Art & Alchemy | Paris 2017

Friday, 10 November 2017 StarrLeave a comment

Previously on Paris 2017, we actually left the City of Lights to visit the Palace of Versailles, where we sauntered around the residences of the French royal family before eating one of our favorite French treats – crêpes! (Famous Breton-style ones!) But we had learned to adjust expectations after Versailles…

Many photos incoming, Yelp reviews for the below spots to come soon.

With our two all-day trips (to the Louvre and to Versailles) checked off, Ben an I had 2 more days on our Paris Pass to enjoy sightseeing on our own schedule. But first, more Breizh Cafe crêpes.

We didn’t make the mistake of under-ordering this time: a savory crepe for each of us and a sweet one to share!

Bellies happily full of Breton crepes, we headed off to the Musée de l’Orangerie. Originally built to house orange trees, this beautiful art gallery is now home to impressionist and post-impressionist paintings. Most famously, the Musée de l’Orangerie features Claude Monet’s Nymphéas series, the famous impressionist water lilies.

Musée de l’Orangerie fact: The oval-shaped rooms that house the Nymphéas were, in fact, specially designed by Monet and architect Camille Lefèvre to utilize natural light and the plain, curved walls for these paintings.

The highlight of this museum is Nymphéas and the very striking rooms that house them, but the Musée de l’Orangerie is also home to other great works.

I love paintings of Parisian landmarks like these

Around the world, female artists are not often featured in museums and Paris is no exception. The Musée de l’Orangerie features one female artist on their roster: Marie Laurencin

A miniature recreation of the office of the art collector whose collection was on display?

From there, we went to our next museum that Ben was super keen to visit: the Musée d’Orsay.

Musée d’Orsay fact: Built in a former train station, the Musée d’Orsay is home to the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist pieces in the world and is one of the largest art museums in all of Europe.

It’s a good thing we visited l’Orangerie before d’Orsay, because that collection is completely dwarfed by the volume and breadth of the collection at this gorgeous, gorgeous museum.

A piece featuring several of the artists featured in this museum!

We were able to see the Cézanne exhibit, which was a really cool, in-depth look at this impressionist painter and his life and his career. (I didn’t take photos because I wanted ot just enjoy the exhibit, but also I was starting to feel a little hangry at this point and I took that out on Paul Cézanne, I am sorry.)

What got me really excited was seeing pieces by my favorite artist, Edgar Degas. Here is just a sampling of the many works they had by the man responsible for my love of both impressionism and the visual aesthetic of ballet.

I was so excited to see *Little Dancer of Fourteen Years* again after seeing her at the National Gallery of Art

Degas fact: Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans actually has 28 copies, and you can see her at 14 art museums around the world. Ten of her are privately owned. She is the only sculpture that Degas ever showed and it garnered an intense amount of negative criticism. I actually really love Degas’ raw “unfinished” sculptures, maybe as much as I love his gorgeous paintings.

From d’Orsay, you can get a really fantastic view of Sacré-Cœur Basilica in the distance.

As the museum started to get ready for closing, Ben and I found ourselves really regretting not dedicating more time to this vast collection and beautiful building. We sped through Van Gogh…

… took in the building itself and a few sculptures…

… and found this ballroom that somehow put Versailles to shame?

And then, just like that, we were being asked by security to please get out.

I just wanted to share this painting of a cat with extremely long legs and I had no good segue for it, here it is

The sun was out for a rare moment, so we were grateful to be able to stroll along the Seine with blue skies overhead for once.

If we had a dollar for every wedding gown photoshoot we saw… we’d have a lot of dollars, lemme tell ya…

And then it was time for dinner!

For this trip, we didn’t want to be restricted to too many reservation times to worry about and potentially be late for, but we did make one reservation for a celebratory dinner at Auberge Nicolas Flamel.

Nicolas Flamel fact: YES, this is the same Nicolas Flamel that J.K. Rowling credits with creating the philosopher’s/sorceror’s stone. He is the only character in the Harry Potter universe that is based on a real person. The real Nicolas Flamel is associated with a pre-HP reputation as an alchemist. And yes, the restaurant offers a “Harry Potter” kids prix-fixe meal.

After some disappointing eats, we were worried that this restaurant wouldn’t live up to the hype, but after walking past a lot of super trendy art show lines (people were lined up around the block for shows featuring risqué photos and abstract paintings), we enjoyed one of the best meals of the entire trip.

Nicolas Flamel fact: Auberge Nicolas Flamel is the oldest stone house in Paris, commissioned by Flamel and his wife Pernelle to offer food and lodging to workers. Their generosity was granted with just one requirement, which is still inscribed above the doors today:

‘We men and women laborers living at the porch of this house built in the year of grace 1407 are requested to say every day a paternoster and an ave maria, praying God that His grace forgive poor and dead sinners’

It was such a beautiful meal to end a beautiful day that I will always, always remember.
Because on that beautiful day, I got engaged.

While I would definitely highly highly recommend visiting the Musée d’Orsay, I would only suggest going out of your way for l’Orangerie if you are really intent on seeing the Nymphéas. The collection is significantly smaller otherwise, but Monet’s waterlilies are quite spectacular. It’s also a good stop if you don’t want to visit a really overwhelming art museum. Of course, if you have the Paris Pass, there’s no reason you can’t visit both!

Who are your favorite impressionist artists? I am really partial to impressionism largely because of Degas but also because of Monet’s gorgeous waterlilies. I’m not sure how I feel about post-impressionism, but it is growing on me!

Do you have a favorite art style/movement? I’m not sure I do. I like impressionism, but… it’s so hard to pick a favorite art movement as a whole and I’m not sure I consume enough art to make that call just yet.

And yes, I’ll tell you about how I got engaged really soon!

Gold & Galettes | Paris 2017

Tuesday, 7 November 2017Tuesday, 7 November 2017 Starr2 Comments

Previously on Paris 2017, we hustled around the Louvre and walked down the Champs-Elysees to alight the Arc du Triomphe, where we took in a breathtaking view of the City of Lights. We only had one sleep to let our feet recover before another day of abundant walking…

Ben and I woke Friday morning ready for another all-day excursion to the Château de Versailles, aka the Palace of Versailles. We fueled up by stopping by the little café next to our hotel, Les Petites Canailles, for some viennoiseries (aka croissants) (hmu Great British Bake Off fans) and coffee.

We were actually a bit nervous about getting to Versailles because it required us taking the RER (Réseau Express Régional, or Regional Express Network, a commuter line that extends out of Paris) rather than the metro that we were pretty comfortable taking.After a bit of a struggle trying to figure out if our Paris Pass included RER (the pass booklet said it did but we weren’t able to figure out how to make that work out) and narrowly missing our train because only one machine was dispensing tickets due to repairs on the others, we finally made it to Versailles!

Versailles tip: The RER line C will take you to Versailles Château Rive Gauche, so get yourself to a metro station that will let you transfer to RER line C (we went from St. Michel-Notre Dame, which may be the only station where line C stops?) and buy yourself a round trip ticket for 7,3€ (3,65€ each way). The ride takes about 40 minutes and Versailles is the last stop. From the train station, the walk to the palace is a little over 10 minutes over flat ground.

Unfortunately, it was yet another rainy day for us. (Again, we had rain every single day that we were in Paris.) While the sky was grey and tones were muted, it was still pretty dazzling to see how freaking glam and glitzy Versailles is. For all the European royal opulence that I’ve had the opportunity to see, it is still a sight to see every time, that all-gold-everything life.

Our ticket through the Paris Pass included the audio tour

Versailles tip: The audio tour is informative but fairly slow-paced. It forces you to slow down a bit to listen and learn, which can be good or bad depending on how you want to go through Versailles.

Galerie des Batailles aka Gallery of Battles

The Battle of Yorktown (The world turned upside down…) is a featured victory

The Mesdames’ Apartments, where Louis XV’s daughters lived

I loved hearing about the kinship between Victoire and Adelaide, sisters who outlived the rest of their siblings and never married

Both of us, Ben in particular, wanted to visit the gardens, but it started pouring when we left the palace and we were then told that our pass did not include tickets to the garden. While our pass did include tickets to Trianon, we weren’t really freely allowed to walk over since we had to bypass the gardens to get there. Feeling a bit defeated and, frankly, very damp, we decided to end our Versailles trip early and take the train back to Paris.

At least the rain stopped as we walked back (without my umbrella, the wrong day to take it out of my bag) and we could walk through this lovely tree tunnel

When we got back to Paris, we were famished, having not really eaten lunch at Versailles. (Oops. In our defense, we did try to get lunch but the Angelina in Versailles actually ran out of lunch items!) So, we set out to try the super famous crêpes at Breizh Café (review), which had only just reopened after being renovated!

We really lucked out, as there was one teeny table next to an open window available when we arrived. (People had to wait thereafter, for quite a while!) We were able to enjoy the cool rainy air while still being served delicious Breton-style buckwheat galettes. Since Britanny is known for its galettes, oysters, and hard cider, but the weather was just a little too miserable for us to enjoy oysters, we nommed on crêpes and sipped cider. It was kind of exactly what we needed.

Dame Fruits Rouges: strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, buttermilk ice cream, whipped cream

Lambaillaise: raw compté cheese, spinach, peas, fresh cilantro cream, turnip, duck breast

We walked in the drizzle back to our hotel but found ourselves really regretting not ordering more crêpes, so we ventured back out to eat more food and found ourselves at Au Passage (review) for some late night tapas.

They were supposedly out of duck breast so we were given pigeon instead

If I’m going to be honest, I don’t think Versailles is worth the hype, especially if you have been visiting other luxurious palaces/museums (e.g. the Louvre, the Summer Palace). To tell you the truth, I didn’t want to visit initially, but Ben’s parents told us it was a must-visit. I don’t agree. It’s nice to visit, and definitely interesting if you are interested in the royal family before the revolution, but it didn’t blow my mind and I would recommend skipping it in favor of visiting other places first if you have limited time in Paris.

The gardens may be worth it, as I’ve heard they are spectacular, but on a dreary rainy day, Versailles just doesn’t glimmer as much.

What do you think, would you want to visit Versailles?
What are your favorite royal residences?

What regional French food do you like? We really liked the Breton-style galettes, and were able to try other regional specialties at a French food festival later in our trip!

Halloween 2017

Friday, 3 November 2017Friday, 3 November 2017 StarrLeave a comment

Happy Friday everybody! Can you believe this warm weather we’re having? Yesterday morning, I walked to the metro seeing my breath in the cold air, and I walked home in spring. I wish we could have crisp autumnal days but I’ll just take what I can get, I guess! Don’t forget Daylight Saving ends Sunday so get ready to fall back and get that hour back!

I hope you all had a fun Halloween! Halloween in the middle of the week always throws off the week a bit. At work, we all dressed up in costumes, and it was a fun and silly atmosphere in the office, but it was a Tuesday and there was work to be done. It felt weird to go back to work the next day… and the next day… and the next day…

Last year, my team at work did a group effort by showing up in adult onesies. This year, we split into 3 sub-teams, so we set out with the ambitious goal of having a large team-wide group costume with more specific sub-team costumes. (My original suggestion was we do a team-wide Harry Potter theme, with each sub-team choosing a different Hogwarts house or all being Death Eaters or Hogwarts professors, etc.)

Here’s the result:

And for each sub-team, we split by trilogy! I claimed the sequel trilogy for my team, despite only one movie from that trilogy having been released. (Also, yes, one of my teammates trolled us by dressing as Spock from Star Trek. Classic troll.) (And on the far right is an Angry Birds Vader. The troll force is strong with this team.)

I originally had different plans for Halloween, and compared to my crazy lofty 3-costume goals from last year, I was very derailed and very off-schedule this year. My Rey costume, while seemingly easy enough to make, was just a costume-in-a-bag option that was pretty inexpensive but turned out, in my opinion, better than I thought! (Minus the belt+bag thing that was just… drawn on? In the future, I’ll be replacing that first.)

Rey costume — “I think I can handle myself.”

It was a bit of a relief to just get a cheap big store costume from a bag, and people still thought I put a lot of time and effort into putting together my look! (Which I still did as my arms were so sore from attempting to get my hair to stay in Rey’s dumb triple hair loops with my hair being about twice as long as hers…)

Fun story: We went to dinner in costume on Tuesday night and found out the restaurant was actually hosting a costume contest about half an hour after we arrived. The manager stopped by to ask if we’d like to participate as one of the few parties in costume, but when the time came, we were – I believe – the only people who agreed to participate. So we won by default! I didn’t even have to get up and be judged by a restaurant full of strangers or stop watching the world series.

Did you dress up for Halloween? If so, what did you wear?
What were your favorite costumes you saw this year? I think I’m a sucker for a good meme costume, despite how poorly they age, because they just transport me back, you know? I also love crossover pun costumes. (E.g. “Dumbledora the Explorer” or “Edgar Allen Poe Dameron”, those are my FAVORITES)

Also, do you get trick-or-treaters? I’ve seen the number of kids at my house take a sharp decline to zero over the past few years. I heard that parents now take kids to shopping malls and centers for trick-or-treating now, but when did that become a thing? And why do stores still sell candy to us civilians then?

Ghosts of Halloween past: 2016 | 2014 | 2013

P.S. NaNoWriMo anyone?

Sailor Senshi Week 2017

Tuesday, 31 October 2017Monday, 30 October 2017 StarrLeave a comment

Two years ago, we observed Halloween on a Friday, which gave me the idea to don Harry Potter house colors every day leading up to Halloween. I had so much fun doing so that last year, I did Hogwarts Spirit Week, where I wore business casual versions of my house colors during the workweek before Halloween.

This year, I changed things up slightly due to 2 factors:

I received some amazing socks for my birthday. (I actually also received a few Harry Potter house socks, but not for all 4 houses. It seems very likely that I’ll go get those socks and revisit some Hogwarts house spirit in the near future.)
My cousin handed me down some great blazers after Christmas. I used to really want to be the girl with cool blazers, and when my cousin gave me some colored blazers, the wheels in my head started furiously grinding away. I had enough blazers to do a blazers-only edition of Hogwarts Spirit Week, but with my new socks, I decided to take this frequently-used color palette and do something different.

And thus, Sailor Senshi Week was born!

The order I went with this year wasn’t ROYGBIV (although I was darn tempted) but the order that we are introduced to the scouts in the anime. (Also, I only did Inner Senshi because 5 days of the work week and I’ve actually never made it far enough into the anime to have met the Outer Senshi!) So of course, we begin with the titular meatball-head, Usagi.

Next up, Sailor Mercury, the most popular character in Japan because she is kind and gentle and crazy smart. Ami was the kind of girl I wished I could be but struggled a lot to be because I wasn’t as kind or hardworking!

After getting to be Sailor Mars for Halloween last year and at AwesomeCon, my love for Rei has only grown. (I’m trying to get more interpretations of Sailor Mars in the works for the future, so we’ll see how ambitious of a cosplayer I’ll end up being!) I always saw so much of myself in this fiery scout, not just because she was the only Inner Senshi with long dark hair.

If I saw a lot of myself in Mars and wished I could be more like Mercury growing up, Jupiter is the girl that I find myself admiring a lot more as an adult. She maneuvers being the most masculine and the most feminine member of the team seemingly with ease and doesn’t apologize for either side. I remember really struggling to figure out how girly or tomboyish was “appropriate” or that I was “supposed” to be, so seeing Makoto be domestic af while lifting men above her head is really inspiring now.

Unfortunately, I don’t have much of a connection with Minako, as the blonde idol who we are introduced to last and is famous as Sailor V already. But I grew to like her as an important member of the team, and as a fellow aspiring star who is seeing through my childhood aspirations.

Also, my cousin gave me so many blazers, I had just one more look to share yesterday:

No socks for this one but here’s a closer look at my convertible Luna purse. (I can wear it as a crossbody as an as backpack.) I’m glad I didn’t attempt to do the little bun-tails at work, they are a bit disastrous and definitely a look.

Wish me luck with my very-recognizable hair for Halloween at work today! I wonder if I’ll get as many weird looks on the metro as I did last year…

Are you wearing any costumes for the Halloween season this year? I know I saw a lot of folks out this past weekend, but it was actually the first time I didn’t really do anything Halloween weekend. I attended a birthday party Friday night, but I went no where in costume over the weekend, it was a little sad. (I made up for it by scaring myself silly watching Stranger Things season 2.)

If you were to wear a full [work] week of themed outfits from one franchise, what would it be? Harry Potter and Sailor Moon were a lot of fun to do, and I’m sure I could easily do something Disney-related, but it’s a really fun creative challenge to do, especially since I set the rules myself! For example, doing the blazers this year was a fun added challenge. (I also challenged myself to do skirts the whole week in the spirit of the senshis school and scout uniforms, even though it got chilly last week and I started really wanting to wear pants.)

October 2017 Updates

Friday, 27 October 2017Friday, 27 October 2017 StarrLeave a comment

Before I launch back into recap season, I thought I’d fill you in on what I’ve been up to since I started posting regularly again! I want to be better about keeping up with current goings-ons here on the blog, since it can take me weeks and weeks to finish recapping a vacation months after it happened. There aren’t many photos, so just close your eyes, picture what I describe (after reading it), and be grateful for a reprieve from photos since I have a heckuva lotta Paris photos coming after the latest flood of pictures.

[ Spirit of Autumn ] DC has an interactive digital art gallery called Artechouse (art + tech + house) that is currently exhibiting an installation called Spirit of Autumn. I went with some coworkers at the beginning of the month and it was a bit of a letdown, especially after hearing the hype about their previous installation, but it was still really cool to see this digital art and how artist are using technology to create immersive experiences. (I shared some of my experiences on Instagram.)

[ Whoopi Goldberg ] I had the opportunity to see the legendary Whoopi Goldberg perform a comedy set at the Kennedy Center and it was an experience. First of all, she swears so much. Second of all, she has inspired a love from her fans that I have never really seen before. People rushed to stand in line at the microphones to ask her questions and about a third of those people just wanted to say “Whoopi, I love you, I admire you, I’m such a fan.” And then they sat down! It was incredible. Also, she was so generous with her time. I took issue with how she spoke about the Harvey Weinstein scandal (and I touched on that on Instagram, too) but she is a legend for a reason, she’s hilarious and she knows how to reach people.

[ Death of a Salesman ] My friend Annie got tickets to see Death of a Salesman at Ford’s Theatre (the same theater where Lincoln was assassinated; we could see his box seats from ours) and I have actually never seen the play nor have I read it! I’ve also never seen a show at the Ford’s Theatre so I was happy to go. While I didn’t love the play (I found the start of the first act not engaging and a bit awkward given how the dialogue has aged), I found the subject matter to be heartbreakingly real to grapple with. It was a lot of issues that I see in my own life and in my friends’ lives: aging parents who don’t really know who you are, unmet expectations of grandeur and success, the disappointment of working hard and not getting what you think you deserve. It was a hard play to watch but I’m really glad I got to see it.

[ Rennfest ] I went back to the Maryland Renaissance Festival this year, my second time ever! We went during closing weekend because of some timing issues trying to go earlier and I had an awesome time. We got great seats for the joust this year, during which time Ben learned that I get really into live sporting events and will lose my voice shouting. (“BOOOOO! You lack honor!”) We saw falconry, ate scotch eggs, and just enjoyed so much merriment. The Rennfest is one of my favorite things to do in the fall now and I hope it remains and annual tradition.

[ When You Wish Upon a Bar ] I did Harry Potter trivia through Geeks Who Drink with my friend Logan a few months ago and my team won first place! (Although I still feel guilty, to this day, about taking home an equal share of the cash prize given that I only knew the answer to one question…) Logan invited me out to a Disney trivia night that Geeks Who Drink was hosting and I was thrilled to be able to pull my weight, although I spent all of the day leading up to the quiz worrying about the breadth of the Disney knowledge (Disney Channel TV shows? Marvel? Star Wars? ESPN?!) and the depth (there are so many obscure movies I haven’t seen… and characters whose names I don’t know…) so I was really relieved to arrive and actually be able to pull my weight on a team full of former Jeopardy contestants and people who have been doing quiz bowl trivia since high school. Unfortunately, we got 2nd place but it was still a lot of fun!

How is your month going?
Are you ready for Halloween and the rest of the year-end festive season??