Just thinkin about...

Tomorrow.

(Yesterday. Today.) 

When will the sun come out? I havtn seen the it in days. (And I haven't blogged in days either. oopz) Which makes me feel depressed. I miss sunny Paris. Its been cold and rainy all week. And weather.com doesn't know when it will stop. I dont even own an umbrella here. 

When I was in high school ( yay! OLCSH! Go Spartans!) my photo teacher, Ms.G (aka..Mrs.Wargin) painted a sun on the window during the wintertime so we wouldn't get depressed. So when I was stuck in a day that was gray, and lonely I didn't stick out my chin and grin, I painted a sun on my bedroom window. Ms. Hannigan (or my mom) was pretty mad I think. esp. when i moved away to college and she had to take it off. sorry mum. Well..I think its time I put up another sun. This time, Ida can scrape it off... her and Ratty can work together. ( They can clear away the cobwebs and the sorrows too!)

I can definitely bet my bottom dollar that this was an interesting halloween. For anyone who loves us, cares about us, thinks about us...I have a favor. Can you send us your left over halloween candy..or go to the store(tomorrow) and buy some - you know its all on sale now! 

Were only a day away.

BOO! and Bravo

HAPPPY HALLOWWEENNN!! oh, how i crave a fistful of candy corn right now (ouch! sounds like a guaranteed cavity)! but alas, i have to just imagine what that would be like. halloween spirit and celebrations are far and in between in France. As i told some of you a few weeks ago, we were going to go to Euro disney with our school, but alas it did not work out. *sniff*. maddie, the little sleuth that she is, managed to track down a few bars that are having halloween parties, which we plan to hit up later. but i am sure it will not even compare to the hallow-madness that occurs in chicago and minneapolis and madison. oh well. not even a ghost or ghool could scare away our halloween spirit.

Maddie's halloween costume:

A baby lobster D.

Sophia's Halloween Costume:

Minty Fresh, Baby!

.... on an unrelated note, i want to share with you some pics and a short vid from the Langhorne Slim concert i went to on wednesday night. It was at the Divan du Monde, a venue in the 18th district of Paris. In a neighborhood full of expensive restaurants and cheap strip joints, i found myself standing in line with a bunch of urbanized hippie english speakers. I guess i shouldn't have been surprised since it was an americana/ folk-soul concert. The venue had older elements of design inside, a balcony and beautiful stage. It had a new vibe to it though, its rounded balconies looked like if they had been smoothed by hand out of clay. Only about 100 people max were there, so it was very intimate. it was funny, i know that if i had seen him in america, the crowd would have hugged the stage and been dancing like crazy. Every one was a little more spread out here, giving the performers some respectful space, enjoying the music from every corner of the room. There was a good vibe. i was in the first row of people, right in front of Langhorne. It was badass.

The Band

oh, lordy. i think i may have successfully uploaded a video directly onto the blog!!!! this is a first. if it doesn't work, i also linked it to youtube.

Trick or Treat, smell my feet,

SMB

Historical Evidence; or, I Miss Columbia

Yesterday i was looking through old photos on my computer... and stumbled upon some videos from multiple years ago that i forgot were even recorded. Here is one little gem from the past. If i feel like it/ have nothing else to write about, i may post some more of these little treasures in the future.

Click here to see a 20-year-old Maddie acting out how she got the wounds she created on herself i our make up class. A cute boy is involved. :)

Oh, and here is more pics from that day, in case you're interested.




L8er sk8erz
SMB

Puis-Je.... have friends in Paris?!

Here ye, here ye. I did not forget that we have a blog. Things have been crazy--i won't get into details, but it may or may not involve a hammer, drink umbrellas and Wall Street... Just forget it.

Last weekend i ran into some kids i went to highschool with. i think they did theatre. IT WAS SO AWKWARD. !!!!@#$%^&*9!!!!!! Bobby flew in on thursday from London. When i saw him standing outside my apartment when maddie and i got home from class, my heart just beemed. We took him to our fave nacho place (very french, no?) and the next day went to Pere Lachaise Cemetery. Friday Brigid and Mark arrived from London (Mark was visiting from Connecticut). I may or may not have been completely overjoyed to see them. ok, i was ecstatic. It was, however, confused when they first arrived because it was early, and the dream i was having when they arrived was that they were already here. A dream come true, no? We did fun things like see the eiffel tower and go to the Louvre and Notre Dame.

Saturday Mark, B and I went to Strausburg. It was one of the strangest 24 hours of my life. Here is a story in pix, which of course are out of order, because i still have not mastered blogspot. Blogspot is the ninja, i am the numchugz.

Brigid and Thomas.
Our strausburgian budz. "We go to commerce school. there are no nerds or geeks here"- Yeager.
Thomas, a falusha, and our other brother
?
Singing 'student songs' at this like mess hall in Strausburg. Thomas gave us a book of them. All these dudes were super into studying and student traditions, and even wore robes to class. Cool, no?
... No words.
The cathedral of Strausbourg!!!! IT IS GORGEOUS. cool fact of the day about this cathedral: it was originally planned to have two bell towers, but one side of the building was sagging b/c the ground was soggy back in the day, and they ran out of money. They now have one of the only cathedrals with only one!! think it looks pretty sick. AND during the revolution, the put a big red cap on the tower to stop the revolutionsaries from destroying it. Hard. Core.
Jumping pic in front of le tour eiffel. bob= total success, brigid= somewhat success, me=not so much.
Christmas card no.1
Tourista.
All the secret doors at the louvre, that only workers can enter, say this.... IS RIA BEYOND THE DOOR?? SHE IS NOT EXTINCT.
a painting of ria.
ATTENTION MADDIE'S DAD, THIS IS FOR YOU. We saw the Mona Lisa. and you know what, it was bigger than i imagined! Everyone always talks about how its so tiny, so i expeted it to be small. I should be a myth buster... the mona lisa is normal-sized.
WINGED VICTORY. coolest statue in the whole place.
Happy holidays, and Joy to the World! Love, Sophia, Mark, Brigid and Bob.
don't we look colegiate with all that brown hair? haha i don't know.... i think we look smart...
Pere Lachaise.... one of the most amazing/haunting/beautiful/strange places i've ever visited.

CLick HERE for a sweet vahdio.


Stay tuned... two months down, two to go.

SMB

yo.

yes were alive! Sorry for the lack of posts. 

Midterms were this week which means school work. school work. school work.

Sophies friends are coming to town. Holllaaaaa.

more updates soon! we promise! 

Weird Paris.

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Paris. Just like the day before..and the day before that. I swear I wake up every day telling Sophie how great it is outside. Even when its raining and dreary... it is still that perfect dreary day. So, I woke up yesterday making sure I waste the day. I got dressed put my face on and headed out the door. No specific location in mind just got on the train and let it take me somewhere. Thinking of places I havnt been to yet, I transferred trains and headed to Pere Lachaise. 

Knowing this was the place where my husband was laid to rest I had been waiting for the perfect day to go. This place ment something to me, even before I had walked through its gates. Seeing in on tv or pictures didn't do it any justice. I was... speechless. I was alone and I think i preferred it that way because I wouldn't have known what to say. I walked my own paths and took my time looking, hearing, and experiencing. Everything from the black crows that legit frightened me to a legit black cat guarding a gravestone. 

SPOTTED: BLACK CAT LIVING UP TO ITS REPUTATION. 





Maps are available for those who like to purchase them. PL is huge and very easy to get lost. roads lead to paths that lead to steps that lead to dirty paths. I didn't get a map just because I didn't have any particular locations in mind beside Jim and I already had an idea where he was chillen. My spidy sense led me right to him. Also a tomb that had <3Jim on it. Which is pictured below. It was a lot smaller than I had thought, and it was super clean. there was no graffiti like you see in the pictures and no crazy hippies dancing or anything. You could tell where they had sand blasted the surrounding tombs, and there was a security guard making sure no one hoped the fence that was around him. It was me and like 4 other people when I walked up. It would have been nice to have some alone time with him but, maybe another day. 




Statures like the ones above guarded tombs. They were so expressive and so...in moarning. Ive never seen anything like it. They looked so real. It was weird. Really weird. 









PL was like a town of graves. A ghost town. Their were so many of them. Just pilled on top one another. Some dated back to the 1800' s and others as recent as 2005. I took so many pictures and I dont even think I got through half of it. My friend Sam and I decided for our birthdays we would rent vespas and have a picnic there...how...gothic girl of us. 

PL is my favorite place in this city so far. Ive seen a lot and learned a lot, but this place just was... surreal. I fell in love with it after 30 seconds. Im having a hard time trying to describe to ya'll how i felt but i just cant seem to find the words that describe what I was feeling while walking through this historic place. 

Later that day I met up with Sam and we went to the Paris flea market which was kind of outside city limits. Getting of the train I gripped my purse and walked through the south side of chicago..i mean...paris. Im sorry but I dont have pictures but my camera died. It was super cool though. Lets just say...I bought a Michael Jackson necklace for 2euro. And some french man tried to tell me a designer bag for 40euro. I. Dont. Think.So. 

We got hamburgers at some stand where the man behind the counter wrote my name as " peace and love" and then went on to say " Chicago is dangerous but they have the Chicago bulls!". ( everyone here loves the bulls.) 

This part of Paris was dirty, grimy, and filled with gangster boo's But walking like, 3 blocks in some direction ( I still dont know N-S-E-W) we were back in regular Paris. We stumbled into an african street fair where pig pigs feet merchandised like lollypops, cow guts were being sold on the street and goat bodies hanging from hooks. Gross. 

Paris is weird.