this on the street. Very quaint.

Honestly, I can't show you guys enough pictures of this place and explain how beautiful it is. It's just gorgeous. The Mediterraean just glows when there's good weather. This is the second time I've been on the Med. (Last time Barcelona.) Since it's winter now, these cities are the only ones with bareable weather right now.

On the bus, I met a couple from London and we went to have tea at the Negresco Hotel. They're English so they had tea with milk. I still find that whole thing really gross.


After, I went back to the B&B and put on a coat because it got a bit chilly and went for a walk around the town along the pedestrian area. I had dinner at a little outdoor restaurant called Le Bistro which was pretty cosy and cute. Then I went back to the B&B and met a fellow American abroad named Nicole. She's from Chicago. We decided to hit up the town. We walked around looking for something to do, but nightlife wasn't that great. We found a couple bars with live music, but not much our taste. French people dance weird.

So we headed to the casinos to have more drinks and hit the slots! First stop, the Bar Americain at the Casino Ruhl. After a few vodka drinks, I was pretty sloshed, and I decided to hit the slots. Everyone knows I like pigs because I was born in the Year of the Pig. So I found a slot machine with some piggies on it and...

I HIT THE JACKPOT, YA'LL! I won €60!!! And so then I moved to another slot machine that was called Hollywood Dreams. Thought it was another omen, and...I HIT IT AGAIN! I won another €18!!!

In the end, after you subtract the money I put in, I came up €72. That's almost $100. That's what I paid for the B&B for the weekend! I've never won anything in my life. After that, I loved Nice.

BUT...then we went to the Palais de la Mediterranee and I lost €10. So...the night capped out at €62 which is still freakin great for me!

Then Nicole and I went and got food at a kebab stand and went home and had a long talk about racism. She's a really smart, eloquent girl, and she happens to be a Black-American. When you're in a foreign country, you start realizing how arbitrary race is. Because when you meet fellow Americans abroad, it doesn't matter if they're black, white, green or purple...they're more like you than everyone else is and all that racism from home goes out the window. Yet, to the locals from that area, your race is interpretted differently. Even though I am American, I am identified at the face level as...usually, Chinese, unfortunately. They don't really know what Korea is yet. In Spain, they called me "China" (chee-na, not the country). The concept of "Asian" is becomes open for interpretation as well. In London, "Asian" refers to people of Indian and Middle Eastern descent. As a Korean, I'm "Far Eastern." Nicole, being black, is asked where in African she's from. Blacks in Europe are usually from specific countries in Africa or West Indies. In America, they come from slavery, they've been here a long time, they come from the "Hood." We would never think to ask them to trace their roots as far back as Africa. Anyhow, it was a long talk that I learned a lot from.

The next day, I took the train to Cannes to meet Li Meng (my roommate from Shanghai) for lunch. Li Meng lives out here. We went to a little French restaurant and walked around a bit until Mengy needed to go to her friend's house. Then I walked around, shopped, and walked down to the coast. I was talking a picture of the Palais des Festivals where the Cannes Film Festival is held every year and this dude walked into my picture.



He saw I was traveling alone and offered to show me around town. We walked down the coast and he went on and on about how he hates Bush and blahblah. Yeah, you hear that a lot here. The thing is, I don't necessarily find it great that they hate Bush. I mean, I hate Bush passionately. He is one of the reasons I left America. BUT, the French people seem to hate Bush because everyone around them hates Bush and all they hear is the negative aspects of Bush. It's the opposite of America, where the stupid, ignorant people love Bush because they don't know any better. It seems like in France, the stupid, ignorant people hate Bush because they don't know any better...and I don't think that makes it right. People shouldn't hate Bush because they don't know otherwise. They should love or hate Bush because they have a reason. Yeah Bush sucks and if I had the guts to take him out, I would, but I have reasons behind it. I disagree with his policies and how his regime has directly affected my life and wellbeing as an American. I understand that there are people who like Bush that aren't stupid. I have talked with educated, smart people who genuinely like him because they agree with his policies, which aren't all wrong. I respect that they like Bush because they understand the pros and cons of the situation and made their decision.

Anyhow, so this guy and I went to the Ritz Carlton to have a drink.


And then I took the train back into Nice to meet up with a guy I met the night before at the kebab stand. His name is Kali and he brought out his three friends with them. Kali speaks a little English, but his friends speak none. Yeah, so it was very interesting trying to communicate. The guys are Tunisian or something like that (It's a Arab country in North Africa.) but they grew up in France or Italy or Spain. Speaking of racism, these are the dudes that are "trouble" in France. Kind of the equivalent of the Asians in America (meaning us from Fullerton). But they turned out to be nice guys and didn't steal my purse or anything. I don't really understand where they're from. Like I said, they didn't speak much English. They spoke to each other a mix of French, Italian and Tunisian. And I speak English, Korean and Chinese, and that doesn't do me much good with this group. But somehow we managed. We went to go eat Italian food and drink lots of blanc vin (white wine) and then a bar and they proceded to talk to me in French and Italian and I'd try to figure out what they were saying.


Me and Zed in Kali's car.


Kali and me at the restaurant. Kali bought me a rose. :)


Kali, Sammy and Zed. There was another guy I called Yummy. Ok, I don't really know what their names are because they were Arab names I couldn't pronounce so I just called them what I thought it sounded like. So they became Kali, Sammy, Zed (since they don't say it "Zee" in Europe, "Z" = zed), and Yummy. I also have no clue what they do for a living. When I asked Zed, all I understood was "big car." I think he's a truckdriver, but I don't know. And Yummy said he's a fisherman in Rome, but I don't know if that's what he meant. Kali said something about "commercial," but when I asked him if he's an actor, he said no. The other thing is they're technically Muslim, but they drink and smoke and I think they even eat pork. I've never met non-practicing Muslims before, but I guess they're the Muslim equivalent of Sunday-Christians. Zed's from Paris, so I asked him if was one of the Muslim delinquents that torched cars in Paris, but he didn't understand what I was talking about. Yeah, but they did agree with me that Angelina Jolie is hot.

Sunday, I am ashamed to say, I slept ALL DAY. I was really tired. :P So I didn't do anything on Sunday. The weather was piss that day anyhow and most of the stores close for Sunday. France is a Catholic country.

Tomorrow I shall write about Monaco, but til then Au Revoir!