HILLARY IS MY HOMEGIRL!

I have said that once Hillary Clinton announces her run for Presidency, I will be the first to donate to her campaign. I just donated $100 to Hillary Clinton's run for President of the United States! I know it's not much, but I'm a struggling student and every little bit helps. Every dollar, every vote. So, I'm calling out to EVERYONE to join Team Hillary. I'm so excited she's running. BRING BACK THE CLINTON ERA!

www.hillaryclinton.com

HILLARY CLINTON IN 2008!

Stratford-Upon-Avon

So Shelly was visiting me for the past week. She left a few days ago, but as I'm horrible with this whole blogging thing and my blog is about 2 weeks behind, here is a trip to Stratford we did. I need a break from writing my paper anyhow.

So Stratford-Upon-Avon is where William Shakespeare was born and died. It's a little town about 3 hours outside of London by train. Honestly, I like Shakespeare and all...sometimes. But I probably would have never came here if it wasn't for Shelly.


Shelly at Shakespeare's grave at Trinity Church.


The doors here are tiny. It makes me feel tall!


Shelly at Anne Hathaway's Cottage. Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare's wife. This is where her family lived until last century. Yeah, the Shakespeare tour is like...this house belongs to Shakespeare's brother's wife's roommate's cousin's best friend's house.


Shelly on the Shakespeare bus tour. This bus was like a roller coaster...mad crazy driving.


The street where Shakespeare's birthplace is off. It's such a cute little town.

HM...so that's Stratford. It's not all that interesting. It's just an English town where Shakespeare was born, raised and then left for London to be a superstar and then came back to die.

One day, people shall tour around Fullerton on a bus and point out all the places I lived, ate, and shitted since I'm going to be someone pretty important. They may just roll past your house, too!

Museum Fatigue

Thursday was Museum Day. We were originally going to go to Musee D'Orsay on Tuesday, but for some reason, the queue was out of control and raining, so we opted not to. So instead we did the Lourve and Musee D'Orsay all in one day.

First, the Lourve. We got the little audioguide thing and walked around, but the museum's just so freakin' huge and Shelly's so goddamn slow in the museums. So after lunch, I ditched Shelly to go at her snailspeed around the Lourve and got the headset for the Da Vinci Code tour. IT WAS GREAT! I can't say enough how great it was. The tour is hilarious. There's this guy with a French accent narrating the thing and he tells you exactly where to go and what to do. And there's music and quotes from the movie. And the narrator will say stuff like "Go to the window. Look, there goes Sophie and Langdon out the window! How did they survive that fall? I don't know." The tour is just awesome. I highly recommend. It includes a lot of the major Italian artwork and it's just a way to make the museum experience fun.


Museums with Shelly make me want to jump out the window!!!


The famous Mona Lisa. The voice in my head (on the headset) told me to push through the crowd...so I did.


Saint John the Baptist by Leonardo Da Vinci. I SWEAR there's a cross above his hand like it says in the book. Can you see it?


Me doing the V thing from the Da Vinci Code.


I SOLVED THE DA VINCI CODE! Me at the Rose Stone from the book/movie. This is where the Holy Grail is.

The tour was so fun!

Then we went to Musee D'Orsay where unfortunately, they didn't have a Da Vinci Code tour, but it's a much smaller museum and caters specifically to impressionist paintings. They had a gorgeous collection. I never saw so many Monets, Degas, Van Goghs, Pissaros, Manets, Renoirs, etc. My eyes hurt after.

Then Friday, our last day, we went up to Montmarte to the Sacre-Coeur, another cathedral. The view from this place is amazing.


Sacre-Couer


Shelly at the Sacre-Couer.

Then we went over to Place du Tertre. This is where Degas, Renoir, Van Gogh, Picasso, etc. all lived and painted. They used to come to this park and meet at cafes when they were alive and poor struggling artists. How cool is that? So much of the artwork we saw in the museums just the day before were inspired and/or painted here!


Shelly bought a small painting from this artist.


Then we got our portraits drawn by this man.


The artist and his muses.

Then we ventured down the road to Pigalle, a seedy sexshop ridden street in Paris, also where the Moulin Rouge is. It is also called "Pig Alley" because the American G.I.s during WWII called it that.


The Moulin Rouge.


SEX! SEX! SEX!

Then, we went to the Museum of Erotic Art, which was interesting... There's a toliet cam exhibit that is really disturbing. The funniest part is that's where the real bathrooms are as well.


These are erotic drawings by Edgar Degas. Apparantly, he didn't just paint ballerinas...

Then back to London...but we'll always have Paris.

Versailles

Sorry I haven't written in awhile. I got really sick last week and I was pretty much bedridden for most of it. Poor Shelly ended up catching my cold and getting sick for most of her trip as well. :(

But back to my Paris write-up. I can't believe I still haven't finished writing about Paris! So we're up to Wednesday when Shelly and I went to Versailles which is the most gorgeous beautiful place in the world. It was the home of French kings from 1682 until the French Revolution in 1789. So Louis XIV to XVI as well as once the home of Marie "Let them eat cake!" Antoinette. I've wanted to come here since I first learned about it in 7th grade Social Studies class. Believe it or not, it lives up to the hype. Until Versailles, I wasn't that impressed by Paris, but after, I suddenly loved Paris.




This is his house.


Marie Antoinette's room. I want to live here!


Me in the Hall of Mirrors.




We ate lunch here on the property.


Me playing in the gardens in front of Marie's playhouse, the Grande Trianon.


Shelly playing hide and seek in front of Marie's playhouse.


Marie's other playhouse, the Petit Trianon.



Marie Antoinette has to be one of the funniest people ever. Me and Shelly decided she's the 18th-century Paris Hilton. She had her rooms inside the main chateau, and then she had two other little houses out on the property called the Grande and Petit Trianons. THEN, on top of that, she has this little area called the Hamlets where she had a bunch of cottages built and a working farm. She used to go out there in a simple dress and hat and "play" peasant, which for her meant watching other people toil on the farm. Then she'd go home and say "I worked so hard today!"


Me at Marie's house.


My house.


Shelly's house.


The animals on the farm.


The great outdoors.

Versailles was fucking amazing. It's a must see in a lifetime.

After Versailles, we were exhausted, hungry. Luckily, we had reservations to Le Grande Colbert this little bistro that was on that Jack Nicholson-Diane Keaton movie Something's Gotta Give. Shelly REALLY wanted to go here. The food was yum, too. And we had a lot of wine.





That's it for Wednesday.

My Happiest Place on Earth

Okay, I get that Disneyland is the "Happiest Place on Earth" and really, Disneyland is pretty spectacular. I still love it there. BUT...there's another Happiest Place and it's called Louis Vuitton. I think I learned my Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Dior before I knew my ABCs. This is my mothership.


Louis Vuitton on the Champs-Elysees. This place is like a museum!


On route to LV, we went through the Jardins des Tuileries which is dead right now since it's winter.


And the Place de la Concorde. Here's Shelly.


And then after, we did MORE shopping! Here's Dior. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything I really wanted at Dior or LV, but I'm at LV in Paris! I have to buy something. So I bought a classic LV speedy and then decorated it with keychains I collected around Paris. Kind of like a charm bracelet.



Funnyass story: While we were in front of Dior, these Chinese women approached us and asked us to get them two LV wallets. They said that Chinese people are only allowed to buy one a piece and they wanted more. So they just hand us €650 and say they'll wait outside while we buy it. That's a lot of trust! It took us awhile inside the store because LV lags. But like 30 minutes later, we come out and there they are. I mean...seriously, they just handed perfect strangers the equiv. of like $800 and took a chance. They really, really must have wanted those wallets.

After I dragged Shelly around all day shopping, we went back home and then out to Bercy Village on the outskirts of Paris. It's a cute little area with shops and restaurants and bars and a cinema. Very cute.


Bercy Village. We had dinner here at a little bar/restaurant and we had...


THE BEST F-EN MOJITO IN THE WORLD. It's called a Pink Mojito and there's pink wine in it or something. I dunno...but it was fantastic. I mean, even better than Spain! Even better than the Abbey in West Hollywood, which also has pretty great mango mojitos.

Who can ask for more...a new handbag and a great drink...a fabulous day.

Bonne Annee at the Eiffel Tower

So Sunday, we slept ALL day! And then we ventured outside to celebrate the New Year. Not much was open, but we found a restaurant near the Eiffel Tower catering to all the foreigners in town for NYE. Then we went to the Eiffel Tower. There were SOOOO many people gathered under and around the Tower as well as along the Champs de Mars. It was crazy. Seemed like there were a lot of tourists. People were lighting fireworks, which is no longer allowed, and then the Parisian cops would start chasing after them. There were so many policeman walking around.

Then Shelly had to go to the bathroom at 11:15pm, because she's a leaky cauldron. And then I lost her in the crowd. And cellphones didn't work because too many gathered in one spot calling friends and family. BUT...I found her right before midnight. BONNE ANNEE! All that happens is the Eiffel Tower starts twinkling at midnight and a bunch of fireworks went off. Then the whole mob of people walk back to the Metro to go home. It was interesting.

Here are a few of the billion pictures I took of the Eiffel Tower.












Closest I got to capturing fireworks on camera.

So that's how I rang in 2007. Here's to an awesome year as Expatriate Jen.

Paris: Bienvenue!

PARIS! So Shelly and I arrived in London on the 28th and had fish and chips and beers. Then slept and woke up bright and early to go to Paris. We went via Eurostar, which goes from Waterloo Station in London to the Gare du Nord in Paris. It's a total ripoff! It cost like $150 roundtrip and they don't give you food. :( There is a dining car where you can buy food.


Shelly in the dining car.

We were pretty exhausted after all the flying and traveling so we lounged around and slept for most of the first day. The apartment we rented was great. It's a tiny little studio in the Marais area in the 3rd district of Paris. The street had all these little shops and brasseries and cafes. The only problem was that it was a 3rd floor walk up (4th floor in the American sense since in Europe, the first floor is the ground floor) and the stairs were horrendous. Especially since Shelly's a Socal surburbanite that can't walk.



The next day, we took a long walk around Paris to the Notre Dame Cathedral. We ate at this rip-off tourist trap restaurant along the Seine River where the waiters were really rude! Yay! We are in France. I was scared to even ask for ketchup. The French in the South of France are really nice, but Parisians are bitchy. I think it has to do with the weather. It's REALLY cold here.


We stopped in front of the Lourve, but we'll be back here to go inside later.


Here's Shelly by the Seine River.


Here's a homeless guy we saw sleeping on the steps on the way to Notre Dame. We found it ironic he was sleeping under the building that reads "Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite."


Here's me and Shelly at Notre Dame. We did not see Quasimoto. :( (Why won't my bloody vertical pictures come out properly on the blogger?)

That night we went to Kong Bar which is some trendy Parisian wannabe Asian cuisine restaurant. It's the restaurant where Carrie meets Alexsandr's ex-wife in the last episode of Sex and the City. It's above the Kenzo building and across the street from the LV corporate building and it overlooks the Seine. Carrie says "this is a lovely restaurant" and the Parisian says "It used to be. Not so much anymore. The chairs...they're hiddeous!" Yeah, the chairs are kind of hiddeous. Now I've gone to Sex and the City places in all 3 cities the TV show goes to: New York (Sushi Samba, Cafeteria), Los Angeles (Saddle Ranch, The Standard), and Paris!


Me at Kong.

We drank some at Kong and then got sick of the scene so we decided to go to a discotheque. We asked around and ended up at Cab. It was pretty cool. The craziest part was that they played hip-hop for a good 30 minutes or so! French don't usually play hip-hop in clubs.


Me and Shelly at Cab.


Some guy who tried to kiss Shelly.

And viola! that was our first day! More later.