le laz tiggre

mom's going to be mad at me...

2009-04-21T22:45:00.008+02:00

you never want to upset your mother. why? not only is it bad karma, which always slaps you up side the head at a later date... but an angry mother means ain't no one happy. angry mother means angry daddy, means that if angry mother cooks, the food doesn't taste as good; when angry mother distributes allowance, somehow it's not quite as big as it usually is; when angry mother gives you a love pat on the head, it becomes a love ass kicking, typically with a bat. with rusted nails.

well, here i go upsetting my mother again, with a super post. so if you don't hear from me again, it's probably because angry mother has displaced me. to another planet.

but you really have to hand it to people who somehow manage to post every single day of their lives. first off, hats off to you for your diligence and hard work. but seriously, how do you do it? these people must absolutely love their computers. it must be a joy for them to sit down in front of their computers and blog (work). they must run back home (while knocking down helpless old people and causing all sorts of traffic havoc on their jaywalks), knock their door down, jump over their coffee table, and curse their computers for loading so slow.

as a consultant, who spends the majority of time in front of a computer screen... i'm sorry. this is something that i cannot do. sitting down in front of my computer at times when i don't have to (remember, fantasy sports and sports-related content reading does not count), causes an allergic reaction whereby my body gets confused because it thinks it's at work, when the eyes show that they're at home. this causes me to immediately open up a browser, throw down some espn, and read something, anything, even WNBA articles, in calming the body down in ensuring it that it's not doing any work, but is in fact, doing something pleasureable and personal. only after enough sports-related content is infused in the body does it become temporarily immune to do more work-related items on the computer during personal time. like blogging.

April 10th-12th
i'm now immune to bad airport incidences trying to get to CDG. i'm 2 for 2 in harrowing, hair-tearing, incidences trying to get on a plane out of paris. the next time, we're camping out at that airport overnight before our flight, and MAYBE, we might be able to get there before the plane takes off. read grace's blog here -> CLICK ME!
we spent the weekend chilling with grace's family in Toronto to celebrate her grandmother's 90th!!! birthday! it was fun, i got to meet the rest of grace's cool cousins, where the two of us then proceeded to take all of their money at the poker table :) deeko, kuya, eric, it was child's play ;)

April 13-14th
after wasting a day on the airplane, we got back to paris on noon on Monday, and passed out. i'd post a picture of pure darkness if i wasn't so lazy, to give you a sense of what we did that day (wait... two days)

April 15th
i met grace for lunch as she had a break for class. cafe pasteur which is on her way to school... and the funny thing about living here, is you get to try out these little no nothing brasseries that you'd probably never try out unless you lived here. and they're DELICIOUS!

grace's dish on the left, which is a salad. in theory. i think it's more like potatoes, eggs, and goat cheese on bread, over some greens as garnish. that somehow got miscategorized as a salad. you say po-tay-toe, i say po-tah-toe.
i went original, like usual, and got the steak. just like i originally and uniquely order the steak at every other brasseries we go.

April 16th
Random picture taking day. today's theme is "the louvre"

no chang soo, the kid is not going poo.

that last one isn't the louvre, but Saint Eustache, right next door to our home.

April 17th
Grace and i went to check out berthillon again, except we confused ourselves and went... somewhere else. but we had berthillon ice cream anyway

yes... it may look like poo. but it really is ice cream :p

April 18th
even though we had ice cream the day before, grace somehow managed to still have an ice cream kick (i think it has to do with a recessive gene that lies on the "X" chromosome called 'icecreameverydayoftheyear' gene. which would be why it only affets women as the recessive trait is counteracted by the male's "Y" chromosome called "screwtheicecreamwheresthesteak" gene).

we then went to see "duplicity" which would have been 1,000 times better if highlight below to read:
if they got the money in the end. or it was a double take, and they like knew they were getting screwed and ended up shorting the bad company's stock and made millions more than the 35mm they were supposed to get from the swiss company. then it would have been badass.

but that's just me.

April 19th
we got pho. and it was good.

it had to be done, i see most of you readers are nodding, and as you can see in the last picture... we were happy. and full. and bloated. (thank you MSG).

April 20th
so we have this cool thing where if we together don't spend over 50 euros for a day, the excess goes into a slush fund for some savings that will turn into a fine dinner. so since we saved a good amount, we went to David Lebowitz's recommendation the best steak tartare in town, Les Fines Gueules. both of us got a little dressier and...

i looked... aiite. but she looked... breathtaking. i am... a very. very. VERY lucky man.

since their menu changes daily, they write their menu on a chalkboard, and let you read it to your hearts content. when you've confused yourself enough trying to read the french, and after enough time of despair, they then come by to take your order and speak to you in perfect english. i should have seen that coming.

following my statements of originality, i got the steak.
she got the beef tartare. life was really really good until...

the fromage plate.

yes. that's fuzz on the blue cheese. it was so alive, it almost walked itself into our mouthes, we didn't even need forks.

and that's it for now! until next time!

grace's day off

2009-04-08T22:14:00.000+02:00

no pictures today, a short blog (your welcome mom...)

a pretty relaxing day, grace and i got out of the apt around 11:30 and headed to rue de buci for lunch at a restaurant that... of course... had potatoes. apparently when we were with diana and brian for lunch, grace spied the menu at this place and noted that they had salads... with POTATOES! and therefore made it to the top 2 places she needed to check out immediately. i of course, being the wise man in my years, nodded vigorously at her suggestions.

we ate at 'sage' where she had her salad and i had my steak with foie gras sauce.

let's dissect these meals.
her 'salad' did have potatoes, but also had a good amount of duck filets and gizzards, and a big hunk of foie gras.
my steak was covered in what looked to be a foie gras and butter sauce. plus it came with fried potatoes.

all in all, that meal set us back about... a year. or 7.

we headed over to the gorgeous park called the Luxembourg Gardens, home to the senate (they have it GOOD). it's absolutely beautiful, with newly laid tulips, and flowers everywhere. on a sunny day, i will take my dSLR and have fantastic pictures for you to all see. hang tight.

to top it all off, we headed to a famous parisian gastronomy house (i called it... by cardinal mistake... a chocolatier), called Dalloyau (i've never heard of it, of which grace was astonished. this is a common theme when it comes to all things chocolate related). she had hot chocolate and i had an espresso (that almost ate the cup it was in), and we hung out there, chatting, working on stuff (i brought my trusty mac), and enjoying paris as it should be enjoyed. relaxing.

so apparently dalloyau invented a cake called the opera cake. which is the justification that grace verbalized as to why we need to go back there again to try it out. somehow i see through all of this and i understand that there is no real reason that a woman needs to justify going back to any type of chocolatier aside from one cold hard fact...

it exists.

ahhh how i have become wise with my years...

mmmm korean food!!!

2009-04-08T08:52:00.000+02:00

mental note: hale (with a little ^ over the a) means tanning. so when you see it on body lotion, and if you're not looking to tan... DON'T BUY IT!

let's just say, that after a couple of days of putting on what we thought was body lotion, and then freaking out because we thought we were getting jaundice and our livers were failing... we came to a stark realization that... our lotion... was a tanning lotion.

i'm not sure what dawned on us harder. relief that we're not going through liver failure? or the awareness that we're complete... idiots.

either way, we are in the middle of our own lost in translation movie, and this is probably not going to be the last snafu we encounter on this trip. stay tuned for more idiocy entertainment.

moving on.

craving korean food, grace got this recommendation from a friend of a friend ('s cousin's uncle's neice's nephew's second-step-father-in-law...) and so we went to a korean restaurant near invalides... that... wait for it... WAIT FOR IT...

had... good... service.

my korean friends first warned me about the fact that korean waiters and waitresses aren't known to chat up with their customers, and that they can be... abrupt. i've come to expect this, and actually i like it, since sometimes service that's too chatty gets... irritating to the point of homicidal. but here, service was impeccable and it was like the twilight zone compared to the States. but this place was AMAZING! it wasn't so much authentic korean food of mounds of meat, and mounts of fried rice, as it was artistic. the service was impeccable, and plated with beauty and care.

it was... a little pricey... at 18 euros a head, but the food was exquisite, with fantastic ingredients... and definitely i could not complain.

i present you... Samiin. Chris, you definitely need to go here.

i walked grace to her to the street that leads her to class, and with time to spare, i went out and took some pictures.

the railroad tracks of the subway leading from underneath to above ground

an artistic impression of the eiffel tower

coming home, grace and i decided to open up the bottle of wine we had, get some cheese from the local cheese shop and chow down our dessert.

we put on a fastastic pixar movie (much better than anything dreamworks could put together, of course Michelle Chung). it should be obvious which movie it was... being we're in paris, grace is cooking up delicious gourmet meals, and i'm an ugly rodent. ratatouille!

so with grace lying down on the sofa, we proceed to watch the movie. about 3/4 of the way, grace proceeded to go into 'listen only' mode, which lasted all of 5 minutes before 'listen only' mode... unbeknowest to me, actually evolves into a 'listen only' mode with a plug-in called 'softly snoring.'

despite claims from the suspect that the 'softly snoring' plug-in can be used in CONJUNCTION with the 'listen only' mode... i have my doubts and suspect that... instead... she was actually... passed the heck out.

but, like the x-files... there's a government conspiracy and coverup so I guess i'll never know.

slow day

2009-04-07T08:50:00.000+02:00

this was probably one of the slowest days i've had since i've been here. woke up late, couldn't get myself out of the apartment, and loafed around. it kinda sucks wasting a day here in paris, but i guess everyone can use a day like these where you let your mind go and don't do squat diddly.

so i was pretty grateful when grace got back and gave me an excuse to get the heck out of the apartment (like stale bread getting a fresh breath of air... or nutella).

as we were pretty hungry, and didn't really feel like spending exorbitant amounts on food (plus Grace had a booboo at work today, and falafels are one of her favs here), off we went to marais for some Mi-Va-Mi falafels. it's amazing, we've been here a month and have already had 4 falafels. oops.

no pictures today, short post :) are you happy mom??? (she complained about the post that turned out to be a novel... if you read comments from "blue hair" in french, yeah. that's her :) )

welcome back brian and diana!

2009-04-06T22:41:00.000+02:00

March 4, 2009
well, as it turns out, brian and diana missed us SO much, that they decided to come BACK to paris and visit... they were coming here anyway? so... they weren't coming back for us... whaddya mean we're not the center of the living galaxy? psch.. like... so much of whatever.

March 5, 2009
anyway, brian and diana came back from a wonderful trip from bordeaux, and despite what was probably a tiring trip, they came and visited us that night! so we gave them the grand tour of our apartment (all 40m2 of it), and had some delicious wine, pastries from Maison Joivan, and great company. apparently St. Emillon in Bordeaux is the 'shizznets!' so it's definitely high on our 'must-check-out' places to go.

the next day, we all met up for lunch, and went to rue de buci.

random pictures before the kids got to us, and some of the food we ate.

it was a nice... 2 hour lunch, of which i unfortunately don't have any pictures of all of us together. the poor waiter had to almost crawl over a table to take one picture with diana's camera so... giving him my camera would have probably caused a catastrophe. once i get the pictures from briana (short for brian and diana), i'll post em here.

afterwards, since dinner apparently wasn't enough caloric content (i.e. we're fatties), grace and i decided to hop on over to cocao de chocolat for a hot chocolate. ahhh well, there goes all of the weight we lost.

looking mischivously delighted eh?

afterwards, we were comatose from all of the food, and therefore we had no choice, but to go watch a movie. wanting to watch a thrilling drama, we of course went to watch one of the biggest, known as...
MONSTERS VERSUS ALIENS!!!
oh wait... it's a cartoon? a comedy? it's not... a drama? ... well it was fantastic! not as great as pixar's stuff of course (disclaimer, this was inserted so that i survive my next encounter from Michelle Chung. who works for pixar.)

procrastination... results in laziness and massive posts.

2009-04-06T21:32:00.000+02:00

procrastination is a beautiful thing. as my comrades at despair.com so eloquently state: "hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now."

the problem is, the laziness pays off later too. with a big can of whoopass. aka the recap blog. so without further ado, the recap blog. feel free to skip this sucker, it's long, unwieldly, really states nothing of huge interest, and has a ton of pictures that will clog up your corporation's internet connection. some of you might find that fun, i take no responsibility (the wonders of disclaimers).

the nice thing about grace's classes, are that some of them have breaks at around lunch time. so after waking up about 5 minutes before the very last second i need to get ready, and walk there without being too late... we went to 'le bistro landais' which is a michelin star restau... no? we can't afford a michelin... hmmm so it was a random bistro that grace encountered on her 3 mile walk to school. the wonderful thing about actually LIVING in paris instead of visiting for vacation, is that you can visit random locations like this, without having to worry about not getting a full vacational experience.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......

more mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....

and of course, after she left to go be productive, i... didn't have anything to do. so i took out my camera, went for a walk, and snapped a couple of cool photos (post processed to hell of course).

this is your typical parisian cafe... full with little tables that sit you outside (almost no one sits inside)... and of course... menus. obviously.

more random pictures

more random pictures

keeping theme here... more random pictures

a typical parisian metaphor. the beauty of the flower, overshadowed by smokers. smokers everywhere.

see what i mean?

grace then had a three day weekend, and the weather was nice, so what better time to head out to champagne? grace was really really excited and happy about the trip (this is despite having to wake up early in the morning!) and so, purchasing a couple of high-speed rail tickets, we trucked off to epernay. first stop, perrier jouet and moet chandon!

if i were to put this picture into the MOMA, it would be aptly named:
"the winds of time as they blow through the minds of a birds eye as it perches on a tree waiting for for the worm which is just a figment of it's imagination."

on the train, grace checks out her awesome pictures of the day

and finally we made it to champagne!!!

so for those of you thinking about taking a romantic trip to epernay and reims in visiting the beautiful areas of champagne... be forewarned. it's not the pretty vineyards of napa or sonoma. it's nowhere remotely close to it. think... the middle of oakland. the bad side of oakland. epernay not so much as reims, both towns are more city-like, and there's not a grape vine to be seen. it's where they do all the cellaring when they bring the bottles from the vineyards. and that's it, other than that... it's a city like any other.

so our first destination was moet chandon, but we got there a little early (9AM, it opens at 9:30), so we hiked the long walk over to perriet jouet (aka next door), and we were snubbly told that... 'excusez moi. no... no... ve do not do these... tours. no... no... you need resevations just to enter store. goodbye.'

bleh... so we walked back to moet chandon, which was fortunately just opening... and... we got a private tour! just the two of us! into the dark cellars of moet we went (after coughing up a butt load of cash).

grace looking forward to her bubbly

the cellars are massive. 18 miles worth of cellars. and a good portion of the 18 miles of cellars is... xx miles of... dom perignon. i wanted to cry. especially when she pointed at some nondescript bottles (lines and lines of bottles) and nonchalantly said, "mmm yeah, vintage doms. let's move on."

and most importantly, the tasting.

you don't find a ton of vintage champagnes around in the states, but we tasted the non vintages next to the vintages, and... ruined ourselves. we will never be able to drink a non vintage champagne again. it's like... going to japan and eating the freshest sushi at the tsukiji fish market. you're just never the same.

she feels at home.

yeah. they make dom. tons and tons of dom. i swear, if grace wasn't giving me 'the look' i probably would have swipped one (or 70) from the cellars.

but we ended up buying two vintage champagnes and calling it a day (since we were then broke.)

so, deciding we were only cash broke, and hadn't quite maxed out our credit cards, we ate a deLICIOUS meal at Patrick Michelons, within the hotel Les Berceaux. it started off with crab (we didn't even order it...)

and followed by another 'from the chef' beef platter. the square thingie of beef tasted like a beef stew, except without the stew. and it was incredible.

quinn got the steak with the 7 lb foie gras (which he had to sign a waiver form for), and grace got the fish. quinn thinks he got the better end of the deal.

and of course... dessert.

we then took a train to reims (they pronounce it rahNce... kinda like France without the F... uh... yeah. what the...). Reims to reiterate, not pretty. epernay is mildly cute as it's a smaller town, but reims? it's probably the pittsburgh of france (aka the armpit). we headed to Mumms house, and there's a stark contrast between the two houses. mumm tries very hard to prove to the world that they have good champagne. you can tell by their cycling movie at the entrance which shows their champagnes being used as winner champagne at races, being used with different celebrities, being used at massive extravagant parties. even the outlay of that place is extravagant, and modern. you can definitely tell they are trying to prove they are great. where as moet? moet chandon doesn't do any of that. they are pure opulence and grace. they don't need to prove to anyone that they are great. they just are. i guess when you have dom... what else is there to say? the tasting at mumms was good, not fantastic, i am now a moet chandon man.

after a thrilling day at champagne, we boarded the train back home. which for some reason, decided, 'hey wouldn't it be fun to go 5 mph for an hour and see what our customers do?' we're still not sure exactly what happened since 1) we couldn't speak french... and 2) we couldn't understand the conductor's announcement because... we couldn't speak french... but the lady that shared our cabin dropped the french equivalent to the F-bomb (merd...) so... yeah we assumed it was... not good. after a crummy train ride, we, desperate to end the day off on a good note, went back home and... cooked us some spam eggs and rice. seriously, the world just needs spam eggs and rice and all of the world's ails would be solved with gelatinous, giggly, pink, processed, meat. SPAM. Scientifically Processed Animal Matter. My ambrosia.

we finished our weekend checking out a new cafe that's down the street from where we live, and oddly enough, grace selected a place that had good looking potatoes. i say oddly enough because it seems to me that every single place she recommends... oddly enough, has good looking potatoes. i firmly am now a believer that indeed, it doesn't matter what the menu, crowd, or ambiance of a place looks like... as long as they have potatoes, it gets a 'recommended to check out' in grace's book... and of course the correct answer to such recommendations is obviously...
'oui chef!'
like my dad so instilled in me, and is a shining example of... when the chef is happy, you still get to eat. keep the chef happy.

breathe. relax. we are finally done.

san francisco... in paris

2009-04-01T21:14:00.000+02:00

as odd as it might sound... almost our entire san francisco crew, all decided, coincidentally, to come to paris, almost all at the same time.

chang soo and nina came after finding cheap tickets, brian and diana are here on their honeymoon, and pachi and ed are here after hearing from diana that there were cheap tickets to paris. it's probably more complicated than that, and i probably have their stories mixed up (mmm maybe i got the honeymoon part right), but nevertheless, san francisco came to paris, and we enjoyed every single moment of it.

so like our style dictates... we went out to eat.

left (left to right): me, brian, chang soo
right (left to right): diana, nina, grace, pachi, ed, me, brian, chang soo

and of course, like the little junior high school students we are... all the girls sat on the left, and all the guys sat on the right. why is that??? i mean, like, doing the whole sitting next to the significant other deal is fine and all (the picture has a little musical chair action that went on before... you see, nina and diana are switched places because the two of them had to go pee and therefore had to go to the bathroo... right... internal monologue. switch activated). you'd figure that perhaps... the guys would be bunched up and the girls would be bunched up so that the guys could talk sports and the girls could talk... spending money talk. i guess that's actually a bad idea, as when one girl gets a nice purse, it makes the other 3 want to buy nice purses... so having them sit side-by-side prevents the gossiping of nice purse buying... ok, nevermind. i like the side-by-side girls on one side, guys on the other approach.

on to dinner, with our appetizers... aka snails. seriously... who was the idiot who came up with the idea that eating snails was not only ok... but sophisticated?

grace ended up having the scallops, and i had the steak. mmmm my mouth is watering already.

after a fantastic meal, and great wine, and perfect company, we all parted ways, 8 san franciscans, all coincidentally in paris, eating dinner like it was at 21st amendment or something.

random picture on the way home

i love this town :)

friends visiting paris, reflections

2009-03-26T22:29:00.000+01:00

yeah! chang soo and nina are here!
visiting from the good old bay area, cs and nina decided to use us as an excuse to take a vacation out here in paris... at least we say that to make our egos a little bit better, but really, who needs an excuse to come to paris.

i meet them at laduree of course, for some macaroons, and a visit to the arc de triomphe.

there's of course a mandatory break to McDonalds for some 1euro menu and 2euro chicken sandwiches, and after a bit of hanging out it's off to the metro to head back home.

welcome to paris CS and Nina! glad to have you with us!!!

-------------------------------

well aside from me frantically searching for my scarf that grace bought me... (ugh!!!!!!!!!!), and meeting up with grace for lunch with cs and nina... today was relatively unproductive. it gave me some time to reflect in the short time i've been here.

Europeans, as almost everyone who has visited here can tell you, are very different from Americans. from my brief few fleeting moments that i've had here, i can say for sure, that as americans... we have it all backwards.

i see the american dream as a persuit of materials. our pursuit is toward material objects as a definition of our success here on Earth. we work hard, toward success, so we can buy nice things. our dreams are for nice white picket fence houses, with 3 car garages, multiple stories, a nice car to drive ourselves to work in. and the only way to get all of those things, is to work really hard at whatever job we currently carry. it's not a one-to-one match to say that our work defines us, but in a way it does. we work... to get money... and with that money... we buy the things that define our dreams that swirl in a mad rush of what we think makes us happy. the white house. the nice car. putting our kids into presitgous schools. going to eat at nice restaurants.

so we work hard. and we work harder. we put in long hours. we are amibitious. we are successful. and we are 'happy.' we are defined.

here in paris... it's backwards. it's not what we do that defines us. it's what we experience. do people work hard? sure they do. they also take 1-2 hour lunches. they walk the streets en force during the mid afternoon. they go to restaurants with their friends to sip on cups of coffee, un cafe creme, un expresso. they don't drive nice cars. in fact rarely will you see anything other than a pugeot, or a smart-car. you don't see mercedes-benz (unless it's a taxi), you don't see BMW, or Lexus. you see small cars, that probaly are $12k US.

and they chat. they talk. they hang out. they experience. they may not be millionaires. they may not have a really nice house. they may not be sending their kids to presigeous private schools or home schooling. but, they live for each other. for experiences. for moments and memories. if the average parisian doesn't spend more than 3 or 4 days a week hanging out with their friends at a local cafe, or restaurant, or street corner, i would be stunned. they live life... with each other.

how many times can we as americans say that? i would say i see my friends back state-side, perhaps, once a week. sometimes once a month. it feels like our lives are defined by... going to sleep. waking up. going to work. working our tails off. MAYBE grabbing a beer, but usually not. going home. cooking dinner. sleeping. maybe see our friends on the weekends... maybe not.

lather. rinse. repeat.

are we, as americans wrong in our culture, lifestyle, ambitions? we have the largest GDP of the ENTIRE world. in fact, our GDP is greater than most european countries... combined. we have technology that moves at the pace of light. we strive for greatness, the desire to achieve better than our predecessors. we are successful, rich, and defined. defined. defined by what we accomplish and what we leave standing here on earth long after we are gone. legacy. no one is as powerful, as secure, as accomplished, as the USA.

but... do we live life? or does life live us? do we die living? or do we live dying... and at the end of the day... what's more important to us? our experiences? or our accomplishments?

of course there are no right answers. questions like these never have a right answer because it's so subjective to the individual that even asking what the right answer is... is absurd.

but one must wonder. what is more important. experiences or accomplishments.

even i do not know.

but for now. for the next couple of months. i have no accomplishments. i have no ambition. i have nothing that ties me down to the culture of the american dream.

i shall let go.

and live the life of pure experience.

brand names, and how they deceive!!!

2009-03-25T19:57:00.000+01:00

here's what we've learned from paris so far.

brand names, deceive.

let's take... every patisserie that exists in paris of which we've experienced so far.
we've done eric keyser.
we've done la duree.
we've done fuchoun.
we'll do much much more.
and yet our favorite pain aux chocolat? is from a small bakery downstairs called maison jouvien.

another one?
angelina is a place right next to the louvre that is REKNOWN for their hot chocolate. if you read grace's blog, i mean it was good, but... cacao du chocolat's was much better. maybe because going to angelina's is like having a 7lbs bar of thick chocolate, melted, and placed into a mug that you need to drink. literally.

we finally got our cell phones today, it's like grabbing gum at the convenience store.
'mmmm i'll have... a gatorade... mmm some skittles... oh yeah, and two SIM cards for pre-paid cell service. oh, and 2 extensions on the pre-paid cell please. oh yeah, and the bubblicious. it's almost too easy. except at 0.28 euros per minute for mobile to mobile within the carrier, and 0.38 euros per minute for any other call, and having it cheaper to call the united states and other foreign countries from your cell (at 0.19 euros per minute), something seems to be a bit backwords in this country...

whatev. ce la vie.

phew..

2009-03-25T19:38:00.001+01:00

phew!!!!

that pretty much sums up the past few days! mom, i'm back in Paris (apparently, she gets all of her updates from my blog, and i might have forgotten to mention to her that I was going to be back in SF for the wedding...)

well, sorry for being away for so long, it's been pretty hectic and i'm only now getting back into the rhythm of things. where do i start?

first off, on thursday morning, i got ready to fly back to San Francisco for Diana and Brian's wedding (woohoo!!!). and i woke up super early, for a flight time that i read wrong (more on this later). giving myself what i thought was 2:45 hours, i head to the train station to board the RER from paris to CDG, and find out that there's a strike. and the trains are all messed up... ok... no issues... so i hop onto the first train out of chatrelle, and it only takes me one stop, to gar du surd. ok... i look up on the board, and for some reason, the train i'm on... is going BACK to chatrelle. not having a clue WTF is going on, i decide to play it safe, and hop off the train. and yep, the train starts going back from whence i came. sweet. so i dook around the gar du surd train station, and finally make my way to one that should take me to CDG. except the train i need to be on, has just closed their doors and has taken off. the next train? 30 minutes.

30 minutes later i finally board the train (by this time, by my watch i have about 2:00 left before my flight leaves), and it starts trucking along. thinking i'll get there with 1:30 left to spare by the time i arrive, i'm not panicking. until the train stops at a random stop, and the train operator tells everyone to get off. seriously?! so we get off the train, head to another platform, where we have to wait for another train to come pick us up. in 30 minutes. blood pressure starts to rise.

30 minutes later, with me itching to kill someone, we hop on the train (now i only have 55 minutes before my flight departs) so, i wip out my phone in a panic, flip on the internet (screw the roaming charges!), and check my flight to see who I should call. only to realize... my flight isn't at 11:15AM. it's at 11:50... someone up there is looking out for me... big time.

well that pretty much is my horror story of trying to get to the wedding, aside from that, i was blessed to be in the new United Airlines business class international seats... that are... lie flat. AND they ended up giving me first class from Chicago to SF (with this cool professor I met on the Paris leg getting me into Red Carpet...). naht... too.. shabby.

i got to SF, got picked up by chang soo, and then... of course, we went... to Chipotle. CS is the MAN for recommending that. couldn't have asked for a better meal upon return.

brian and diana's wedding went without a hitch and was beautiful. they ended up having it inside instead of outside when this freak 2 day storm came roaring through san francisco for some reason, but inside being just as nice and the ceremony, reception, and dance were all fantastic and flawless. here are some pictures:

gents only picture a-top brian's condo complex:

and at the wedding:

my flight home... was thankfully, uneventful. first class from SFO->ORD was unbelievable, and international business back to CDG was just as nice as coming home. i'm not sure HOW in the world i'll ever be able to go back to economy without silently throwing daggers with my eyes at all of the comfortable business class people on the flight.

well upon my return, Grace had just started culinary school! so she whipped on the uniform, and show cased it for me, and i gotta say, she looks STUNNING! i mean, it's as if she was MADE for the uniform! it's incredible isn't it??? oui chef.

yeah, my girlfriend's a cook! and a hottie at that! oui chef!!!

this concludes the most obvious statement in the world, which of course i knew at day 1. i am the luckiest man in the world. the known universe. and the unknown one as well. oui chef!!!

the last dance - museum watch comes to a close

2009-03-18T23:21:00.000+01:00

phew, the last of the museums are finally down and completed. hopefully the rest of the blogs from here on out won't be so 'recap'ish and will be more geared toward how we are doing personally over here in paris and what we are learning. i already have a sense of what my next blog will be about (european culture vs american culture) which will definitely be more analytical vs. just about what we did that day.

but to continue on for now, today's blog is about what we did today :) today's agenda was the musee d'orsay, the army museum (and naploean's tomb), and musee rodin.

musee d'orsay was by far my favorite of museums. the impressionist paintings there were incredible, and although grace will say her favorite was the van goghs, i'd have to say my favorite were the monets. monet's color scheme and ability to capture the beauty of nature really calls to me.

some pictures from the interior of the musee (also post-processed... i seem to be on a post-processing kick...

impressionist paintings really capture contrasts, such as this picture below of a naked woman with two fully clothed men. i'm not making this up. seriously. i mean i copied the statement above straight from rick steves! it's legit! and of course plagerism is the heart of all great journalism.

and of course we had to see grace's favorite in van gogh. who shot himself after chopping off one of his ears... monet never did that... ;)

there's a brilliant ball-room in the musee, where rich people used to gather here and play hoops. wrong type of ball? what do you mean? ball rooms are for dancing??? why call it a ball then? there's no ball in that!!! see now a basketball room can be called a ball room because a basketball is a ball you see and *SLAP!!!!* grace tells me to shut up now. anyway the room was absolutely gorgeous, and after giving grace a quick spin and a little dance, we moved on :)

with my two left feet dancing with grace, it's obvious that the next picture is dante's gates of hell by rodin.

we followed this by a trip to the army museum, and napolean's tomb. for you army war buffs, the army museum will be your cure to all sorts of ails, but for me, napolean's tomb took the cake. the outside was a magnificent dome, covered with all sorts of opluence. i guess napolean was making up for something eh? his HEIGHT people his HEIGHT! geeze, get your mind out of the gutter. oh you were thinking his height? and not his... oh... so my mind is in the gutter? *gulp*

at that time, it was time for a break. so grabbing a sandwich, we headed to the lawns in front of the army museum and had a little picnic. she's really enjoying the sandwich. they say that hunger may be the best spice in the world, and we were starving.

finally off to the rodin museum where of course, in the pose that i take while i ponder the questions of the world on the best place to do so, the toliet, is the thinking man.

after a long day of touring, we went here:

on our last bit of energy, we made our way home, where we had cheese cake and madeleines and well, that's not too bad of a way to end a trip :)

until next time!!!

yesterday's post today - notre-dame, arch crypt, deportation memorial, saint-chappelle, conciergerie, PHEW!!!

2009-03-18T21:50:00.000+01:00

ok so a lot happened yesterday, and after feeling a bit blah from the pure amount of museum exposure, my brain just couldn't take it, and shut down, and left me to blog yesterday's stuff today.

without further ado, i'll try and make it short and brief. it was a very blah day for pictures for some reason, i just couldn't find the right creative motivation or inspiration. so in those cases, it's time for a lot of post-processing. in case they look fake... well it's pretty much post-processed to death so they might as well be! :)

notre-dame. cool church, we'll have to attend sunday mass sometime soon for sure. awesome architecture, phenomenal history, but aside from that, as a tourist spot, just ok.

point zero, at notre-dame. this is the true center of paris

interior of notre-dame

exterior of notre-dame, with the flying buttresses (heh heh... he just said butt...)

while we were waiting for the deportation museum to open, we decided, what the heck, lets get some ice cream at berthillon, THE place to get ice cream in paris... and when they say "THE"... so do we :)

deportation museum. from hitler's occupation of paris, tens of hunderds of thousands of jewish and gypsies were sent to concentration camps... it just makes me mad thinking about it...

there's an archeological crypt right outside of notre-dame. would recommend seeing it, it's like a 10 minute tour, free with your museum pass, and kinda cool, not much to take pictures of though...

and then, there was the saint-chappelle (named after the comedian, dave chappelle), which was most definitely the BEST thing of the day (Grace will argue it was the ice cream, it's a toss up in my mind)... the stained glass... incredible... absolutely incredible.)

followed by the conciergerie (where they lopped off the heads of political prisioners during the french revolution, and bad blog writers... soon to be the laztiggre...)

after a long day of walking... and walking... and walking... we finally came to dinner time, where we found a cheap eat called Le Kong. cheap eat in paris??? well for my omelet, i paid 10 euros, for grace's sandwich, 14... with THE best butter for their bread... in the entire world. if you doubt me, i dare you to enter into this weird trendy place, try out their bread and butter, and see if it doesn't disappear in front of you in 5 seconds flat. if it doesn't happen, i will gladly pay for your meal at le-kong, on the premise that you let me finish your bread and butter of course

that's it for yesterday! see u next time!

quiet day

2009-03-16T22:00:00.001+01:00

after a pretty killer day yesterday, we fortunately had nothing too much on the agenda today.

our first stop was lunch, and since our picasso run was in le marais, and since the falafel joints are in le marais... well then... one must venture off to the falafel joints while we're there, non?

so we tried out the 3rd falafel joint called chez marianne. and if you're going to go to any of the three we've blogged about so far, this would be the last on your list. i mean, it was good, and tasty, but it completely fell apart in our hands. 2 stars. recommend only if you have time and are curious, but if time is limited, definitely go to the other two and skip this one.

we then ventured off to the pablo picasso museum. it was cool seeing picasso's art evolve over time, as each one of the rooms was dedicated to a specific time-frame of picasso art. some of them were life-like, especially early in his careers (almost photographically accurate), while his later arts looked like he drew them after toking on an illegal substance. all-in-all, i'm glad we made the trip, but like grace posted on her blog, this location is definitely auditable for those who have limited time.

our last stop, as we were tired still from yesterday's marathon, was a patisserie called paul. seriously. just paul. and like any patisserie that can't be more creative than just a simple name as paul, it was mediocre. but here are pictures of some of the stuff we scarffed down.

so... after a long day, we were ->

and decided to call it a day. coming home to relax was nice, haven't just chilled out and done nothing in a while. i cooked up some eggs and rice for dinner, threw together a quick salad, tempted fate by pondering a gelateria downstairs, but laziness kicked in full drive, and it also got 'audited.' well, that's all of the food updates we have today, tomorrow is the notre-dame, and the paris sewer tour, so if my blog stinks tomorrow, it wasn't my fault! (har har har, not funny...)

haro! how doing? me tourist! no speak french!

2009-03-15T22:00:00.000+01:00

what a day! we walked 8 miles today! and of course to offset all of that great exercise, we ended the day at mcdonalds. seriously. mcdonalds.

today was day one on 'be a tourist except not be as loud as them' journey. and on the agenda, was the louvre, the musee de l'orangerie, the champs-elysees, and the arc de triomphe. for a grand woobang of 8 miles of walking and 284 stairs.

first off, if you've never heard of rick steves, google him now. and anytime you go to any place in europe for any length of time, buy a rick steve's guide book on the area. then go to his website and download his podcasts (if avail) and listen to his podcasts while you're on the tour. aside from the small details like entire sections of closed artwork, and rearranged museums that don't coorelate with the audiotour... aside from those small pieces of unnecessary detail, it's awesome, and you won't regret it.

we started today at the louvre.

after getting lost trying to find our way through rick steve's audioguide because the louvre closed down one whole section and rearranged another, we found ourselves at the winged victory
and she was awesome. by far my favorite thing at the louvre. a breathtaking piece of artwork, she should be duplicated, except like... made into a lords of the ring ginormous statue, and she should guard the straights of gibralter.

we then found our way miraculously (since the signs only pointed to it 5000 times), to the venus de milo. where you find yourself wondering what exactly her hands were doing before they got chopped off. i'd like to think she was picking a wedgie as i hear was the problem with wearing sheets in those days...

and if you look up from the room next door from venus, you'll see this pretty bodacious cieling paining of icarus falling from the skies as his wings melt from trying to fly to close to the sun. interesting, except the theory behind it is a little off... since flying higher in the atmosphere actually causes the temperature to be cooler with the lack of oxygen, making it quite difficult for me to believe that icarus' wings would melted since... yeah ok i hear your dork alarms ringing. let's move on.

cool hallway.

random pictures in front of some equally random da vinci painting

and then... the mona lisa. i saw it, was marginally impressed, made me think dan brown as a bigger idiot than before for reading so much into such a small painting, and crossed it off my list of things to see before i die.

oh and in case you were wondering how small it really is?

but... oddly enough, one of the best parts of the day was this little picnic we had right outside of the louvre. at the butt crack of dawn (translated from quinn time to regular time as 8:00AM), we went and got a baugette from a local bakery. cut up some tomatoes, some brie cheese, throw down some arugla, a splash of sea salt, and you get yourself an instant cheap delicious healthy lunch! you can see grace defending her territory as i try to sneak in a bite of hers.

making our way to the orangerie museum, here's what i would recommend. make sure you get the museum pass as paying however much to enter this museum alone is probably a ripoff, and then just look at the monet murals, as the whole downstairs impressionist paintings to me was just... eh.

on the last leg of our trip, we made our way down champ elysees, and visited the arc de triumphe

finishing the day required a pastry, so if you are going to go to a pastry house and only have like 30 minutes in paris, this is the place to go, order the macaroons, and the apple tart, and you will want to thank me profusely. i take cash. and ladure apple tarts

blarg

2009-03-14T22:20:00.001+01:00

a blarg - better known as a blog that has no creative motivation behind it.
today is going to be a blarg. brain fried, caput, gone. so without too much undue brain damage to the 0.25 brain cells i have remaining:

we went to cafe de flore, to sip on our very first cafe creme (almost a week here and no coffee??? incredible!). this place sucks. the coffee was good, not outstanding, and the check came out to 11.40 euros, for TWO cafe cremes. uh... seriously?! and THEN, i flipped the guy 15 euros, and he stuffs it into his pocket, says thanks, and walks off!!! confused, i sat around looking like a dumfounded tourist (because... i was a dumfounded tourist), expecting that maybe he went to go back for some change. alas, this was not the case, and by the time that grace got back (see what happens when she leaves me alone for 5 minutes???), we were past the time where it would be very uncomfortable asking the waitress for our change. especially since he was wiping down our table asking us to leave so that another patron could use our table. confused, and baffled, not wanting to say anything as it might violate 15,000 customs, we left, paying 15 euros for 2 cups of coffee that were good, but not mind boggling fantastic. sigh... (there are words much stronger than *sigh* going through my head, but there may be kids reading! like... my parents!).

so... probably not going to go here anymore...

but... here's a picture of cafe go-ers in their natural habitat. 2 cafes, a glass of water, of course a pack of cigarettes, and... most obviously... a coke light.

and in case you're wondering what a 7.50 euro cafe creme looks like... if you're picturing a 2L mug...

tbbbbtthhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! (with a little pouting in between)

but, to make up for it, we ventured out to a bakery (for our once a day dessert rule), do Poilane. they are famous for two things.

1) THE best apple tart (aside from Grace's of course... it's a different type of tart you see, Grace's and Polaines are like two seperate categories of apple tar... digging myself into a deeper hole? shut up now? you bet).

and 2) butter cookies. these guys need to take lessons from Grace on butter cookies because her butter cookies rock their world. utterly destroy, pulverise, vaporize, think... smithereens. but smaller.

we made our way to a big shopping mall (according to grace's blog, one of the first ever 'malls' which, of course, i don't remember at all since... well... i'm a goldfish). quinn's hungry monster came out, and just as we were starting to look at baking equiment (our all time favorite sections of any dept. store), the quinn reflection of mr. hyde came out, and grace had to rush the quinn to the nearest eatery to make sure he reverted back to his dr. jekyll form. we daydreamed a bit about perhaps starting a baking shop one day soon (with me as the floor cleaner and dish washer of course), and decided to call it a day early.

the next four days are going to be museum madness (aka get it out of our system and out of the way). we'll have much more pictures posted soon (hopefully of me doing obscene things to old greco statues, followed by pictures of security guards throwing me out of the louvre. from the top of the building). stay tuned.

random pictures

2009-03-13T23:54:00.001+01:00

during our walk back from ice cream, i took some random pictures on our stroll. for your viewing pleasure:

random bike rental station that we came across

and of course if you're curious exactly what gracecarmel looks like when she's blogging...

she's just absolutely adorable :) from blogger hater to professional blogger all in 3 days. what can we say, we're blog addicts.

shalom!

2009-03-13T14:57:00.000+01:00

our journey today began with a trek out to the Jewish Quarter in the 4th arrondissment. using chrichelle's walking tour gift, we strolled down rue de rivoli, and just before we entered into the heart of jewish town, we found ourselves staring at a chocolate joint, that was serving... what else... hot chocolate. this... we could not pass up.

after downing what may be the BEST hot chocolate i've ever encountered in my entire life (seriously, imagine melting a big bar of chocolate, and putting it in a cup. that's what you're looking at above), we strolled down and made our way to the heart of the jewish quarter, where we came across two of the best falafel joints in paris (per besteats.com) and i can attest, they were delicious!

well actually, there are 3 of them, but since there were only two of us, we could only try out two, since of course 1) we each had to have our own falafel (looking back... we probably should have shared), and 2) since there were two of us, obviously one of us had to try one from each place so we could kill two birds with one stone... or in this case, 2 pita/flat breads with one falafel ball?)

yours truely went for l'as du fallafel. actually to be honest, i got suckered into it. l'as du fallafel and mi-va-mi were right across the little pedestrian road we were on, and there's this guy who comes up to you and in a 'invading your air-space' sort of way, asks/demands if you want to have a fallafel. feeling obliged, i got one from l'as while grace was able to get away and went to mi-va-mi across the road.

hers was parisian style, while i guess mine was more authentic. personal opinion? her's kicked mine's butt. but for 5 euros a piece (5 euros!!!) i'd have either one any day of the week! and of course we're going to have to go back and try the third place, chez marianne, but we'll save that for another day (when we aren't about to explode already).

being tired from walking 18 miles in 3 days, we decided to make the trek home (of course, being guy, i got lost, refused to ask for directions, and ended up adding 1-2 miles to our walk... oops...), and currently, although the day is still young at 3:30PM, it's time for us to take a break and relax. it's amazing how nice it is to be able to experience paris this way instead of a 1-2 week blitz package!

until next time!

------
addendum!

and we're back! after a nice rest, we decided to make our way out for a pain aux chocolat, and then off to an ice cream joint as recommended by david lebovitz.

apparently, stohrer is supposedly this famous bakery that served the french king back in the day. we had their pain aux chocolat, and... eh. but we had it at 8 at night, so we're willing to give it another try in the morning when the goods are nice and fresh :)

ms. lontok was feeling a little ice cream kick, and to justify the ice cream, we decided to take another walk to the david lebovitz recommendation called pozzettos. this got an 'overrated' in our book, the ice cream was good, but not mind boggling, and we were a little disappointed by something that got such rave reviews. this will have to compare with berthillion, which is supposed to be God of ice cream/gelato. stay tuned.

2 days, 14 miles, potential weight loss???

2009-03-12T22:56:00.000+01:00

first off, to all of the haters who have bets out on me as to how long it will take for me to reach 200 lbs... i say to thee... tbtthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

not to name names, but there are certain individuals (CS, brian, chris) who believe that going to france causes people to gain massive amounts of poundage. i haven't read the book 'french women don't get fat,' but personal experience tells me exactly why. they eat small portions, and walk. everywhere. and it's not like san francisco where walking a block is like walking a mile, except the block has an incline the angle of half dome. paris is flat. almost texas flat. but without the texas 'absence of any character whatsoever.'

to recap two days worth, let's let the pictures speak for our activities:

Day 1
After actually waking up at a regular time (i.e. 9AM France time), grace and i went to take the 3 mile dry run trek to her culinary academy at Le Cordon Bleu. since they weren't open for a tour, we decided, heck, while we're out here, let's go chill out at the Eiffel Tower.

eating pain du lait, with gnutella of course, sitting on the lawn of the Eiffel, we decided it was time to go home (after 7 different tourists asked us if they could take a picture of them in front of the tower. probably cuz we have these 10lbs cameras strapped to our backs, makes them think inaccurately that we actually know how to use them...) and since the louvre was on the way home... well heck...

aside the fact that that we were butt tired, it was getting awefully cold, so it was time to go home...

Day 2
thanks to Chrichelle who gave us this awesome walks book, grace and i decided we would go check out the food area next to the louvre, called le madeleine. now at madeleine, is THE FAUCHON. it's so 'the' that you even have to capitalize the entire store name.

be forewarned. if you have not eaten yet, go eat, and THEN look at the following pictures. if you find yourself chewing on the screen, salivating all over your keyboard, i told you so. ok? OK??? ok. let's move on.

also in the area, was this big church called L'eglise de la Madeleine. wanting to see what the insides looked like, we strolled in, and we were surprised by a choir group from... of all places... tennessee. not... a... bad... field trip... not a bad field trip at all...

finally, after an exhausting day of walking around, eating macaroons and pain aux chocolat (it's a tough and rough life out here), we made our way home, and what would france be... without...

yup.. french poodles

well, we're off. time to enjoy a nice bottle of wine, kick off our shoes and relax our feet, and bid you a good night, and au revoir!

day 2... sort of... kind of... it was more like a half day

2009-03-11T10:00:00.000+01:00

day 2! kind of. sort of. aside from a slight detail that we actually started... at 2PM. per the Gods of jet lag, our first day and second day sort of started like this:

8PM - passed out. it wouldn't matter if the entire house came down around our ears. we were OUT.
2AM - woke up by the will of the Jet Lag God.
2AM to 6AM - unpacked and cleaned, by the will of the Jet Lag God.
6AM to 2PM - passed out, by the will of the Jet Lag God.
2PM - started our day

and like all microsoft products, it took about 2 hours to boot up, of which we finally made it out of the apartment... at 4PM.

but we made up for it! let's take a look at how we did.

this was the very first restaurant we went to and the food was fantastic. grace had beef tartare, and i had cuttlefish risotto. and let's just say it started off our day on the right foot! unfortunately, we didn't have our cameras with us, so these pictures are a little retroactive.

also retroactively, was this heavenly find. this beautiful little patisseier, is where we found the pan du chocolat that changed my world forever. also located at rue de montorgueil (our street), this little place is going to be visited over and over and over again until i can't fit through my door anymore. we will have many more pictures of this joint's products, you can be sure of that.

as we ventured around our street for the first time, this place opened up before our eyes. there are fish markets, product markets (right), bakeries galore (also right), cheese markets, galore. we live right next to a lebanese restaurant and a tunisian grocery store. there are 500 pharma stores all around for some reason, and 3 markets, all within a block of each other (2 of them are the exact same markets. it seems like markets are like starbucks of San Francisco.)

finally, it was dinner time...

from left to right... our appetizer (entree) of escargot...
followed by two plats - le pave (steak) with foie gras on top and penne with foie gras
finalized by a assortment of chocolates that ensures my friends' bets that i'll hit 200lbs comes to fruition.

so despite only being able to enjoy half of the day, today was a great day! on to day 3!!!

le pan du chocolat

2009-03-10T05:35:00.000+01:00

here you go, for your viewing enjoyment

we're here! we're here! we're here! and omg we know no french!

2009-03-10T02:18:00.000+01:00

captains log, french date zero three, one zero, two thousand nine. 02:19 in the morning.

yes... the joy of joys of jet lag. it's like coming back from asia, going from west to east... sucks.

after a pretty smooth flight, we descended into london airport which is 30 minutes of pure hell. first off, for those of you who are flying to europe, avoid heathrow. it's a nightmare. after circling around london for half an hour, hoping that your plane doesn't run out of fuel, the air traffic controllers then decide, 'hey! there's a 747 out there without any fuel! maybe we should let it land... in 20 minutes.' so after reading malcom gladwell's book 'outliers,' i'm sweating bullets. finally after chewing through a greater portion of my nails, we're allowed to make our approach into the airport, and if you've ever watched the interactive map they have on your airplane, well i think it's a mistake to show you your ground speed, because you're looking at the ground speed reach 150MPH and you gotta wonder how in all things holy is a plane going to keep flying at a measily 150MPH... much less a 747. at the moment you're thinking this, the plane is wobbling like a aeroplaning car from all of the crosswinds, you're looking at your interactive map as the plane slows to a crawl, while still in the air, you're gripping the seat like 'meet the parents' kung fu grip, your girlfriend is smiling calmly while you're crying like a little baby, and then... they land as smooth as if it was a calm day in paradise. unbelieveable.

knowing that you survived a london landing, you think you can survive anything. until you hit the london heathrow connecting flight security check. i refuse to write about this, but let's just say... those turtles from the comcast tv advertisement would have fallen in love.

at any rate, we arrived, our place is awesome, small, quaint, but in a FANTASTIC area in the absolute heart of the city. more to come about our location shortly.

as i'm starting to get a little sleepy, i'm going to try my best (unsuccessfully) to get a little more sleep. but before i go... let me say 3 final words dear reader. 'pan au chocolat.' read grace's blog http://gracecarmel.blogspot.com for details, but... omg... delicious.

ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-03-08T10:04:00.000+01:00

dance like no one is watching
love like you'll never be hurt
sing like no one is listening
live like it's heaven on earth
-william purkey

you can either die living, or live dying. it's really just up to you.
-quinn nakayama

le laztiggre agrees with mr. nakayama (funny how that works eh?) and he like's the former rather than the latter. and is about 17 hours from making it happen.

after 5 days of hectic packing and moving (80% procrastination, 10% moping around refusing to accept that his crap won't pack and move itself, 10% complaining and bitching, 5% of actual packing and moving... wait... doesn't that make 105%? well... you see... while 5% of the complaining and bitching is done in solitude of any other activity, the other 5% of complaining and bitching is simultaneous with the 5% of actual packing and moving, so... yeah. it all adds up juuuust fine), le laztiggre is finally able to come back to his blog to give you tidbits of knowledge about packing and moving:

1) taking apart IKEA furniture is just as hard as putting them together (have you noticed that you always have extra pieces when you put it together? funny thing is that you find extra pieces when you take it apart... uh oh...); 2) boxes are NEVER big enough to hold your ish together; 3) you can have the exact same amount of stuff, and yet somehow, the 5'x7' storage space is JUST as packed as a 5'x700' storage space...; 4) wait... what piece of IKEA furniture did this screw come from...; 5) crying doesn't help pack nor help move things, no matter how hard i tried to make it do so; 6) i'm coming up with another tidbit of information just for writing a tidbit of information; 7) seriously, if i had to pack and move on a professional basis... i'd determine if i could learn how to fly by jumping out of a 30 story window before i hit ground zero; and finally, 8) no matter how much crap you throw away, each piece of junk seemingly multiplies as you toss it, and magically reappears in your 'to pack' pile.

ok. i'm done. san francisco, you've been good to me, i love you, we'll see you in 4 months. peace out my lovely home city, paris ain't got *explitive* on you.

-q

PS: the picture above (taken before we moved in the bed mattress and 500 other boxes) was blatantly and disgracefully stolen from grace's blogsite, at http://gracecarmel.blogspot.com

strange feelings...

2009-03-02T17:04:00.000+01:00

it's monday.

i'm not sick. not on holiday. not on 'vacation' as it's usually perceived. and...

not at work.

after being on one project for the past 3 years, working with the same people over the course of that time, this is the first day in 3 years that i'm not walking down the stairs, and making my way over to work. i'm not flashing my badge to the rotation of 5 or 6 security guards that man the desk below the entrance. i'm not pushing the 3rd floor button on the elevator to take me to my floor. i'm not walking down the hallway, seeing co-workers/friends that i've had the pleasure of being aquainted with. i'm not sitting down in my cube, turning on my computer, and walking over to my client to ask how her weekend went.

no meetings, no phone calls, no joshing with my co-workers about who's making coffee in the morning or where to go for lunch. no budget-to-actuals, no status calls, no tapping of keyboards except my own. no updates from fellow neighbors about cal basketball. no cubemates to ask how my weekend went, or to 'cramp my style' (just kidding Kristy :) )

just... me. resetting.

a sense of nostalgia washes over me. it's amazing how a sense of routine, a sense of seeing certain people on a daily basis... how it almost felt like a second home, and somewhat like a second family. people i cared about, both professionally and personally. hoping that in that day, i could help them succeed both professionally and personally in whatever capacity i could. you would think that there would be a sense of elation that comes with taking an extended leave as i have, an excitement of what is to come. no doubt there is, and i'm sure that such feelings will grow in time. but for now, on day 1, there is a sense of longing, a little bit of sadness.

i will miss you all.

pictures updated

2009-02-22T23:56:00.000+01:00

urs truely is really lazy when it comes to updating pictures. so for training purposes, i've finally decided to go back and play with my old pictures, PS them, and post them.

http://www.flickr.com/laztigger

wait is that right? let me go check... brb

*procrastination*

*more procrastination*

*he forgets to check*

*this is normal people*

*we'll just assume that it's right...*

blink

2009-02-22T23:49:00.000+01:00

*blink*
6 months to go... plenty of time to book my ticket and figure out what i'm going to brin...

*blink*
4 months to go... probably a good idea to figure out where we're going to liv...

*blink*
2 month to go...

*blink*
4 weeks to go?! what the heck, where did time go! eh... still plenty of tim...

*blink*
2 weeks to go! hey! stop that! i could have sworn i still had 3 months lef...

*blink*

..::le laz tiggre::.. the journey begins!

2009-02-18T02:37:00.000+01:00

welcome to 'le laz tiggre'
the beginning of an amazing journey of yours truly, laztigger (laztiggre in french), to a small suburb town in france.

known as paris.

what will appear here, will be a beautiful cacophony of literary achievement, worthy of a pulitzer prize, in one of the most prestigious categories of art...

called by the pulitzer commission as...

mental garbage. or in french "ordures" (literally... garbage) or better yet, "il dit des sottises" (what he says is rubbish) and "ce texte ne vaut rien" (this text is worthless). that last one makes me smile.

the biggest question coming from everyone (and when we mean everyone, we're talking about the thousan... ok ok... the hundreds of reader... no? the tens of... just my mom? ... sigh...) has been, 'has it sunk in yet?'

well... not yet, but considering that work still involves the greater portion of my day, it might not until the 28th.

and then, when it does, the harsh reality will rear it's ugly head (read: open up a can of whoop a**) as i make some very tough decisions that may alter the course of humanity itself (do i pack my rachael ray book to france? or place it in storage? and where in the world am i going to store these stuffed animals???). will i remain composed, a tapestry of calm and tranquility (it's almost scary that i can actually hear you laughing through the internet), or will i gibber insanely and cry and whine like a little adolescent (i sense sounds of affirmation and nodding from the crowd...)? stay tuned.

and with that, i bid you adieu.

-ce texte ne vaut rien.