coffee and wine.

Now, after being in Paris for a full day and a half, I have some more realizations:

-I am not sure how I will live without free coffee beverages (especially Americanos) at breakfast every morning when I return to the US.
-I am not sure how I will live without free wine at dinner when I return to the US.
-I am picking up on things quicker than I thought!

Trey, this post goes out to you especially because I know you would love the free coffee and wine (not that anybody else wouldn't).


(PS. I only get free coffee and wine because I payed for a stupid meal plan with my place of residence. So, really, it isn't free, but I can have AS MUCH AS I WANT.)

the city of love.

Having been in Paris now for approximately 8 hours, I can already tell you that these stereotypes of France are true.

-There are constantly people walking around after buying freshly baked baguettes.
-There are many adorable cafés and markets everywhere. The espresso is also better.
-It is generally really adorable.
-Everyone dresses nicely and is generally more attractive because they speak French (which is generally true for any European country, from my understanding).

Also, I watched this group of elderly ladies gather for some type of reunion in the lobby of my residence hall (which is actually a hostel), aaaaaand hearing/seeing a bunch of French ladies speaking French is just wonderful. Aaaand hearing little children speak French is also wonderful.

This is just a brief view of the lobby of the place I live in:

airports.

Having spent my whole day today at an airport (5 hour layover in Chicago before I actually fly to Paris at 6pm), I have made some observations:

-Airports now have these crazy automatic toilet cover changers. All you have to do is press a button and it rotates it and it is NUTS! and awesome.
-You have to pay a decent amount of money to use the internet, which is dumb.
-International terminals of airports are super nifty. There are lots of people speaking different languages and I just assume that everybody is foreign and awesome in some way.
-I have a love/hate relationship with food courts and restaurants in airports. I don't really feel like eating when I am traveling, but they are everywhere and you want to eat everything. But then they are never really that good and you remember why you don't like eating when traveling.
-Walking on those conveyor belt things makes you feel like you are in the future.
-You can see lots of adorable old people traveling (especially on Memorial Day weekend).
-You should always weigh your suitcase before you attempt to check it. Otherwise you have to pay $200 dollars for an overweight bag OR check a second bag for $50, which I had to do today. Then you have to embarrassingly sort out all your stuff in the middle of an airport and it is just stressful!
-Traveling by yourself is kind of relaxing and empowering. But at the same time you don't have someone to hang out with, especially if you are not sociable and don't make friends with the people around you...
-I have very little idea of what I am doing!

more to come...

My sunburn makes it look like I am wearing white shorts when I am in fact, not wearing white shorts. I just love mowing the yard! (not sarcasm, although I don't enjoy having to constantly dodge small animals so I don't mow them... which totally happened to some guys FOOT on Mad Men in season 3. RIDICULOUS.)

Garage sale-ing yesterday with Sara was a COMPLETE success!!

Maybe this is because I am sleepy and everything seems to blur together, but the new Bon Iver album feels a lot like the most recent The National album when compared to previous albums. It's like... the same ratio of newness and difference from For Emma, Forever Ago to this album as it is from Boxer to High Violet. Or something like that.

No matter how old I get, whenever I watch dish at my parents' house, I will always instinctually dial "170" for Nickelodeon. From there, I can find anything!

Ames

Things I miss about Ames:

Cafe Diem and their grilled chicken sandwiches
friendies
campus
riding my bike around campus at night
riding my bike around the parks
good crappy Chinese food
good Thai restaurants
the Ames Progressive
being close to family
Ames during the summer
living close to campus and Main street
the dollar theater
working at the copy center and the M-shop
the Ames Public Library and their graphic novel and dvd collections
Mortensen, Airport Rd, and South 16th
the general cheapness of living there in comparison to Iowa City

to be continued...

Sal's acting career.

Ahahahhahahahahaa... so great!

This is my parents' hearing aid business. Those are my parents' friends. That is my brother's dog and house.

We think this is the start of Salvador's acting career.

I used to love getting 32oz Fountain Mountain at Kum & Go during the summer for 54 cents. Now I love getting 22oz slushies for 99 cents!

All I want to to do right now is jump in a pool. It is warm weeks like this that I am thankful I live in a cool basement. Especially when our air conditioner is broken.

But it's still hot when you're packing boxes all day! Jakers!

The Music Man

Why did it take me so long to see this movie?!?!

Marian is helping me study Art History! 1 down, 3 tomorrow, 1 Wednesday. blah!

St. Anthony

My professor for my Introduction to Central African Art has inspired me to want to know more about patron saints. He always jokes around with us and says things like, "You kids should be more familiar with your patron saints!" It's not a necessary quality that anybody really needs to have, but I think it would be a fun thing just to be knowledgeable in!

One of the slides for his final is a wooden carving of St. Anthony. He was a Franciscan order Catholic priest, which means he was all about being humble and stuff like that. He was a popular guy amongst the Portuguese, and they considered him the patron saint of marriage. And since the Portuguese have had such a large influence on Africa, especially in the Congo, we see figures like this one. This isn't the exact figure I am studying for class, but it is the same idea.

Even though the people of the Congo returned to Paganism after the Portuguese were big old jerks to them, they still used figures like this as magical power figures. Which is a whole other thing completely that I won't get into, because it seems crazy if you haven't been studying African art all semester like myself.

Have you ever had one of those days when you are rushing to get around in the morning so that you can make it to class on time and then you get to your class and don't recognize anybody in there and then you look at a clock and realize you were an entire hour early?

Lil Picard

So I have been volunteering at the Black Box Theater at the Iowa Memorial Union this semester. The Black Box Theater is basically just a big space for people to set up an art exhibit every semester. Volunteering here consists of nothing more than me sitting around, making blog entries, working on papers, studying, reading, and occasionally telling a visitor to put their bag and coat on the rack and that they can't take pens in. I guess it forces me to sit down and be productive, which is always good, and getting volunteering hours in at an art exhibit type place is better than not doing so, even though ultimately, having a job doing the same thing would be ideal.

Anyway, the exhibit this semester is of Lil Picard.

You probably haven't heard of her because she is not really a big deal at all. Apparently at some point in time, all of her stuff got donated to the University of Iowa museums, which even further proves that she can't possibly be a big deal (although we do have that famous Jackson Pollock painting, which is neat, and a killer African art collection!). Lil was making art from the 40s to the 90s until she died in 1994. Much of her stuff is collaged, assemblaged, or painted and fits under the artistic movements of Dada and Feminism.

I am not wild about a lot of her stuff, but she did a lot of interesting murals and collages that I think are pretty cool.

Here is her Facade, 1957:

And her Three Figures in Space, 1959:


She was certainly one of those outgoing types that wanted to get in your face with her statements about life and politics and America and whatnot. I suppose many people were in her time. Here is some crazy poncho thing she made with articles all about feminism, beauty, appearance, and pop culture:


I just thought I would share since I have another 2 hours to sit in this room with creepy music and a painted baby statue hanging from the ceiling. Crazy Dadaists...

my rifle, my pony, and me

I love Rio Bravo. I love Dean Martin. I love the classic Howard Hawks song scene. I love Leland Poague for introducing me to them all! THANK YOU IOWA STATE FOR YOUR STUDIES IN FILM CLASS AND WONDERFUL FILM PROFESSOR!

May Day.

Happy May Day!

When I was a child and a candy-fiend, I had a love/hate relationship with May Day. When I got a May Day basket, I don't remember it looking like this one. It would be full of CANDY (because everyone knew that I was the neighborhood candy thief, true story)!!!!

The thing is, it felt like I didn't get a May Basket more than every other year or so (possibly because everyone knew that I needed to one day overcome my obsession with candy). Even the Germers didn't always give me a basket full of candy. I would see them sneak one over to some of the other neighbors, but not always us. Maybe we never gave them one?... I don't really remember... May Day is a faint memory in my mind, but I always loved it because of the possibility of receiving tons of candy. I don't really understand the holiday as a thing, but I guess it is kind of neat in theory.

This is a silly blog post. It's only real purpose is to bring your attention to the fact that it is May Day. And if you feel up to it, you could make small baskets with candy, flowers, popcorn, pretzels, whatever you want and secretly place it upon the doorsteps of your neighbors. I know I won't be, because it is dead week and I have to study!

so I'm feeling a bit sentimental.