jon's excellent adventure

Holidays

2012-01-09T11:01:00.003-07:00

The holidays this year was one to remember. I spent Christmas in Colorado with Casey and her family. It had snowed a couple days before I got there, so it was white and snowy the whole time with clear blue skys and relatively mild temperature. It was pretty perfect.

When I landed, there was snow all over the airport. Definitely a first for me.

SNOW! It was crazy to see so much of it everywhere. I thought this was a pretty cool sight, with so many cars, so much snow and the Rockies in the background.

I got in pretty early in the morning. Casey and her sister got in the day before, so Casey picked me up from the airport and we headed home. After a quick lunch, I napped for a bit to catch up on some sleep I missed out on from the night before. After I woke up, we headed outside, found a big hill and went sledding.

There were only shots of me from behind sledding, so here I am hiking back up. It's a ton of fun going fast and wiping out in the snow, but it's a little workout getting back up.

Here's Casey getting ready to go down a big slope.

And here she is flying off an unforeseen jump that catapulted her a few feet into the air. Pretty rad! We ended our Christmas eve with a delicious dinner cooked by Lindsay and a couple rounds of "Oh Hell!" a card game Casey and I taught the rest of the family.

The next day was Christmas. Unfortunately, I was too busy opening up presents to get any good pictures. But I did get some awesome presents that I am very excited to use! We had a pretty relaxing morning. In the afternoon, Casey and I started preparing dinner that we would eat at the grandparents' house.

We hung out with Casey's grandma while Brad, Carol and Casey's grandpa were outside tending to a huge fallen tree branch. Dinner was Boeuf Bourguignon that we cooked until nice and tender. It came out pretty well and tasty if I do say so myself. Here's a candid of the family. I think I like this picture just for the sheer happiness of Casey's grandma's face.

The next day we headed down to the Newlins' new land where they plan to build a cabin. It was so beautiful and tranquil and I am very excited for them.

Here is Brad showing the girls an occupied bird house they had put up on one of their first visits to their land. You could see twigs and leafs sticking out and I bet there will be chirping in the spring!

I thought this tree was pretty cool. It was dead and Brad and Carol thought it was probably stuck by lighting.

Here's Casey and I enjoying the sun and posing. If you can't tell, it was a beautiful day. Up on those rocks, we had a great view of the property and the mountains behind as well and a nice sized hill across the way. You could hear the wind gently blowing with the warm sun beaming down. It a kind of paradise I'm not used to, but probably could.

Jon's First Snow Angel It really does turn out to look like an angel.

I left the group to write my name in the snow and this is what I saw when I came back. The whole family, enjoying the sun of a dry patch under a tree. Ahh nature!!!

Here we all are with their future home behind us.

As if that wasn't enough, on our way out we saw some wildlife.

First we saw this group of four bull elk. This one was off to the side by himself, seemingly checking things out. I got a quick photo of him before he joined the others and ran off. Then, we drove for another minute and saw this:

A giant herd of elk just chilling near someone's house. Brad told us it was a herum of cow elk with a couple bulls. The four bull elk that we saw were likely satellite bull elk that follow the herum, waiting for a chance to challenge the male. It was an incredible sight and definitely the highlight of the trip.

We left later that day and headed back for San Francisco. I had six days between the day we got back to pack up all my stuff and get ready to move out. Casey and I just moved into an apartment in the Inner Richmond early last week and are still settling in. We are making big strides though and hopefully we will be unpacked and free of boxes and bags soon.

New Series?

2011-12-24T17:20:00.000-07:00

As I said in my last post, I've got a back log of a few recent paintings. All of them were commissions and I'm stoked on how all of them came out.

This one is called Undertow (for now). I started it as a painting for my friend Frances, and as soon as I was finished with my first session, I knew it was going to be a bit too dark (in feeling). But, I was really enjoying how it was shaping up, so I just went for it and decided to paint Fran a new one.

Here's the new one. A bit lighter feeling and a lot more feminine. I'm really happy with how it came out and I hope she likes it too!

This last one was done for one of my roommates as a Christmas present. His friend's spirit animal is the bison and I jumped at the opportunity to paint one. I'm currently spending Christmas with Casey and her family in Colorado, and looking at this painting now seems so much more relevant.

Happy Holidays!!!

The Holidays are Coming!

2011-12-12T11:35:00.000-07:00

Since I've been truant with my posting, here is a catch up, starting from just before Thanksgiving.

My house is part of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) group. What that means is that a bunch of people in the city connect with a group of local farmers and directly work together through seasonal commitments. That is a secured season for the farmers and a fresh basket of food every week for us. Nice.

Everyone in each group takes turns sorting food for the rest. In the week before thanksgiving, it was my turn to sort. We each bring the baskets for our group and then divide up the boxes of fresh produce from the farmers. This is what the start looks like.

This is what the end looks like.

And this is what the happy consumers look like. This is Jesse and Betsy, two friends who have been sharing a CSA basket for three years!

Moving on from the fresh stuff to the cooked stuff, it was Thanksgiving time.

Here's Casey getting ready to carve into the turkey that I just pulled out of the oven. It was my first big bird and turned out pretty good. The breast meat was still a bit dry, but I'll fix that next year!

We had a few friends over for our orphans Thanksgiving. I wish I got some photos of the rest of the group, but after I took this photo, the only business to be had was eating it all. We had a great time, with plenty of food, board games and digestion.

The next day, Casey and I rode our bikes to North Beach. If you've ever been in that area of San Francisco, you know that it is right next to Chinatown and a strange experience to go from America to China to Italy in six blocks.

I had to get some shots of Chinatown.

The stores aren't shy at displaying EVERYTHING they have in stock. It was pretty impressive.

Except for the english "Bakery" on the side of the wall, I could picture this being in China.

I wonder how you tell the storekeep which lantern you want.

I'm not sure if they realize it, but Chinatown is very harmonious in color theory. The complimentary pair of red and green are everywhere with this beautiful mustard yellow.

After leaving Chinatown, North Beach (aka little Italy) wasn't as ornate, and I didn't get many shots there.

But I did get one of this chubby pigeon. It seems with all the bakeries and sandwich shops, these birds are well fed. It was a somewhat chilly day, and this guy seemed to be keeping warm with his abundant plumage.

It's buildings like this that make me love San Francisco. Its on the famous beatnik corner where the culture is still kicking - more or less.

To continue with the holiday spirit, last night my house had a cookie decorating party. A few of us had just gotten back from seeing one of our roommate's perform in a play to find another roommate wrapping up her cookie baking session, ready for us to decorate.

Here's Casey putting the final touches on her batch. We listened to Christmas music, drank hot toddies, each did some of our own work before the week started, and enjoyed the cookies. It was a great Sunday night.

This last photo has nothing to do with the holidays. I've been working on a painting where I used this orchid and I couldn't help getting a picture of it in my window at sunset. I'll be posting the final painting, along with some others, soon.

Few Bucks

2011-11-20T19:16:00.000-07:00

I just finished a painting for my friend Eugenio's album "Few Bucks." I'm excited for him to finish it so I can give it a listen. Here it is...

Chicago

2011-10-26T13:08:00.000-07:00

This past week I went to Chicago to visit my Hawaiian hommie, Britt.

University of Chicago is a picturesque campus.

Trash squirrel.

Britt is currently working on an indescribable experiment aimed at proving that all of reality is a hologram, and here I am laughing in the stairwell at this poster. There is no way they could have put this up without know the intended joke...right?

Chicago was pretty cold and windy when I first got there. Not the happiest camper, but it made for some cool shots.

Here's the lion in front of the Art Institute of Chicago, which has an unbelievable collection. Here's a few key pieces that I've been dying to see and was surprise to stumble upon.

Picasso's Old Guitarist.

Edward Hopper's Nighthawks.

Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

I loved this giant sculpture in the middle of the walkway.

The bean! This sculpture is amazing. I wonder how often they need to polish it.

Sundown in downtown.

After a few days in Chicago, Britt, a couple of her friends and I drove up to Indiana to the pumpkin patch. It seems like a tradition over there, but something very foreign to us islanders.

You just pick it out and weigh it later.

It was a pretty well organized affair, with tractor rides to take you to the pumpkin patch and apple groves.

I'm not even sure what this is suppose to mean, but it sure makes me a bit uncomfortable.

Group Photo!

After the pumpkin patch, we took a long drive up to Michigan. It was probably one of the best road trips!

Fall is so beautiful. I had to edit this photo a bit, and even after that, it's still not as pretty as the real thing.

While finding our way to the lake house, where we were meeting more friends, we stumbled upon this tank. Vyom, the fellow on the left, is from India and needed to get a picture of this spectacle.

This is a small section of Lake Michigan. It was a sight!

The house we stayed at was right on the beach at the lake, and this is what was behind the house. There's nothing like early morning in the woods.

I can't believe how big this lake is. It seriously looks like an ocean.

JUMP!

F3 at the Cotton Mill

2011-10-09T11:54:00.002-07:00

I recently found out that my work was accepted to an art exhibition in Oakland. F3 at the Cotton Mill is a one evening art show including a fashion bazaar, food and beverage, a while building of open studios and presentations, vendor displays, music, and of course, the 4th Floor Main Gallery filled with the work of over 15 artists, designers, craftspeople, and makers of all kinds who reside at the Cotton Mill and guest artists (that's ME!) from around the bay area.

I will be showing a few older paintings and the newest one I just posted about. They wrote a little blurb about me that you can read here. If you're in the area, please come out and check it out. Feel free to tell your friends too! Here's a few details:

Friday, October 21, 6 - 10 PM
1091 Calcot Place, Suite 103
Oakland, CA
There is no parking around the warehouse. If you go to the Fruitvale BART station, there will be shuttles to and from the venue.

Art Nouveau

2011-10-04T11:12:00.002-07:00

UPDATE: I titled it, "Hele Mai Hele Aku"

After returning from our trip, I've finally started working on some concepts and sorting out how to use all the inspiration I felt during my travels. One art movement that I have always been a fan of and that I feel always shows itself in one way or another in my work is Art Nouveau. Having its origins in France, I got to see its presence a lot while we were traveling. I was also very taken with all the beauty of Hawaii.

It's funny how you don't realize how good something is until you're not there anymore. That's how growing up in Hawaii is for me. Every time I go back I realize how beautiful the culture, land and life is. I wanted to do a painting that represented, more or less, the convergence of all of it. This painting is somewhat of a representation of now and a mix of France, Hawaii and San Francisco. I don't have a name for it yet and will post it once I figure it out.

Big Sur

2011-09-04T12:56:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I went backpacking with some old friends. Casey, Richmond and I drove down south while our college friend, Colin, drove up north with his girlfriend and friend to meet up in the middle at Big Sur. Without a map and functioning phones, it took us some time to fine each other, but eventually we did and started off.

The start of the trail was interesting, with plants overgrown and WAY too much poison oak everywhere. It was three miles in, and well worth it. After passing a few, campable spots, we found our way to the most beautiful camp sight ever.

Right next to a flowing creek with plenty of room to spread our legs, we quickly took our packs off and jumped in. The first one in was Colin, who immediately lost one of his Crocks in the water. So, we all hopped in to help find it. Here's Colin triumphantly reunited with his lost footwear.

After the steep climb in, we rested and took in the remnants of the day.

After rest time, it was food time. We pumped and filtered some water from the creek and got to cooking.

Colin and Megan put together a delicious meal of indian curries, quinoa and naan. With warm food in our bellies and fun camping games to play, we had an awesome night under the stars.

We woke up the next morning to an even more beautiful camp sight. There's nothing like drinking hot chocolate and tea and eating oatmeal with the morning sun shining through tall trees.

After breakfast, we packed up our tents and decided to play some cards. Being so close to the creek, why not play cards over it? We had a large boulder to play the cards on, but not much seating. So we moved this fallen log over to the rocks and made a bench.

Everyone looks comfy and ready to play "Oh HELL!" a game we learned from our friend Ryan and subsequently have been teaching to everyone we know.

After the game, of course, we had to lounge around again. We each grabbed a sunny spot and basked in the sun. Here's a thing I learned: If you look up and this is what you see, life does not suck.

As sunny as it was inland, the coast remained foggy. That's Big Sur for you.

Wave

2011-08-25T14:03:00.003-07:00

I sat down this weekend not knowing what to paint, but wanting to paint. Going through my pictures from my trip, I found a few images of waves I took in Kaua'i. Here's the painting that came out. It was a nice exercise in focusing on the whole painting and not getting too stuck in a certain area. Plus, it was just nice to stare at a wave since it;s been so brisk and foggy in the city.

Kauai

2011-08-14T10:49:00.056-07:00

A few weeks ago, while still in Hawaii, Casey and I hopped over to Kauai for four days. The last time I was there was a few years back and we were both ready for some tropical nature. We spent our first day on the west side at a secluded beach with long stretches of sand and tall lava rock cliffs behind us. After leaving the beach, we basically drove around the island to get to our camp grounds on the north shore.

After setting up camp, we were treated to the most beautiful sunset we've probably ever seen. The first picture was taken probably 10 minutes before this one. The sky kept changing, but every moment was so picturesque that we couldn't help ourselves from taking photo after photo.

We explored the north shore on our first day. This is Hanalei, a small town with what seemed to be a lot of farmland. Most of these plots seemed to be taro and it was refreshing to see land dedicated to growing native food.

We stopped at a lookout to get a nice view of the valley, but apparently Casey had a nice view of this chick. In 1992, hurricane Iniki hit Kauai and freed a lot of captive chicken. Subsequently, with no natural predators on the island (expect for us I suppose) the chickens have been growing in population and you can see them, big or small, everywhere.

On the north shore, they have a couple caves right on the side of the road. They're not deep and not really for spelunking, but they are cool to visit. There was this one and a dry one that you could actually walk into. Just for scale, that triangular opening was probably 10 feet tall.

The best part of the day was, hands down, our visit to Queens Bath.

Located right on the coastal cliffs, Queen's bath is a natural pool that is protected from the smashing waves. There are areas deep enough to dive in with other areas shallow enough to stand. All the while, tropical fish swim around with the water calmly flowing in through the rock barrier. It was a luxury to hang out here for a while.

After our swim, we explored along the lava rocks. Casey found this crab, completely dehydrated but still in tact.

We also go a sweet view that most others probably didn't get to see. I wish I had gotten some better photos because this one just doesn't show how pretty it was. The mist from the ocean made the mountains in the back fade into the sunlight contrasting the brilliant greens and blacks up close.

Another thing most people don't find is this secret bath. It seemed almost perfect and if we hadn't tired ourselves out from swimming at the other bath, we would have jumped right in. The cool part about this one were the smooth boulders at the bottom. The first bath had a couple of these, but this bath was filled with them. I'm not sure where they came from or how they got so smooth, but part of my wants to say it was from the ancient Hawaiians.

This is an area just before Queen's bath that demonstrates how dangerous this place can be. During the winter, where there is high surf on the North Shore, I bet this would look like a moderate day at Queen's Bath. There are multiple warning signs leading up to the baths, discouraging people from getting too close to the edge.

Luckily, it was summer and we could sit close to the edge. Looks like Casey found a good a good seat.

As if the water wasn't beautiful enough, the short hike to and from the coast was absolutely inspiring. It was so lush and tropical and a nice way to cool off after a day in the sun. The best part was the guava trees near the entrance. As you get closer, the sweet smell of guava takes over.

The next day, we headed for Waimea Canyon. It was mostly a drive up and around the canyon, but we got out for a good two hour hike.

The first trail took us out to a look out over the canyon, and this trail took us along the top of the canyon. The dirt was rusty red with interesting swashes of orange, mustard, brown and even purple. Everything was breathtaking, so much so that I challenged myself to get closer to the edge for a view of the bottom. Terrifying but exhilarating.

Here's another shot of the canyon from the end of our hike. It you look closely at the third tier down, the rocks make a little archway. I thought that was somewhat peculiar and wondered what made it.

On our drive back, it started to rain and we stopped to take some pictures. I thought the valley would look cool in the misty showers, but I didn't expect it to look this cool. Seeing a rainbow shooting out of the canyon was quite a treat.

Our last day took us to Wailua river. With the morning rooster, we were ready for a day of kayaking.

We jumped into out double kayak and paddled up the smooth, calm Wailua river. I was excited since this was the first time I have kayaked and always wanted to. It was, at first, a lot more physical than I thought. But soon enough I got the hang of thing and we easily made our way to a trail.

The end destination of this trail was a waterfall, but we stopped and enjoyed ourselves along the way. Here's Casey, taking first dibs at a rope swing we found.

I got second!

The trail was just over a mile in and took us through mud, decaying foliage and slippery rocks.

It also took us across this ridiculously beautiful sight. It doesn't get much better than this. For me, this is perfection. The tall trees diffusing the sunlight with the clear water flowing through the dark, smooth rocks. The moss and the tangled roots dipping into the water complete it all.

We made it to the waterfall and cast out a few selfless hopes. This waterfall is called Sacred Falls and it is believed to have hope fulfilling powers not short of miracles. The caveat is that you have to wish good for someone else. I can dig that kind of integrity.

After the hike, we got back in our kayak and visited a few other places along the river. There was a grotto with overgrown everything and huge plants everywhere. There was a bird sanctuary that was maybe too early in the day to visit. And then there was another swing rope area. But just past it, where no one else was, was this little area, where cows grazed and everything seemed untouched. It made me almost want to be a landscape painter.

Here's Casey on our last day in Kauai.

Kauai was a great trip and I'm so glad I got to go back. It is definitely different than Oahu and as I get older and travel more, this type of living and landscape is getting more and more appealing.

Finally, I'm all caught up and can post in real time (more or less). Not sure how frequently posts will be now that I'm back in the city, but hopefully the adventures will be frequent enough to keep posting regularly.

Colors

2011-07-19T16:29:00.002-07:00

While at the first farm, at the beginning of our travels to France, I was taken by all the colors spring had to offer. That got me thinking of doing a colors post, dedicated to the beauty of our surroundings. My goal was to capture interesting pictures while attempting to isolate a color or groups of colors. It was a nice challenge to give myself throughout the trip. Here it is.

Bonjour Strasbourg...Au revoir France

2011-07-11T13:58:00.012-07:00

After leaving Paris, we spent our last week in the northeast of France, right on the border in a town called Strasbourg. Knowing it was the headquarters of the European Union, we had heard it was a charming town popular with European travelers. It did not disappoint.

Strasbourg is the perfect mix of old and new Europe. There are old, gothic churches and medieval buildings, still standing and still exposing their wooden, foundational beams (like the ones in the picture up top).

There are newer buildings with art nouveau and midcentury modern influences. And running through the city and across the numerous canals is a very convenient and modern tram system.

By far, the most impressive thing in the city is this cathedral, completed in 1439 and undoubtedly handed over from German to French hands a number of times since. It is striking with its peculiar orange-brown stone and its magnificent towers full of gargoyles, saints, archways, and pretty much anything else they could fit on the walls.

At this time of day, this picture is pretty true to color. With the rich blue sky behind it, it’s hard not to stop and stare.

At night, starting on our third night there and going till the end of summer, is a light show on the face of the cathedral, synchronized and choreographed with classical music. It’s a beautiful thing to watch on a warm night in Strasbourg, and a great example of the city’s influence on tourism and quality of life.

Another example of this was a show in the main square of traditional, Alsatian dances. Backed with a full horn band, it was a great way to start off our Sunday.

Another public event was this parade we stumbled upon. It was a bit strange and the whole purpose for it wasn’t quite clear. But it was entertaining nonetheless.

We used Strasbourg as a base for a couple day trips. The first was to Nancy, a town just west of Strasbourg and known for its art nouveau. If you know me, art nouveau is one of my favorite art movements, so it was definitely a treat to walk around here. While this fountain is in keeping with the art nouveau style, the arched gateway was pretty much just outright gaudy.

They, of course, had a beautiful cathedral. For me, this is my kind of cathedral It’s ornate and full of interesting details and decorations, but not overwhelming enough that its hard to look at. In the mix is oxidized and bronze sculptures and large, wooden doors intricately carved.

This is St. Epvre, the namesake for the cathedral and the square it resides in. It's also the namesake for a traditional cake made in Nancy. We got a little one, and although it was delicious, didn’t quite live up to the title of “best cake you’ll eat in your life,” suggested by a friend who lived in Nancy. Still, it was a nice treat!

The other day trip we took was to Germany! A nice walk from the furthest tram station, across a bridge is the Germany town of Kehl. Being so close, we figured why not? This is the bridge that crosses the Rhine river which separates the two countries and has defined the shape of these countries since the French-German war.

We hopped across to see the town a bit, get a taste for German culture and people, and for lunch. Happily, we discovered that a lot of stereotypes of Germans are true, including how much they like beer! It’s the best way to wash down a heavy meal of meat and potatoes.

We’ll, now we are in Hawaii and are parked here for three weeks. My phone works now, so give me a ring and lets catch up!

Paris: The Last

2011-07-08T00:03:00.010-07:00

We spent our last week in Paris visiting some lesser known museums, picnicking and enjoying days without much planned.

France, in my opinion, has an excellent department of culture and gives incentives to the public to view art. They have free admission to all museums on the first Sunday on each month, give generous discounts to students and people under 25 years old, and even have collections of art to view for free. We took advantage.

This is an awesome piece by cubist Alvert Gleizes titled Les Baigneuses that we saw in the modern art museum. The top picture is from there as well and we got to see the impressive and thorough collection for free. Seeing so much classical French and Italian art, it was refreshing to see the bold colors and free thinking ideas of modern art.

Just a short walk down the Seine was the Petit Palais, sister to the Grand Palais where we saw the Monumenta exhibition. Inside the Petit Palais is a fine collection of 17^th and 18^th century art. This painting was striking because of its skillful execution and interesting subject matter.

It held our attention and our eyes stay glued on it as if we were actually watching the circus. These two parts of the painting are just the main part of the long, panel painting, but sums up the character of the piece. The painting is called La Parade des Humbles by Fernand Pelez.

Taking advantage of free museum time, we also made a last visit to the Louvre. We visited the interesting, but not at the top the list, rooms and were quite pleased to see 18^th into 19^th century French paintings, and Egyptian artifacts including sarcophaguses, mummies and this giant sphinx. Seeing this side of the Louvre really showed how awesome (and I mean that in the powerful sense) it really is. They had giant statues and columns from Egypt housed there and even reconstructed the base of a pyramid in the bottom floor. Impressive.

The last museum we visited was the Museé d’Orangerie made famous for housing Monet’s last works. Now, up until this point I had been a fan of Monet. I admired his paintings, thought he influenced the Impressionist movement immensely, and loved looking at his work. But until I saw these long, panel paintings, I had no idea how great of an artist he was.

Never before has a painting captured me how this one did. I gazed at, contemplated and truly felt this painting, probably for a good 10-15 minutes. It’s hard to describe how it made me feel, but it was as if I completely understood what Monet was trying to do and express in this one. Without perspective, I was allowed to swim through this painting, seeing the surface, below the surface and the reflection of what was above the surface. Taking a closer look exposed Monet’s hand, The dry brush strokes, up close, are just colors on top of colors that don’t mean anything but expression until you step back and see the scene. This painting, called Green Reflection, reminded me why I love paint and applying it. I still can’t get over this painting.

I think one reason why his work hit me so hard was because a few days earlier, we took a day trip to see his estate and the garden he painted from. On the hottest and most humid day of our trip, we spent it in the over-crowded, plant-filled garden just outside of Paris.

As miserable as I was with the climate, I did really enjoy walking around his garden and this pond, picturing him waking up to and painting this. With this in mind while looking at his art, you really are allowed to see how he felt. And that is something pretty special.

Here’s Casey in front of the pond. Ain’t she so pretty?

These next ones are a bit all over the place, but I think it gives a good idea of Paris. Think of it as a selected virtual tour.

This is the Stravinsky Fountain in the middle of the Marais, a trendy and young area of Paris popular with the gay community. It is such a cool juxtaposition of modern and antique, with the old medieval chapel behind a very large piece of street on the building perpendicular to it and an area full of modern and pop-art fountains.

I’ve wanted to see this gypsy for two years! I first saw her on a live, music video I saw a few years back. She was sawing away at this broken, out of tune violin while the singer-songwriter played his song. Then, while I was in Italy, a few of my friends went to Paris and randomly took her picture in the same square she was in in the video. After disappointedly not seeing her in that square when we first visited the Marais, luck shined on me and I found her on a street. I wonder if she knows she’s famous.

After a long day, Casey and I treated ourselves to a beer and a pastry in the Tulleries, a larger garden-park adjacent to the Louvre. There was a nice big fountain with chairs all around, so we sat and enjoyed the sun with these guys chasing their boats.

One of our last days was gay pride in Paris. Casey went to the parade and said it was similar, but not as crazy, as what we’re used to in San Francisco. I explored a different part of Paris and was surprised to find celebration everywhere. This stage, with its afros, polyester clothing and head scarves, really reminded me of San Francisco.

Being out in the 19^th arrondissement (on the outer ring of Paris) we caught the metro a lot and were subjected to a lot of advertising. This one always made me chuckle. To me, it’s completely ludicrous to use sex appeal to sell watermelons.

Well, we’ve said goodbye to Paris. Having spent a good amount of time there, which felt way longer than the actual time we were there, we were pretty bummed to leave. It is really a great city and even with just a few days there it’s easy to understand why so many fall in love with it. Au revoir Paris!

Our next destination was Strasbourg. We’re actually heading back to the States right now, and hopefully a post on Strasbourg soon will catch us up.

Pit Stop in Frankfurt

2011-07-06T10:04:00.004-07:00

We are stuck in Frankfort! After a stressful first flight from Lyon, France to Frankfurt, Germany, we watched our boarding time pass, followed by our departure time, followed by three hours. The flight was canceled and rescheduled for tomorrow, hopefully without interruption or incident.

Lexi and Bobby, if you're reading this, we're still going to make it to your wedding!

Forage

2011-06-27T15:14:00.023-07:00

Early in the trip, while we were working on our first farm, we were introduced to foraging. While walking from the house to farm land, our hosts would point out something that was edible or good for your health or just tasty. This got me thinking about doing a post about foraging and sharing a bit of what I learned. Finally, after some warranted procrastination, I got my photos together and here it is.

You might have been hiking around in the cool mountains with shorts on when you brush up against some foliage and all of a sudden you feel a sting and a persistent itch bothers you the rest of the day.

Nettles. Getting stung by them is a real pain (especially since the sting lasts so long) but you can get back at them. Eat them! It might not seem like a good idea, but once you cook them, their bite goes away and you get some good nutrients in you. At one of the farms I was on in Italy, they made a delicious soup of it with potatoes in a nice broth.

Here's a closer look at the leaves with their stingers. I read somewhere that one type of nettles have so much poison in them that a sting can kill a horse! Luckily, I don't think that type is in the States. We used dried nettles, at our first French farm, to plant tomatoes. Dried, rolled in a ball, and planted below the tomato plant, it gives the plant a ton of nutrients when the roots get hold and helps protect them from bugs.

Melissa. This delightful and abundant plant seems to thrive anywhere weeds can. When you tear the leaves, a mouthwatering, sweet lemony scent is released. We steeped these leaves in cool water overnight and enjoyed the refreshing water after work the next day. I bet they would make a tasty syrup, ice cream or even a hot tisane.

Salad. This one is obvious with what to do, but I was surprised at how easily resilient lettuce is. While I was plowing some land and getting it ready to plant, we found 10, maybe 12, lettuce plants growing on their own in the hard, unworked land. We transplanted them to the lettuce box; why not, free lettuce! Once in there though, we made sure they didn't get too much heat and kept them well watered. It they don't get enough water and their roots strain to find some, the leaves get bitter and, for me, a bit hard to eat.

Purslane. This little guy takes some looking around to find. I was on my knees weeding when I found it. Ironically, purslane is a fast growing and abundant weed that seems to grow best in sandy soil with lots of sun. But it is very easy to uproot and is extremely healthy for you. The tiny succulent is packed with Omega-3 fatty acid and has a nice, subtle grassy taste. In fact, I think it has the most Omega-3 out of any green.

At the pretentious, but amazing-what-they-did-with-food, restaurant I worked at, they used the purslane leaves in a mediterranean salad. It takes a bit of work to pick off all the leaves, but it's a great way to get some flavor, texture, and nutrients into a meal. I've done it with a quinoa salad, mixed it with some leafy greens, and even thrown it in fried rice, right before serving.

Keeping with leaves, but moving away from straight up edible, here are some herbs and flavors. I'm sure these are all pretty obvious, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

Bay Leaf. These grow everywhere from little bushes into decent size trees in dry and wet climates. I've seen a few different types during our travels, but the fact that I've seen them all over the place makes me wonder why they are so expensive in the grocery store. Right before heading to Paris, I picked some from a hike we took in Brittany and saved them for cooking here. If you get the fresh stuff, it takes a few more leaves to get the same flavor as the dried ones. In addition, the essential oil of bay leaves are good for helping muscle pain.

Mint. This is a pretty young one, but mint can grow pretty high and their stems can get pretty thick. They seem to grow best where the soil can stay damp in the shade, under taller plants, or in the hills. Steeped in boiled water and mixed with some sugar, it makes a nice, delicate tea. I throw in a teabag of black tea to give it some body. I also dig using mint, with basil, to make pesto and tossing a chiffonade in a leafy or grain salad.

Fennel. Another thing I've seen everywhere is fennel. The fuzzy looking fronds are unmistakable, no matter how tall the plant gets. You can use the fronds, like we did at one of the farms, to flavor some steamed trout, add them to a vinaigrette, or add the sweet licorice flavor as a garnish to a potato salad or even scrambled eggs. The root of fennel the fibrous bulb that looks like a big onion with the texture of celery. I've had it roasted and caramelized, sauteed with onions, bacon and potatoes, and have even seen it eaten like an apple - Italians love the stuff.

Now I'm going to ditch the leaves, keep the flavors and add the flowers.

Mustard. The bright yellow flowers of mustard can be seen far and wide in the spring on the I-5 between the Bay Area and Bakersfield. They were growing with the strawberries at our second farm and seem to do well in the heat. Obviously, the most common use is to grind the seeds with water and vinaigre and make mustard, but we munched on some of the leaves and I think it would add a nice, subtle mustard flavor as a garnish or tossed in a salad.

Garlic Flowers. These beautiful, bell shaped flowers are those of garlic. They are pretty small, maybe the size of a pencil eraser, and have a nice, garlic taste without the overwhelming kick. We found them growing in shady, grassy areas, but I suppose they could grow out in the open, as long as they got enough water. We added these to our salad it not only made it the salad look amazing, it also added the right amount of spice.

Poppy. A sign of fertile land, poppies have a couple uses. The seeds, of course, are used in baking and add a nice flavor as well as making those muffins look irresistible. But we spent time picking a ton of the petals to make syrup. Mixing pounds of petals with sugar encourages the petals to give up their tasty juice. Then heating it with a little water until its a nice consistency makes a delicious syrup that we drank with cold water as a refreshing beverage. I suppose it would also taste pretty good drizzled over some vanilla bean ice cream. Poppies seem to be able to grow anywhere where the weather isn't too aggressive, and I said before, is a sign of healthy land.

Elderflower. These trees are so abundant in France, and I wonder if I'll start noticing them everywhere in the States now that I know what they are. If you've ever had elderberry soda, juice or liqueur, you are somewhat familiar with the taste of the flowers. They have a subtle, sweet, grassy and floral taste and used more as a flavoring than eating. Using the same method as the poppies, they can be made into a nice syrup. You can also steep them in milk to make yogurt and even a delicate ice cream flavor.

We'll, that's a bit on foraging. Since getting a taste for it (pun intended), taking hikes and walking around is a somewhat different experience. I see plants for what they could be and I can't wait to learn more. It's not the most useful skill, but maybe it satisfies some instinct left over from when we were nomadic hunters and foragers.

Paris: Versaille

2011-06-25T13:33:00.013-07:00

After a week of clouds and rain, we jumped at the opportunity to go to Versailles on a sunny day. Versailles is just outside of Paris and was home to the royal family and the French court when Louis XIV moved there, leaving the Louvre to become an empire for art. The estate is enormous, so we spent the day, walking around and having a gander at its magnificence.

This post is going to be more of a picture post with short captions. It's cooler looking at Versailles than reading what I have to say about it. I suggest clicking on them to get a better look. Here are the steps to the palace. Thought the pigeons were a nice touch.

New King Louis XVI. Louis XVI was the last to live in Versailles and was forced out by the people of France at the beginning of the French Revolution.

A Portrait of Marie Antoinette With Her Children. As you may recall, she was the wife of Louis XVI and was beheaded during the French Revolution. The French loved that guillotine!

"The 2 Year Doors." I named it that because the guard in the room told us that one side of one door took 6 months to make (you know, with all that gold). So, with four sides to make these doors, it took 2 years. There were 8 pairs of doors in the room.

Cherubs on Doors. These were on the doors to the cathedral and were even more impressive than the 2 year doors.

On to some rooms..
The Study. This charming room was Louis XVI's study and was decorated by Marie Antoinette. The colors are a lot less dark and bold than the others. The colored moldings have 80 layers of paint, with gold mixed in, to create a shimmering lacquered effect like Japanese furniture.

Room of Science. This is where scientists would meet and discuss new discoveries. It was the romantic age of science.

Magnificent Corner. Enough said, although I will mention that the blue with gold fleur de lis is the symbol of the royal family.

Insanely Awesome Chandelier. The rooms just got more and more dramatically over-the-top.

Entertainment Room aka Elastic Collision Room. This used to be a billiard room, although there was no pool table in it anymore. I liked the color palate of this room the best.

King Sized Bed. Yup, this is where Louis XIV dreamed about....who knows what a man that has, and can have, everything dreams about.

Room of Pain. I'm not sure if this is where the queen slept, but this is definitely where she gave birth. The brilliant green chairs were commissioned by and designed for Marie Antoinette specially for her births. Weird.

Queen Sized Bed. This is Marie Antoinette's bed, not at the palace, but in her summer home, still on the property, called Petit Trianon. Louis XVI built it for her, I guess so she could get some fresh air.

Casey in Interior Design Magazine. Learn how to make your summer home look like a royal palace with these 10 easy steps!

Ok, brace yourself.
Hall of Mirrors. This hallway was unbelievable, over the top, and in a need of a adjective pair greater than majestically magnificent. So many crystal chandeliers, so many mirrors, so much gold, so many statues, so many paintings, so many people!

So Good It Needed Another. Here's a more intimate view. By the way, the insanity of this room was the intent. Louis XIV wanted a room with no rivals.

Now for some fresh air.

The French Know Their Gardens. The palace is extremely large, but it's only a fraction of the estate, which was perfectly landscaped and kept.

Adorable Little Farm. This was a darling farm, that is still in use where they keep goats, sheep and poultry.

Sun King Fountain. King Louis XIV, who basically built this place, was known as the Sun King and admired Apollo, the God of Sun.

Paris: The Sights

2011-06-22T01:06:00.010-07:00

In the first half of our stay in Paris, we spent a lot of time in the inner, west part of Paris. Rightly so, as this is area with most of the big hitting sights and attractions. We're now enjoying other neighborhood around Paris and it's great getting the feel for their personality and typical inhabitant. But here is a little recap of the sights.

The Arc de Triomphe is a massive arch, commissioned by Napoleon himself, in the middle of a massive round-about. Imagine a five car lane boulevard, twisted around a circle with 12 streets converging into the madhouse of Parisian drivers. It's no wonder French car insurance companies don't insure damage that occurs on this unique road. At first, we weren't sure how to get over and considered trying to cross the thing. But with some intuition, we found the subway to get to the other side and see the monument, commemorating the French Revolution up close.
Notre Dame de Paris is a very impressive cathedral. The day we visited, the line was intimidatingly long and it was drizzling, leaving us second guessing whether to go inside or not. Luckily, the line seemed to be moving pretty fast, we hopped in and I'm glad we did.

From the front, it doesn't seem that gothic, but here's a shot from the back which displays its beautiful tower and intricate arches.

Inside was beautiful. While waiting in line, I asked Daniel if inside was something special, or just the typical awesome cathedral. He didn't think it was fair to assess it as typical, and I agree. The circular stained glass windows towering up high were amazing, even with the cloudy weather outside.

We took a seat and contemplated the cathedral, among other things I assume, and amazed ourselves thinking about how they built this in the 1100s without modern equipment.

While walking around, I couldn't help but notice the amount of opportunities the church provide to spend money. View the treasury and getting to go up top costs a few euro. The well sized gift shop area provides a nice place to get some gifts. And these little penny pressers gives you a nice imprinted coin to remember the cathedral. It felt a little like coin slots in Vegas. I guess the church doesn't get money like it used to, and everyone gotta make a buck somehow.
I'm sure everyone is familiar with this sculpture. We visited the popular Rodin museum and thoroughly enjoyed our visit. I can truly say it was a new art viewing experience for me. As we strolled through the rooms of the museum, I learned how sculpture and the form can convey, quite accurately, human emotion and thought.

He worked a lot and had a very impressive amount of sculptures. But all of it seemed to just be practice for, what I now consider, one of the coolest works of art I have ever laid eyes on. Young as I may be, I think there would be quite a few people who can agree with me.

Rodin's Gates of Hell (just the top part). He has so many figures in this piece, many of them standing as their own work of art as larger sculptures throughout the museum. This massive door is dynamic, telling, and full of the emotions one would expect and be surprised with as the gates of hell. I could spend hours looking at this thing. Unfortunately, we had to head over to the Musee d'Orsay.

But before we did, I grabbed this picture of Casey through a sculpture outside of the museum.

I didn't get any pictures of the Musee d'Orsay as we were pressed for time and didn't want to wasted it waiting for a gab in the crowd, but it was incredible! They specialize in the beginning of modern art, when the impressionists challenged the meaning of a painting and changed the way we look at art. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Along the same line, we also went to a Gustave Caillebotte (who was a great and under appreciated impressionist) exhibit where, while waiting in line, a butterfly landed on my collar and stay there for at least 20 minutes.

On to the Louvre. The over-the-top, insanely cool, biggest museum I've ever been to Louvre. Just to set the scene, this intricate and gargantuan building was built in the 12th century and expanded over the centuries to what it is now: 652,300 square feet of amazingness. Art is contained not only in the bottom, first and second floors of the old fortress, but also a level underground too.

The iconic glass pyramid in front of the Louvre was awesome to see in person. Just like the Eiffel Tower, it was less of an amazing moment and more one of those moments of, "Cool, it's what I thought it would look like."

Here is a view from inside the pyramid as you head down into the lobby of the museum. Once inside, you're faced with the daunting task of choosing a direction and floor to start on. We went on a Friday evening, where 26 and under get in for free. The down side was that it only gave us three and half hours to see it. So we isolated a few centuries worth of art and booked it!

The collection was incredible, and we probably saw less than a tenth of it. Here is a long corridor lined with Renaissance paintings. As you walk down it, you can literally see the Renaissance happen and see the change in theme, technique and approach. Pretty neat!

We of course saw the Mona Lisa. It was a mad house in there and what I imagine being in a pack of paparazzi at the Oscars must feel like. Hardly anyone was actually looking at the painting. Everyone just had their camera and smartphone extended over the person in front of them, trying to get a steady picture. I guess they just wanted to examine the famous painting through 10 magepixels rather then their own eyes. OK. Enough of my sarcasm, it was pretty cool to see in person. But what was even cooler was this ceiling waiting for us just outside the Mona Lisa room. I've seen a ton of frescoed ceilings, but I've never seen a bronze embossed ceiling with frescos and more bronze sculptures on a ceiling. It was insane to look up at and this photo definitely does not do it justice.

After our time there, we totally need to go back. There was just so much we breezed by and missed as we headed for something higher up on our list. We saw the major ones like this piece, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, which was probably made around 190 BC. BC!!!! It is a beautiful and powerful sculpture and it was great to see it, along with everything else, in person.

Paris: The Friends

2011-06-18T13:05:00.015-07:00

We've had a pretty busy first week in Paris and its strange to even realize that it's only been a week. Everyday we are discovering something new and amazing about this city, not just in the museums and sights, but in everyday things like this incredible bridge.

Here's a different angle that is a great example of the views you get all over the city. Incredible, gold statues towering the pillars that base the bridge, a couple of boats that serve as floating bars, the already-mentioned gorgeous bridge, and of course, the Eiffel Tower just hanging out in the back.

Part of the reason why this week has been so busy is that we shared it with a couple of friends.

Casey sandwiched herself between her long time BFF Emily and Emily's boyfriend, Daniel, while we had a picnic on the Champs de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower. Emily and Daniel were hanging out in the south of France and ended their trip with a few days in Paris which luckily coincided with our time here.

We spent the last few days hanging out and seeing the sights with them. We saw so much, that I'm going to post very soon about the other attractions and focus on just a couple right now. Mainly, what we did on Thursday, June 16th.

We started the day early and met in the 14th arrondissement at the Catacombs of Paris. In the late 18th century, Paris was faced with big problem. The city had undergone a very large expansion and steady rise in population for centuries. Because of limited space and limitations of expansion, cemeteries became overpopulated on only the wealthy were able to afford church burial. For the rest, there were mass burials, most without coffins. This concentration of decomposing matter quickly polluted water systems and Paris was forced to address the problem.

The solution was to exhume over 6 million bodies from these mass graves and store the remains somewhere else, making more room for more burials. Beginning in 1786, workers exhumed and stored the bones of millions of Parisiens in an old underground mine for the next two years, thus making the Catacombs.

It was an unbelievable sight. Not just to see the remains of humans with my own eyes, but to be in the presence of the sheer volume of human remains.

When we first entered the mines, we walked through the narrow corridors of the dark, damp mine, seeing the hand chiseled stone where materials were harvested to build Paris. But soon we were upon what we came to see. Both sides of the tunnel were lined with skulls and, mainly, femurs neatly stacked on each other that reached to about my shoulders.

It was absolutely incredible. Not only where all these bones stacked up to my shoulders, and not only were there stacks of the bones behind the stacks of bones we could see; all of these bone lined tunnels went on and on and on. We'd exit a chamber thinking that was it, and then realize that there was more. Then later, realize that we were four chambers past where we thought the end was.

For me, it was also inspiring. It seems like such a foundational art school exercise to paint or draw a skull to understand the face. But I never got to do that, so it was fascinating to get the chance to see and "study" so many skulls. I'm excited to get back to my paints and a do a few studies of my own.

To lighten things up, we headed over the charming Montmartre after leaving the Catacombs.

Apart from the major attractions, that I'm sure most people are familiar with, Montmartre is a place in Paris that I was somewhat familiar with before visiting. This is mainly due to it being the setting of the movie Amélie and the number of times I have seen that film. It was great, reliving scenes in iconic Montmartre spots and taking a 360˚ view of where the film characters were. This eastern looking, castel like cathedral is the Basilique du Sacré Cœur, and from its steps was one of the best view points of Paris.

Being such a beautiful and iconic spot, there were a lot of tourists and folks trying to sell anything to this overwhelming market. But this guy, with the soccer ball tricks, was someone I could spare a bit of change for. He was beyond talented. He was 5 feet up on the this square topped pilar, juggling and bouncing the ball on any part of his body, spinning it atop a pencil and balancing it on his head, foot, elbow, knee and even butt, and at one point, we was doing a one handed handstand while balancing it on his foot.

We walked down the hill, Daniel and I lagging behind, to explore the rest of Montmartre to find the girls being best friends.

I'm not sure what the back story is, but they were determined to find an ideal spot (after missing the Eiffel Tower) to twirl and say "Ju suis la mayer fille!" (I'm the best girl!) I am certain that the agreement to do this in Paris originated in high school French class.

Montmartre was a fun place to explore. It is full of unique boutiques with smart and interesting designs. Sure, most things are way out of my price range, but it was still a nice neighborhood in which to walk around, and with its higher than city level view, it reminded me a bit of San Francisco. The picture up there is play on a very well known painting called the Oath to the Horatii. The themes in the original painting, which ironically we saw at the Louvre the following day, are loyalty and patriotism, saturated with machismo. This street artist tweaked it a bit and inserted football helmets, protein powder, and had the men swearing their oath to Gatorade. Pretty clever statement if you ask me.

Leaving Montmartre, we were delighted to walk past this three part jazz group. On a sunny day, with the carousel spinning behind them, the group just made this stroll through the square so much more romantic. I didn't mind giving them some change either!

Paris - The First

2011-06-13T00:18:00.010-07:00

We are in Paris, this wonderfully alive city, and get to stare out to this every evening as we eat dinner. It's just perfect for me since I love these French buildings with their toasted beige brick, slate blue-gray roofs with the slightest slant, and the potted plants marking the windows of those who care to have them.

We've been having a great time in Paris and the last three days has really made me appreciate our decision to hang out here and really spend some time. We've come across a few things that I'm sure we wouldn't have if we had been trying to fit in the major sites and museums. The first thing we went to see was the Monumenta 2011 exhibition at the Grand Palais.

For the last three years, the French Ministry for Culture and Communication have asked a contemporary artist to create an exhibition that fits the title, "Monumenta." This year was Anish Kapoor-Levianthan, a British sculptor born in Bombay, and he exceed what I thought could be monumental. He created this gargantuan installation that viewers could enter and have a unique and sequential sensory experience.

When you first enter through a rotating door, you are almost blind in the sudden darkness and instantly on alert. Your eyes widen as you grasp the scale of what you are in, all the while experiencing faint echos of claps and short bursts of whistling. For the first few minutes before your eyes adjust, the experience is auditory with the grounding of a faint and dark redness all around, only making out the smooth curves of the installation. But soon your eyes are back and you can see three bulbous chambers extending from the chamber you're standing in and the unusual retention of the echos suddenly make sense.

We are in this resonance ball designed to carry sound and at some points, return it to the opposite side of where it was created. Although the crowd was pretty conservative, we enjoyed a few spurts of clapping, whistling and a holler or two. While we were in there, the sun peeked from the clouds and illuminated the glass structure in which the piece was installed, casting the cool lines of steel on our surrounding while showing how opaque the "bubble" was.

After the interior experience, we got to view the exterior. From this view, you can really grasp the size and scale of it. It is massive! While walking around this giant, the things that baffled us while we were inside made sense. We couldn't figure out how the thick vinyl that supported, guessing that there were wood frames on the outside with the vinyl stretched over it. Nope, it's just a giant, inflated bubbled. We also got to enjoy the beautifully art deco interior of the Grand Palais.

I think the Grand Palais was built for the 1900 Worlds Fair, which would have made this type of architecture very fashionable. This staircase also shows how much thought was put into the aesthetic and flow of the design.

Although I'm sure the installation was designed to fit the size of the Grand Palais, having three bulbous spheres jut out into the three wings of the building, I wonder if the chose color of the piece was also to suit the building. If not, it was a very pleasing coincidence. The grayed mint green with the orange-mustard of the building complemented by the bold, eggplant of the installation created a a very balanced, secondary color scheme. Down to this detail, it was one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time and a great way to start things off.

The next day, we caught the metro to the 6th arrondissement to explore the area. The idea was to stop at one park, mosey our way over to another and then on to a very well know area. But, our plans were delayed a bit when we walked up from the metro and found ourselves in the middle of a giant antiques fair.

The ironic thing is that while we were on the metro riding to the 6th, we were hoping we'd find an antique store that day. Lucky us as we fell into streets filled with heirlooms from past generations. A lot of it was the same - old china, antique figurines, old and new jewelry, and furniture. But there were a few that were pretty unique. This is a picture of a table filled with old woodblocks. I can only imagine what kinds of print these went into. I really wanted one.

Here was a stand with natural antiques. He had stuffed birds, preserved insects, bones, maps and tools. It was all quite interesting and very appealing to my geek side.

After the antique fair, we finished our plans and made our way to the Luxembourg Gardens. On the way though, we stopped on 6, rue va de Gráce and saw Alphonse Mucha's studio.

As a refresher, Alphone Mucha is probably my all time favorite artist. He, in my opinion, created the Art Nouveau movement and brought attention the beauty in aesthetic, while also contributing some great, meaningful and thoughtful art to the world as well. We only got to see the outside of his studio, but it was great walking down his street, imagining him walking around, thinking about his next piece.

On our way back to the metro stop from the gardens, we stopped in the drizzling rain at this fountain.

It, by itself, is one heck of a cool looking fountain. But I was more captured by mix of this street cleaner in front of it. With the colors, subject matter and texture of the fountain, I think this fellow was randomly an extension of it.

Yesterday, we had a nice mellow day in the hood. We'll, most of it was mellow. We went to the bi-weekly open air market near our apartment and were overwhelmed by the energy. With the vendors shouting out what they have to sell, and the quick footed crowd, it took a bit of adjustment to jump into the moving stream and get some food. But this wasn't our first market and we made it out with our weeks worth. We ended our day with live jazz along the canal down the street from us. This is where the mellow took over, and we enjoyed listening to the various stages while enjoying the atmosphere.

Vannes

2011-06-09T10:16:00.010-07:00

We spent the last two days in the eastern part of Bretagne in a town called Vannes. We didn’t know much about this town before we got here, but chose it because it was close to the Gulfe de Morbihan, where we wanted to visit. After spending some time in Vannes, we found it to be a really nice town with friendly people, decent weather, great architecture and some very good boulangeries.

Not knowing much about Vannes before we explored it, we soon learned that it is a pretty old town with impressive cathedrals, chateaus and common village buildings.

This cathedral was very similar in style and scale as the one we saw in Quimper, with its spiky towers, detail archways, and numerous gargoyles.

Whenever I see a Chateau like this, I always wonder what it was like to call it home. It’s strange to think about inviting someone over for dinner at this place. “It’s the yellowish beige one on the left with just one room on the top floor. If you pass the church, you’ve gone too far!” I guess I’m trying to say that this is insanely beautiful and overwhelmingly impressive.

But not as overwhelmingly impressive as this. “It’s the one with the moat!” This Chateau was built into the wall that once surrounded Vannes and I can’t help but imagine it being extremely well protected. It was quite a sight to see with the sheer size of the thing, followed by the intricate landscaping and of course, the ever-cool moat.

Here is a picture of that cathedral with the a few buildings behind the wall. I took this picture at the entrance to a nice little park at the top of a hill where we enjoyed some rest and quick sketch.

As I mentioned before, we came to Vannes to see the Gulfe de Morbihan, a bay just south of Vannes, littered with islands with remnants of past societies dating back to 3300 B.C. In the past, there were enough islands to name each one after a day of the year. But with higher water levels, today, there are only about 30 that can still hold their heads out of the water.

Being that there were still quite a few to see, we decided to take a boat tour around to see them up close. In my last post, I mentioned the Bretagne flag. Here it is, proudly flapping in the wind from our boat.

The boat started out slow, making a few stops before heading out to open water. It was a very cold and windy day and despite the sunny weather, we were freezing. To our disappointment, it didn’t get much better than this. The boat tour was about two and half hours long and this church was probably the coolest thing we saw on an island. Other than that, it was mainly these tall, dark trees on flat, yellow land. I guess it just wasn’t the image we had in mind of big, tall, rocky islands jutting out of the deep sea.

But, we enjoyed the tour the best we could and it was cool seeing sailboat about. I realized that I’ve never seen a sailboat sailing up close in real life. So it was really cool when we saw this one whiz by.

As I was taking that last photo, this other sailboat jutted by even closer to us, the members on the boat waving over to us. I’m currently reading a book called, “The Age of Wonder: How the Romanic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science,” which highlights a number of scientists during, mainly, the 18^th century and their contributions to modern science. One of the stories takes place in Tahiti and talks about their voyage from England to the Pacific. Seeing this boat sail by reminded me of my book and put into perspective their voyage.

After the boat tour, we were dropped off at one of the two larger islands for about and hour and half. Unfortunately, again, we made the mistake of getting off on the wrong island and were left to explore the island we were avoiding. Oh well! We didn’t see much, but this old man repairing his boat during low tide caught my eye.

Today is June 9, 2011, and for the past three months, that has meant Paris! We are on our way to Paris right now and will probably be uploading this post from our apartment. We are quite excited to be settling down for a bit in Paris, with a means to prepare our own food and time on our hands to relax and enjoy. More to come soon!

Quimper->Concarneau->Pont Aven

2011-06-07T12:43:00.012-07:00

After a somewhat stressful day of travel, we left the farm and made it to Quimper, on time and without a scratch. Don't worry, the stress was only due to a very late bus that made us miss our train, forcing us to hop onto another train without a reservation. But everything worked out in the end we enjoyed our short stay in the west of Bretagne (Brittany)

Our base was Quimper and we mainly saw it in the evening. This gave us a skewed idea of the city as both evenings we were out and about, the streets were deserted and everything was closed. It also happened to be Sunday and Monday when most things here are closed anyway. But the town was lovely and had the charm of an old, Medieval town. Being close to England, Bretagne has a large celtic influence and it is evident in their architecture and language.

Here, and the first picture, is the massive, gothic cathedral that juts out of the city. It is an amazing piece of architecture and an ideal landmark. I thought it was interesting seeing the juxtaposition of the young boy in pink playing soccer in front of the (probably) 600+ year old church. It's interesting to think about all the generations of people that passed between when there was no church there and now.

Here is just a more intimate picture of the city and its old charm. Windy cobble stone roads, grays and browns everywhere, and a nice mix of wood and stone.

We used Quimper as a base and went to visit a couple of neighboring towns. The first was Concarneau, and from what I've read, it the largest fishing port in Europe.

We originally weren't planning on going to Concarneau, but a few hours freed up in our plans and we decided to throw it in. I'm glad we did because it gave us a better idea of traditional Bretagne. If you look closely, near the front of the boat is a little design. That, and the colors of this boat, are influenced by the Bretagne flag.

The old part of the city is on a semi-island (a moat separating it from land) and totally surround by walls. It was pretty cool walking around town and seeing all the character of the buildings.

Not sure what to say about this one except that it caught my eye and I thought it was cool.

This woman is dressed in, what I understand to be, traditional Bretagne wear. Although I've seen pictures that vary, they all see to have the black and white colors, laced collars (two on the side and one in the front), and the awesome hat that this woman is wearing, although I think the tall, skinny ones are even cooler. She, of course, wasn't just walking around wearing this. She was outside her shop, somewhat on display, but I'm glad she was and that I got to see traditional clothing.

The next stop was Pont Aven. Made famous by Gauguin and his influence there, Pont Aven is a charming village and birthplace of the Nabis, the new-wave Impressionists that dared to take Impressionism close to abstraction. Although, in my opinion, their ideas and work didn't quite line up, visiting Pont Aven and seeing what they surrounded themselves with made me understand why they chose this place.

The town now is filled with artists studios/ shops, cafes, souvenir shops and specialty food stores. But from certain angles, you can get an image of what it looked like before it catered to tourists.

When I hear there was a port, I was surprised since the tiny river running through Pont Aven didn't even seem suitable to sustain much life. So finding this dry docked boat wasn't very shocking when we walked over to the port. The cool thing though, is that upon seeing some Nabis paintings in the Beaux Art Museum in town, there were paintings of dry docked boats just like this. It makes me wonder when they actually touch water!

To wrap things up, we just spent two nights on the west side of Bretagne and now we just made it to the east side, near Normany, and will be here for two more nights. Then its off to Paris!

I'll leave with a couple of night time shots I got last night when we got home. There was something about the lighting and the deserted feeling that caught my attention.

(I want to paint this)

Ferme Marais Girard

2011-06-03T10:35:00.010-07:00

Two weeks on the farm have come and gone. Today is our last day and here is a recap of our stay (more or less).

The farm is located on the west coast of France just under Nantes and has been a wonderful place to call home for a short while. Bernard and Claudie live on and run the farm with their four kids in an old farm house five minutes from the ocean. The area is a mix of old farm land and new developments of beach property; somewhat of a shame, since most of the homes are owned by people who only stay here for one month out of the year.

It’s hard to judge what they grow here, with a lot of the land bundled up into hay piles. Our work has varied a bit, including picking wild poppies to make syrup, foraging for edible plants in the marsh for lunch and working in the warehouse where they make an impressive assortment of jams, preserves, syrups, vinegars and sauces.

But for the most part, we’ve been working with the strawberries. Weeding has become our specialty and although the work can be monotonous, there are some upsides. Growing with the strawberries are shallots and onions and we’re reminded of this by their delicious aromas while digging around and freeing up the nutrients of the land from the nasty weeds. I also found some mint growing, first aromatically and then visually. The other upside is, of course, the reward of eating the uber sweet, perfectly ripe berries.

For the last two weeks, this is what we’ve considered home. Cozy and comfortable, it’s been ours and we’ve enjoyed our stay. The best part: seeing the bright stars on our way back after dinner at the house.

Speaking of dinner, we’ve enjoyed not just the delicious food prepared by Claudie, but eating her delicious food in this specific farm’s location. Most of the time, we’ve eaten lunch outside with the warm breeze on our faces and a fuzzy cat scrounging around our feet.

We also just had a barbeque the other night and it was nice having the whole family together, eating around the fire. Here’s Bernard cooking some sausages at dusk, which, being so far north, was around 8:45.

With grilled bread and no plates, here’s Casey and the family enjoying our meal.

Another night, we prepared dinner and then took it to the beach to have a sunset dinner. It was a perfect early-evening dinner. Bernard even strolled along the rocks to find us some fresh oysters straight out of the sea.

Obviously, being so close to the ocean, and coming from the persistently brisk San Francisco, we’ve enjoyed many a day at the beach after our workday. It’s such a luxury to lie in the sun after lunch, and it only gets better as we roll away from the sun and into the night.

The tide fluctuates immensely here, with a few rocks sticking out in the day and probably 20 yards more of walkable land by sundown.

The oceanscape is beautiful here. There are these beautifully colored rocks, with kelp-covered ones further back towards the ocean, making a map of bright green seaweed and dark, black kelp with the deep turquoise water surrounding it all.

Like I said, it only gets better into evening.

Here’s Casey on the one day we were able to get to the beach after dinner in time for the sunset. Not to be disloyal, but the sunset here rivals that of Hawaii. It has, however, been a long time since I’ve seen a sunset in Hawaii and I'll be a better judge of it in a month or so!

We leave for Bretagne (Brittany) shortly and will enjoy four days of traveling around the north west of France before heading to Paris.

Firenze Ancora

2011-05-26T05:13:00.007-07:00

Back in Firenze! When planning this trip, we went back and forth on whether we should hop down to Italy and visit good old Florence. It was a bit out of the way (with how we planned our routes) and we actually encountered a few detours on the way down, but in the end, it was worth it!

There isn’t much to recap about our time in Italy. The weather was beautiful, we visited some new places and revisited some favorites, and best of all, ate exclusively at the best places in town.

I remembered this guy from when I lived there. It was nice to see him around again, playing some mood-setting tunes for the people enjoying their meal out in the piazza.

You might remember pictures I posted of the Arno from two years ago. The view will never disappoint, especially when the waters are calm and big, puffy clouds are above.

From here on out, it’s about the art. That is what drew me to this city and what still thrives. We were headed back to our B&B and noticed a big banner advertising this show. We hoped in to find amazing pieces like that and counted our lucky stars as it was the last day of the exhibition. It really makes me want to sit down and paint.

While having a drink in Piazza Santa Croce, I noticed these frescos on the building across the square. I don’t know why I never noticed it before, but this time it really caught, and held, my attention. The fading frescos are such a good metaphor for Firenze. It’s a piece of the distance past, showing the beauty and detail of the old society, faded but still holding strong. Somewhat ghostly, yet still striking and capturing. So cool.

Now for Giambologna. I wish I could give a background on this amazing sculptor, but I have yet to dig deep into his background. For now, he was one of the best sculptors of the high renaissance, working after Michelangelo while overlapping his career for a short while.

Here is a sculpture in the Loggia of the Piazza della Signoria. The Loggia is part of the famous Uffizi Gallery and houses some of the best sculptures of the renaissance (in my opinion).

The other best place to see amazing sculptures in Firenze is the Bargello. The museum is entirely dedicated to sculpture and ceramics and was actually the only museum we went to this time around. I might have posted this Giambologna before, but it’s so cool that I had to do it again.

Back story: Two years ago, while I was living and studying in Firenze, I tried to go to the Villa Demidoff in a small town outside of Firenze called Pratolino. The only reason I wanted to visit this villa was to see a very under-known Giambologna. I’ve lost count, but am sure that I tried to visit the villa at least three times. Every time, it was closed for one reason or another and I left Europe the last time disappointed that I missed it.

Well. This time I got to it, with Casey and my friend Eugenio, and THIS was worth the wait! It is a giant sculpture Giambologna did in two years and is officially my favorite work of art. It is something about the juxtaposition of well-polished and raw form that shows the genius of the man. He gently overlooks a pond, pensive and somber. His melting hair and dripping environment suggests he has been here, and will be, for eternity, gently watching history pass by. It is truly amazing.

If you look closely, you can see Eugenio standing next to the gargantuan sculpture on the right. This gives you a sense of how large it is and adds to the incredible feat of creating such a thing. I would love to see this again sometime in a distant future as I’m sure it will only look better.