The 80's are bitchin'!

As some of you know, Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year. All year I wait until the perfect couples costume comes to me and then hopefully buy the costumes in September. However this year I had NO IDEA what John and I should dress up as this year...time to stress! Right when my stress was starting to peak I got an invite from my friend Ellie that she and her boyfriend were having a joint birthday party with her boyfriend and it was an 80's theme party. How sweet is that? At least now I had some sort of direction for our costumes!

So what do you think??(Nice of me to move the laundry basket out of the way right? At least they are clean clothes!)

We arrived to the party late as we had a Cal Poly football game to go to, but when we arrived the party was hopping!

Steph and Sam gettin' down

Unfortunately Mr. Miyagi's mustache did not want to stay on longer than 10 minutes and apparently tried to make a break for it, but got distracted by the sweetness of the cupcakes.

Mr. Miyagi and the birthday girl...showing Daniel Son his moves.

Rockin' out to some MJ.

What is this? How did this little buddy get on this small wine bottle?

Near the end of the night we got 'rained' out, but luckily it stopped before we had to bike ride home.

Paris Day 1

I finally got around to looking through the first day of photos from our trip. Here are a few to wet your appetite. I'm hoping to get the some of them uploaded to ofoto this week, but right now they are uploading at a snails pace.

Outside of the Louvre
One of my fave paintings in the Louvre. I was so excited that I found the right room. Can you believe the scale?
Venus.
After the Louvre we walked down to the Arc.
On the metro.
The tower.
I loved all the metro signs throughout the city and I tried to take photos of all the ones I saw.

Hopefully more photos to come!

Nice #1

On the train ride to Nice the scenery reminded me a lot of Cinque Terre. I don't know why that surprised me because Cinque is right down the coast.

It was overcast when we arrived which was a bummer but at least it wasn't raining. We were starving so our first stop was lunch. we split a gigantic cheese pizza, which was great and cheaper than Paris.


We also found a funny typo on their menu.



Next we headed down to the water/main walkway where we noticed there was a hill towards the East that was calling us to climb it.


The view was really great but I only imagined how blue the ocean normally looks on a sunny day. There were actually a few people in the ocean despite the weather. I did touch the water (without falling in...John has video) and it seemed pretty warm. Also did you know that the beach is all rocks? The only sand was two small man made areas. So bizarre.

For dinner we headed into the old town and went to a place that looked touristy but had quite a few locals. Directly to our right were three young ladies where two of them dominated some linguine with mussels. The third however just sat there and smoked and texted. I didn't even think she was with them but she got up and left with them.

Right next to us on our left were two dudes who totally cracked us up. First when we sat down there was a plastic bag on our table that looked like someones leftovers. Come to find out it was the dudes next to us and apparently they didn't think we minded their bag on our small table?

A little while later one of the dudes knocks his bread basket on the floor towards us, which I think he apologized for but who knows? You know I couldn't understand a word either of them were saying!

We get our food and it was outstanding homemade pasta. I could not eat it fast enough. Apparently it looked like it was giving me some difficulties as the guy next to me pointed to my spoon and rambled something in French. I told him 'oui oui' and then continued to fight with my noodles sans spoon. Regardless of what that dude thought I am not a pasta rookie!! I just see no point in the spoon when i have twirling skills.

As we were finishing up our meals the dude diagonal to me accidentally nudged my leg. He then began apologizing and then grabbed his knife to protect himself from John if John thought he was making a move. So funny.

After dinner we set out to find a ice cream place mentioned in one of our travel books. We found one of their locations but it was closed so we went to the next best thing...a chain called Pinoccio's. It actually was pretty good as we wound up going there every night...however I would say they served ice cream not gelato. Regardless it was still tasty.

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Arles #3

To start off our second day in Arles we checked out the local 'farmers' market. We could not believe how big it was and it was so neat to see the different things they sold. It was more like stores set up mini stores. For example the butcher set up shop with a complete refrigerated case on the street. Other highlights include cheese, olive, spices, veggies, and breads. There was so much variety and the quality looked really good. All of the old ladies were there early and would run you down if you were in their way. There were even a few different vendors who were selling paella on the street. Gigantic pan and all. We tried some and it was pretty good. Not sure if it was because it was 10:30 in the morning or what. Here is a photo. It isn't that impressive.


I did think a gypsy was following us through he market thinking that we were going to be her next victims but no such luck for her! We did see some police but they seemed much more interested in the roasting chickens than the gypsies.

After the market we headed to the coliseum which was in the middle of the town. It was really neat and they currently hold bull fights in it.





Today was such a nice relaxing day. We strolled to a coffee shop that was recommended in one of our travel books. It was tucked in a total locals neighborhood where the only tourists we saw were lost ones. The cappichinos were good and we had some great people watching. I even saw my first pommeraianin chein! It was soooo cute.

After walking around some more we decided to go to the ice cream place we went to the day before. Once again it was tasty.


We also finally found a decent priced clothing store! I cannot tell you how many shops I've seen where their cheapest item in the window is 115 euros. As some of you know I did my best to hardly buy any clothes this year so I could by some on this trip. Apparently the cheapskate in me still won't let me. But that all ended when we found this shop!! I was able to get a few different shirts for 29 euros each. John even found a total euro sweater with a gigantic collar, which i think makes him look like Bruno.

After our shopping we needed to refuel so we went to a pizzeria near the coliseum. Let me tell you that it was so good.



It was a four cheese that included goat cheese. Did I tell you that I have been getting goat cheese with every meal? Who knew it was so good here and who knew they serve it on everything? John said when we get back home I can get a goat for our five feet backyard so I can started making my own cheese. Sweet!

It also looked like either the owners or waitresses dog was hanging out in the dining room...just napping.

We continued our shopping excursions after lunch to get a few more souvineers and tasty treats. I had been seeing meringue everywhere around here so I decided to buy some. Not a little cookie but a giant piece! It was really good but of course I got too much.



John on the other hand decided to get callissons which we saw on the Anthony Bourdain special. Those are the little triangle candies in the photo. They too were really good.

Overall we really enjoyed our stay in Arles. Now we are on a train heading to Nice and I think my seat is too close to the bathroom, if yeah know what I am sayin'.


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Arles #2

We were able to spend two days in Arles and really enjoyed it. On the first day we were able to visit most of the main tourist sites. We started at the Arles museum which was really interesting. It had a great history of the town and had these awesome dioramas of the roman structures that used to be erect in the town. There was a huge amphitheater, coliseum, forum, and circus Maximus. They had bits and pieces of the roman buildings on display but the dioramas were my fave. They even had a special exhibit where they showed all of these under water excavations from ship wrecks. They showed a mini video of the process which I really enjoyed as well. The majority of their findings were wine and water ceramic jugs and a sarcophagus.

Another tourist thing we did during the day was go on a Van Gogh walking tour. There were about ten marked locations where Van Gogh had painted. The city of Arles had even installed markers in the ground that you could follow to make sure you were going the right way. Pretty cool. I think we made it to all of them except two. One pathway we took was by the river which was really pretty except it totally stunk of dog poo!!! Apparently the peeps in Arles do not pick up the poo after their dogs. It was everywhere!!! The painting landmark we were going to see was a Starry Night. (not the starry night). Near the location there was some ruminates of a bridge. Kind of neat. Also near by was a group of old men in a park playing a game similar to bocci ball but on a smaller scale. We saw some men play it in Paris too so apparently it is very popular here.

Anyway, I did recognize most of the paintings that were featured on the walk. Yeah for all of my art history classes and for tuition money well spent! I only took one photo with my phone of one of the locations and it isn't the right angle of the building either. Sorry! It was so neat to be able to stand there and see the same view of van Gogh. I have never been able to do that with any artist before and I feel very fortunate to have ben able to do that with one of my faves.



After our hours of site seeing we were really hot and sweaty. (it is definitely more humid here than Paris!) Our hotel advertised it had a pool so John and I decided to check it out. It was a mini pool that was indoors and on the bottom level of the hotel kind of odd and kind of awesome. We had to pay extra to use it but it was well worth it and so refreshing! We even used the sauna for a bit but it made me feel clostrophbic. I now know I do not like to breath in warm air.

Before dinner we decided to have cappichinos since we didn't get ones at lunch. Guess who couldn't fall asleep that night?



Here are two photos from my dinner. (I am reposting them now that I have time to write). The first one is of my salad and the second one is of my desert.





That creme brûlée was the best I have ever had. I cannot believe how good it was and am mad it isn't that good in the US. Oh well.

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Arles #1

During our mid day break today John and I decided to check out our hotels mini pool in their mini spa. As result we took a nap = no blog for you. Sorry!

So far we love Arles. It is such a cite, quaint town and reminds us of sienna. We walked all over the town today and got to see a lot of locations of where Van Gogh himself painted. Including be cafe below which he painted cafe terrace at night.



Arles is also a town that used to be he main town that connected Rome and Spain. As a result there is a coliseum in the middle of town and any other Roman ruins. It is fascinating.



I forgot to take photos with my phone in the first half of the day but I did try to get some more food photos for you that were asking.












I will try to wrote more tomorrow but on Sunday we head to Nice and I will have quite a few hours on the train to write.

Hope you all are doing well!

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