salvador dali

things learned from watching "Little Ashes":

-Spain is still definitely on my must-see list
-especially Andalusia and Catalonia. I love the moorish influence in architecture and decor.
-Salvador Dali is insane...insanely eccentric and awkward and crazy and fascinating. (wiki furthered my education on the subject)
-i absolutely do not get/understand or honestly really like surrealism or cubism. but it fascinates me. does that make sense? my mind is so incredibly logical, analytical and black and white, art like that just cannot be comprehended by my brain. I would choose abstract over surrealism. but i love having a peek into the way someone else's mind works.
-which brings me to my next point. i'm insanely inspired right now to learn about/view more works of art and poetry and films. museums need to be in my very near future.
-robert pattinson is actually a very talented actor. i'm dead serious. it's good to see him in a role where he is not playing eye candy. especially with this mustache:

pledge

I was quite a bookworm when I was little. I went through books faster than we could get to the library or order them at school bookfairs. My grandparents love going for long rides, so when I was staying with them I would sit in the backseat and read quietly for hours and hours. My grandpa would joke every so often "Are you still back there?". I even wanted to be a writer for a while.

I enjoyed most books. Especially historical fiction, books with well developed characters and well described emotions. But there also had to be a well paced plot. Honestly I don't know how many times I checked out a Jane Austen book at the library only to return it unfinished. I could never get through! I think reading was what began my wish to travel, to see the world.

My dad started reading a lot recently when he got a new jobs that forces him to do a lot of traveling. He bought books for the airplane and hotel rooms and audiobooks for when he was on the road. For christmas we got him a Kindle and he LOVES it. But I'm not so convinced. Even though it's small, holds a bzillion books, you can "bookmark" pages and highlight sections...I just can't see how it's the same. I love underlining and post-it flagging pages, the black letters on ivory paper, the smell of new and old books. The cover art or lack thereof.

Studying engineering in college stole most of my precious reading time and I'm sad to say I only read a limited number of books per year. But I'd like to change that. For now I get my quick fix from magazines. As much as I love blogs and the internet, it has not replaced those colorful glossy pages for me. Well styled editorials with things I may or may not (read: never) be able to afford, spark my imagination and suppressed creativity, allow me to see other places. Once I'm out of school and have a more normal routine, I'd love to start reading the newspaper on a regular basis. The instant gratification of the internet is too much for me, I like to have that connection to the outside world in my hands.

So thanks to a little campaign started by esb and cevd, I pledge to read the printed word.

who are you people?

have you heard of Improv Everywhere? They set up flash mobs and random acts of kindness to strangers. It's pure brilliance.

Oh my goodness, how amazing would it be to be welcomed home after long travels by a huge group of strangers with balloons and flowers?!?

Welcome Back from ImprovEverywhere on Vimeo.

(via color me katie. go visit her right now. she will brighten your day. literally)

p.s. 100th post! crazy!

mmmm

can I wake up here tomorrow?

(via paris apartment)

baguette and white wine optional. though desired.

novel idea

I apologize, I don't remember where I found this.

But amen st. augustine.

leavin on a jet plane...

I've been flying on airplanes since I was a baby, and flying by myself since I was five years old (to visit grandparents on the other side of california). I absolutely LOVE flying. It made me feel very grown up, very independent. I've always loved the people watching in airports. The engineer in me geeks out over man's ability to defy gravity and mimic birds. Even as a kid I've always been good at entertaining myself, and being alone. I'm never the super talkative one on an airplane. But I spend my time reading and listening to music, gazing out the window. I require window seats when possible. I also geek out about clouds. I took a meteorology/earth systems science class my second year of college and have been obsessed with clouds ever since. Discovering the inner workings of nature give me a greater appreciation. To be above the clouds during the flight is amazing, especially when you can see the tip tops of mountains peeking through.

I've never flown first class, and the longest flight I'd been on before europe was 5 hours to hawaii.

I'll admit, 11 hours to london was not the easiest thing in the world but there are a couple things that helped make it manageable. Let me just say that Virgin Atlantic is the best ever! My friends flew a different airline (our flights actually left at the same time from the same airport) and my experience sounded infinitely better, even if it might have been slightly more expensive. First thing I secretly loved: British flight crew. I love an accent and it was a wonderful precursor to the place I was going to visit. I flew economy but the seats were quite spacious. I purchased my tickets about 2 months before so I didn't get a window seat, but I was glad to have an aisle seat for bathroom breaks! My seat was close to the bathrooms too, pro: not far to walk, con: there was a lot of people traffic by my seat. I got a blanket and socks, a pillow, toothbrush and toothpaste and I think a notebook and pen. Each seat had it's own individual TV (if any were broken then they would bring you a portable DVD player), headphones complimentary. There were options of tons of movies, tv shows, music stations and games (that you could even play against other passengers on the plane). The food was spectacular. My flight to London was overnight so we got dinner and breakfast plus multiple snacks and all-you-can-drink beverages. The food tasted fresh and nicely cooked, not reheated. They even offered red/white wine (and didn't card! I suppose I was over international waters so laws are different :) ). I highly recommend Virgin, there is not one thing that disappointed me.

3 step travel program

(via lonny magazine winter 09 issue 2)

step 1: visit new york

step 2: re-visit paris

step 3: be traveled enough to agree with the above statement (click to enlarge)

my cousin and ventured out the rose bowl flea market in pasadena today. a must-do for LA residents. I honestly don't know why it took so long for me to make it over there. I realized it's only about 15 minutes from fiance's apt! It only occurs on the second sunday of the month. Last time she went was august and it was miserably hot. we figured "hey january sounds good right?". but then again this is southern california...so it was still warm. 70s with cloud cover...so just be prepared with light layers and sunscreen (i failed on the latter). also bring: CA$H, lots of water, snacks/lunch (that parm soft pretzel and and frozen lemonade really hit the spot but totally not worth the $10 i paid for the meal...fail.) and comfortable shoes! there's a LOT of walking.

there's also great deals to be had. especially if you're a haggler (my mom is pro but i don't seem to have inherited that gene...). 2 dresses, 3 cashmere sweaters ($5 each!), a silk blouse, rings and 2 vintage coats for less than $80. that was a good day for me!

patience is also required. time to really look through boxes and bins and booths and racks. there's great furniture deals if you're prepared to cart that stuff away. boxes and boxes of records (of course the one that i actually wanted ended up only being the album cover with no record). so much jewelry! there were some fantastic sellers with racks upon racks of vintage clothing. we saw tons of leather goods: jackets, belts, purses and shoes. also lots of fur coats.

usually i get too overwhelmed by huge places like fairs and ikea and costco...but antique shops and flea markets have a special place in my heart. probably the result of my parents dragging me through them throughout my childhood. it's a way to purchase your own piece of history, and i plan to seek them out wherever i go in the world. i still miss cambridge's open air market.

memory mural

I don't have the best memory ever. Or at least I have an oddly selective memory that I can't control. It certainly doesn't help me out with school, yet I have nearly photographic images of other random parts of my life.

I wish I could be like this guy. After just a 20 minutes helicopter ride over a city he's never seen before, Stephen Wiltshire can draw the entire detailed skyline from memory. Whoa! Who needs a camera with that kind of talent.

copyright Stephen Wiltshire Gallery 2010

Springboks

I saw Invictus a couple of weeks ago. I suppose it's taken me so long to write about it because it left me a little speechless. It was so beautiful; the scenes, the people, the dialogue, the locations, everything. It was one of those rare movies that really hit me at the core and shook my world a bit.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a movie skeptic. Having a filmmaker fiance' means we spend most of our time watching movies (and legit good ones, although even a film school grad like him can appreciate the guilty pleasure ones). And I'll admit, I'm pretty easily pleased and amused. But there's only a couple movies that have left me unable to describe my reaction. And it's not just because the always amazing Clint Eastwood directed a movie starring the always amazing Morgan Freeman.

I'm no expert on Nelson Mandela. In fact I'm a little ashamed to say I hardly know anything about the guy. (Though I plan to change that, beginning by reading "Playing the Enemy" by John Carlin, on which the film is based). I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the storytelling. Even if the portrayal of Mandela is only 75% up to par, he still goes down in my book as one of my all time favorite people. Although according to this article from comingsoon, Morgan Freeman was handpicked by Mandela nearly a decade ago to play him in a film based on his life. Freeman has been preparing for this role since by spending as much time as possible with the man himself.

Mandela did revolutionary things for South Africa, united a nation heavily wounded by apartheid. I loved his way of thinking, sacrificing popularity with fellow black south africans in order to show white south africans that he could forgive and move on. That the future was more important than a checkered past. Yet I also appreciated that Mandela is not quite painted as a god-like figure. He is not perfect, he is human, as shown by his estranged wife and daughter. He is such a positive person and chooses the right thing over what is easy. It's simply a brilliant film.

South Africa has been on my travel wish list since my senior year of high school when I read "The Power of One" by Bryce Courtenay. A beautiful novel about a white boy who suffered terrible abuse by his classmates in high school and went on to become a boxer and meet some extraordinary people along the way. I haven't seen the film yet, I hear it's not highly recommended though. Johannesburg and Cape Town are two places I wouldn't mind visiting. I also think that South African accents are absolutely beautiful.