Week of March 21st 2011: Euston Tap (London)

My last night in London, we decided to go check out a bar that Kevin’s roommate had recently read about in a magazine. With about 30 beers on tap and over 100 bottles, we knew we’d be able to find something for each of our pallets.

Euston Tap is located in a very small building near the Euston tube station. We actually walked past it a couple of times before we realized where it was. Kevin ran off to an ATM and told his roommate and I to order his first beer. Since neither of us had really seen Kevin too drunk, we decided to order him a pint of Brew Dog Hardcore IPA – the strongest beer they had. When he asked what it was, the roommate made up a genius story about how he just asked for three random beers… even though the two of us managed to get the same one.

Since Kevin loves a challenge, we spent the whole first drink saying that he should try the 9.2% beer to see if he could handle it (little did he know that’s what he already had…). Of course he took us up on it, but he accidentally ordered a half pint so it came in a different glass. He then started telling us how much better his second beer was. It got even better when he got his 3^rd beer, another full pint and then told us how he knew the whole time that it was the same beer all along.

Anyways, without going into a ton of detail, we succeeded in our mission of getting Kevin drunk and we definitely pulled one over on him. Even though I didn’t get to go to the ice bar and we just spent the night telling jokes in a local pub, I couldn’t think of a better way to round out my trip.

Week of March 21st 2011: St. James Park and Hyde Park (London)

Near the end of my trip, once we returned to London, I noticed two things were happening. I was getting a little burnt out from going to museums and London was having exceptionally nice weather for March. I decided to take advantage and spend a couple of days just walking around the city and seeing the greenery.

For being a fairly large and industrial city, London has a large number of really big and well kept up parks. I had wanted to see all of them, but just in case it wasn’t possible, I asked Kevin for his recommendation. He said his favorite was St. James Park so I decided to check it out first. The park literally looked like it came out of a painting. There were daffodils blooming all over and little children running under the shade of the trees. It was just nice to sit and soak up the scenery. I found a nice try to sit under and wrote the first draft of my post on traveling and then decided to read for a bit. While in the park, I also took the opportunity to take some really pretty pictures of Buckingham Palace which is a few blocks away.

The next day I decided to make my way to Hyde Park. Having only seen it on a map, I assumed it would be like the large American parks (having my only reference of one those be Golden Gate Park…) which have several fields and ponds and things separated by groups of trees and paths. Hyde Park, contrarily, was a big open field with a large lake in the middle. It did have smaller recreational areas and stages, but it just wasn’t as segmented as what I had been imagining. By the time I got to Hyde Park, I’d done quite a bit of walking and just really wanted some water. Due to its sheer size, I had to walk a while before I found any refreshment stands, but it was nice to sit for a while and just read once I had gotten settled. I also had my macarons with me so I was able to enjoy a few of those… I only saw a little part of Hyde Park but it didn’t strike me as particularly impressive. The only thing I wish I would have done is go horseback riding but I’m not exactly sure what you need to reserve in order to do that.

Overall, I’d have to agree with Kevin, St. James Park was the nicest. I hadn’t been expecting that since it’s not very big and it’s in a very busy area but somehow they managed to create a really serene escape from the busy city.

Week of March 21st 2011: National Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam)

After the Van Gogh museum, we went to the National Rijksmuseum. The museum was under construction so only parts of it were open. The museum puts you on a pretty natural progression through Dutch works. The first few rooms showcase paintings of Dutch history and famous battles and also include some artifacts. From there, the museum leads you into a room filled with giant, beautiful antique doll houses.  The first floor ends with some Dutch ceramics which is known for its blue and white patterns. I remember a Dutch friend of mine having several ceramics of that style in her home when we were kids.

The second floor was more focused on art and paintings. The first couple of rooms had a variety of still life paintings. I had never thought these were that interesting before but seeing them up close was really remarkable. The paintings were so detailed and realistic, it was pretty incredible. The museum then led you into the rooms with paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Jan Steen and many other famous Dutch painting. However, they still didn’t have the Girl with the Pearl Earring. Spoiler alert – I’ve been to a ton of museums this year and still haven’t seen it so finally I gave up and did a search. It’s in the Hague. I came so close but didn’t go to the right part of the Netherlands…

The last room had Rembrandt’s most famous painting, the Night Watch. It took up a whole wall in the room and there were little guides all around that told you things to look for. It was really cool to find some of the secrets of the painting. One of the most interesting facts was that the painting used to be even larger but was cut to make it fit in a former home.

The museum isn’t particularly large. I know it is being remodeled so it is possible that not all of the paintings are on display. However, I really liked the layout. The museum guided you through room by room and it was very linear. While it is nice to openly explore some museums, it’s also really easy to miss exhibits that way. I probably wouldn’t have tried to see the still life paintings if I didn’t have to walk through them, but they ended up being some of the works I remember the most.

Week of March 21st 2011: The Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam)

I think there are few things more enjoyable than when you get to use a piece of knowledge you once learned and didn't appreciate at the time. I've mentioned before that my art classes in junior high were filled with information on famous impressionist, cubist, modern, classical, and pointillism paintings. The body of knowledge we learned in those three years was extensive.

However, I always hated that we were told to copy famous works of art. While it helped me to learn about them, it seemed stifling to our young creative minds to have to copy something that had already been made. We were then graded on how accurately we could finish the masterpiece in the one hour we were allotted. An hour was never enough time and very few people did well in the class.

Since I've spent much of the last year in and out of museums, I've often wondered whether my opinion was right or the teacher's was. Was the art history lesson worth the sacrifice of freedom of expression?

Well, I found my answer in the Van Gogh museum. The museum itself is pretty remarkable. It is laid out as a timeline of his painting career,  which only lasted for ten years. It went through where he drew his inspirations from and then which artists were inspired by his work. We were led from room to room and watched how his paintings changed as he became more skilled and responded to changes in his life.

The most wonderful thing about the museum was how imperfect Van Gogh's paintings were. Many of them lacked perspective or showed impossible angles, the strokes were rough and uneven, and in many cases the canvas was still showing. Yet all of the paintings were still remarkable. It was the imperfections that made them so unique. It became clear how his work wasn't appreciated during his time but is now celebrated for being so vibrant and distinct.

On one wall, there were two paintings of the same image. It was of a woman working at a well. The first painting was by one of the artists Van Gogh drew his inspiration from, and the second was by Van Gogh himself. Although they were the same image, they could not have been more different when it came to style and technique. One was done in fine, exact detail, and the other showed Van Gogh's rough, expressive brush strokes - and they were both beautiful.

So it got me thinking about those art classes. Even though our teacher was very appreciative of Van Gogh's work, she missed the point of his art. He never wanted to copy other artists - he wanted to be inspired by them, but to make art in his own way. If we had been taught about the different art masterpieces and then asked to paint something that was inspired by one of those paintings, I think there would have been a greater lesson there. Grading young students on how well they can copy art is stifling and uninspiring, but encouraging then to draw inspiration from masterpieces and create their own works of art - then you are really teaching something.

Week of March 14th 2011: The Grand Trianon and Marie Antoinette's Estate (Versailles, France)

Although I had been to Versailles before, I hadn't wandered too far from the Palace and the main gardens. While the Palace is extremely beautiful, I wasn't too excited to go back. It tends to be very crowded and seeing extravagant room after extravagant room gets very tiring. However, Kevin had never been and I knew it was a must see for a trip to Paris.

Since I am a notorious over planner, I spent the week before my trip trying to figure out what I wanted to see. While talking about my plans and the day trip to Versailles with friends and co-workers, I started hearing the same thing over and over again - check out the rest of the gardens and Marie Antoinette's estate.

After a couple of days in Paris, Kevin and I (joined also by Lindsay), went on our day trip to Versailles. I was lucky that they felt similarly to me about the Palace. While it is incredible to see, it's very hard to spend a lot of time in and soon we were on a lovely stroll through the gardens to the Petite Trianon, Marie Antoinette's home away from the Palace.

I had been mostly looking forward to seeing Marie Antoinette’s Hamlet which is located in the gardens behind the Petite Trianon. The Hamlet looks like something that fell out of a Disney movie… in fact, I’m pretty certain that Belle’s house was designed after one of them. Lindsay and I had a blast looking at all of the little structures and picking which one each of us would live in. I loved the one with the balcony and spiral staircase. Lindsay made a wonderful tour guide too. She explained that each of the buildings had a different purpose and acted as a different room in a house so there was a kitchen, coop, bedroom, etc.

We continued our walk around the gardens (and by that I mean we got terribly lost… like, got to the end of the estate and had to back track) until we got back to the Petite Trianon. We decided to walk through it and I really enjoyed the relative (relative to the Palace) modesty of it. However, like the rest of Versailles, there was still quite a bit of extravagance. I was pretty entertained by the over sized billiards table we came across. We all tried to figure out how people a foot shorter than us would be able to play on it. There was also a caption saying that they had been planning a renovation the dining room that would allow the table to be stored in the kitchen so that the servants could cover it with food and then raise it up through a hole to the floor above where the diners would be waiting.  

After that, we checked out the Grand Trianon as well but our feet were aching and there weren’t many rooms open to the public so there wasn’t a whole lot to see. Lindsay had said there was a blue and gold theater somewhere nearby but after looking for a bit we realized it was way out of our way and decided to skip it since it was getting late and Kevin and I still want to go to the Louvre (our 2 day museum pass was expiring!!). That’s the problem with short trips – too much to see and never enough time. Lindsay and I didn’t even get to take Kevin up on his offer to rent a row boat for us so we could paddle through the canals! Next time…

So, if you go to Versailles, don’t get caught up in the extravagance of the palace – make your way around to the rest of the estate. It may sound cheesy, but I would also recommend watching Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. A lot of the film was filmed in Versailles and it will give you a bit of the history behind what you’re seeing.

Week of August 15th 2011: Trapeze Arts

A friend told me recently that I was fearless – not exactly the words I would use to describe myself but it got me thinking. I’m afraid of a lot of stuff… almost comically so. However, that’s never stopped me from living my life. I still love adventures and trying new things. I still love traveling even though the slightest bit of turbulence has me clutching my arm rests and picturing myself plummeting to the ground. It reminded me of a quote I saw once. I can’t remember it exactly but I narrowed it down to one of these:

"Being FEARLESS isn't being 100% Not FEARFUL, it's being terrified but you jump anyway..."

— Taylor Swift

"To me, Fearless is not the absence of fear. It's not being completely unafraid. To me, Fearless is having fears. Fearless is having doubts. Lots of them. To me, Fearless is living in spite of those things that scare you to death."

— Taylor Swift

“The ads all call me fearless, but that's just publicity. Anyone who thinks I'm not scared out of my mind whenever I do one of my stunts is crazier than I am.”

— Jackie Chan

“I tend to think you're fearless when you recognize why you should be scared of things, but do them anyway.”

— Christian Bale

So when I was standing up on that platform, 25 feet above the ground with barely anything to hold onto, I knew there was only one option. No one climbs back down the ladder. So with my heart racing, I reached out and grabbed the bar… and jumped! I swung back and forth once and then the instructor told me to pull my legs up and wrap my knees around the bar, just like I had practiced on the ground. I swung one more time before he told me to let go of the bar and swing upside down, reaching behind me. Finally, the momentum was fading and it was time to reach up, unhook my legs and drop onto the net below. My heart was racing for a long time while I sat on the bench and waited for my next turn, but I’d done it. The next couple of turns were much easier and I realized that I had an easier time dangling from the bar than most people.

After we’d all had a few turns, the instructor told us that now we were going to be caught by another person. We would do the same first steps but this time we would swing into the instructor, he would grab our arms, and we would unhook our legs from the bar and swing by our interlocked forearms. For some reason, this idea got me scared all over again and it didn’t help that the girl before me wasn’t able to complete the exercise. However, on my turn, I was able to dangle again (albeit, a little more hesitantly) and when I let go of the bar and reached behind me, there was the instructor ready to catch me.

The feeling of literally flying in the trapeze class was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever done – more amazing than hang gliding or a roller coaster or doing a tough climb. There was some combination of all of those things though that made it so much more superior… there was the thrill of course, the concept of working with another person, and of course, the challenge of needing to trust your body to go push itself in the most unnatural of situations.

I bought the Groupon for Trapeze Arts on a whim, but I have a feeling I’ll be making my way back there as soon as possible. 

Week of March 14th 2011: Les Invalides (Paris)

I didn’t really know what Les Invalides was before this trip to Paris. On my first trip, I had seen it on a map and gone past it but I just thought it was a big park a few blocks away from the Eiffel Tower. This is what you get when your tour guide tries to distract you so that you can have an epic moment of realizing you are right underneath the famous landmark.

So – after seeing Musee Rodin, we knew we would pass it on our way to have lunch near the Eiffel Tower (something we knew was incredibly cheesy but so is riding a Cable Car and I try to do that every now and then because I live in San Francisco and I can). Once we found a map, we saw that Les Invalides was made up of several buildings containing such things as World War museum, the church of St. Louis, and Napoleon’s Tomb.

Napoleon’s Tomb was the first thing we decided to see as it is clearly marked by a grand entrance with large gold doors. In fact, the doors are so large that they have smaller, more reasonable doors cut out of them. When you go through the doors, you are actually on the second floor of the tomb where you can look down onto it from above. Now, if you’ve never heard the term “Napoleon Complex,” just seeing a picture of his casket should explain everything for you.

After the Tomb, we went to go see the military museum. It was a really cool collection of military armor and weapons ranging from several different countries. It was definitely cool to see the progression of several tools and weapons. I probably took about 20 cannon pictures yet for some reason I didn't upload any of them to Picassa...

 From there, Kevin and I split ways. Since we were both really hungry, we decided he would go see the World War museum (because guys love war and stuff) and I went to check out the church of St. Louis since he is the namesake of the high school I attended. The church was very beautiful but there were a lot of signs discouraging visitors and photography so I decided to be respectful. I figured Kevin wasn’t done with the museum so I went to go meet up with him.

Not surprisingly, he wasn't too far into the World War museum so I looked at the end of WWI and then we moved onto the WWII exhibit. The exhibit was really well done and I thought it gave a very unbiased and detailed  history on the war. As someone who didn't pay enough attention to history in high school, it was interesting to see more about what actually happened.

Week of March 14th 2011: Musee Rodin (Paris)

I’ve been in love with The Thinker since I was in elementary school. This may become evident in future posts, but I was really lucky to go to private schools up until college. Because of this, my education was filled with a lot of fine arts and I always gravitated to the art classes. At my elementary school, it was well known that the 8^th graders got to make a replica Thinker sculpture and that a good portion of the year was spent studying Rodin and making sketches of his work in order to understand the sculpture. I was so excited to do this and then my 8^th grade year was the first time they didn’t do the project. Since then, I’ve had such a big fascination with the statue, the project I never got to work on it.

So I knew I had to go to the Musee Rodin on this trip to Paris. The museum is mostly outdoors in a garden surrounding a chateau. The most famous of Rodin’s sculptures are hidden around the garden. Our first stop, was the Thinker statue where we took our stereotypical touristy, pensive pictures in front of the statue. The statue is well placed near the edge of the garden so you can see the dome of Les Invalides behind it.

We continued around the garden seeing other famous works like Rodin’s Muse and a fountain with several statues around it. Eventually we made our way full circle through the garden and came across another very famous piece, the Gates of Hell. This isn't the best picture but this piece of artwork is truly incredible. It is so detailed and large, I can only imagine how much work went into it. I also did not know until I saw it that many pieces, such as the Thinker, were created as part of the Gates of Hell and then became more famous on their own. 

In the middle of the garden, is an old house. The house stores more of Rodin's delicate, easy to stain marble pieces. It also holds several paintings of his as well - basically, anything you wouldn't want kept in a garden. I took so many pictures in here but a few pieces stood out. There was one of a large hand that was incredibly detailed. I also really loved this passionate scene between a man and a woman. It was a little frustrating because I wanted to get a good look at it but it was blocked by a tour group who wasn't even looking at that particular piece. That kind of thing really gets on my nerve, be respectful of the other visitors. Eventually, they moved on and I was able to get a snapshot.

I'd love to return to this museum when it's a little nicer out. The weather was a little chillier than an SF winter day so it was tolerable but I could only imagine sitting on the lawns on a summer day with a sketchbook and really enjoying the unique set up of the museum.

Weeks of March 14-21: The Food (London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussells)

Ok, as we both know, I am have a lot of posts to write... I'm going on a 5 month lag here and am in the middle of a series on a two week trip I took. I've been trying to think of the best way to organize all of this and since it's hard to remember the exact order of things when you're so far behind, I have decided to do one massive post on the food. So get your eyeballs and stomachs ready because this is going to be a long post about a lot of delicious adventures. I didn't write about every food experience, mostly because I don't remember the name of every place, but here are some of the highlights!