pounds and pence

While traveling through Europe we decided to fly rather than take trains. The travel time was much less giving us more time to enjoy our destinations, and for airline Ryanair (recommended by many), the fares were dirt cheap. one of our fares was NOTHING. zero pounds.

sounds all fine and dandy, until you start adding up all the extra fees, charges and things you don't normally think about. they charge you for checking in, checking a bag (that must be under 15 kilograms i think, that's kinda small and i had to do the embarassing unpack stuff in front of the line and stuff things into my uncle and cousins bags and carry ons), food and beverages on the plane are not free, the airports that ryanair flies in and out of are tiny and out of the way requiring taxi/bus fares, no assigned seating (much like southwest used to do) only it was completely unorganized and people would rush the gate because they would start boarding late (and i must admit no one in europe seems to have learned the concept that cutting in line (or the queue) is rude...)

i wasn't impressed and all in all i'm not sure it was worth the money or stress unfortunately. and now, according to this article by The Guardian, ryanair is considering charging to use the bathroom. while paying a pound for a public restroom in london is actually common (just a heads up), it still doesn't seem fair for an airplane where you have no other option.

moral of the story: try to allow yourself enough time to take the train. (you also get to enjoy the countryside)

facially speaking...

Two weeks ago a dear friend and I finally visited LACMA's Vanity Fair exhibit. It was wonderful. A very simple display, the portraits were hung in a single horizontal line at eye level along all the walls of each room. There was a plaque beside each one with the subject's name, photographer and a small description. All were in plain black frames. and it was perfect. no more was needed, any other aesthetically fancy presentation would have detracted from the photos. Most were from places like the National Portrait Gallery in London, or the Smithsonian. So many people I'd heard of, and even more that I hadn't. So fascinating. To be among the work of photographers like Annie Leibovitz, there was so much to be inferred from each portrait. The juxtaposition of celebrity and humanity, these were people just like me. Some looked more like paintings than photographs. There was one room with a whole wall of just magazine covers. There were a couple video screens showing footage of photoshoots. It's a whole different world for most of us. Photos ranged from 1913 all the way up to 2008. These photographs showed progression in hairstyles, fashion, sensibility, glamour and yet still shared so much in common.




the exhibit ends March 1!

get ready for more LA adventures :)

...the cacaphony of mumbai

another country to check off my list is India.
i feel like it's always been tugging at me in the back of my mind.
mainly through movies i've seen.
i want to experience an exotic place like the beginning of a little princess
and the bright colors and grandeur of a parade like the end of vanity fair

and then moving out of its period as part of the british empire,
a film like the darjeeling limited, you can almost reach out and feel the richness of their culture.

(via imdb.com)
i went through a tiny bollywood phase in high school (bride and prejudice is brilliant!)
i mean it's like a musical on steroids, with glorious music and BRIGHT colors

yes, i'll admit, this post was inspired by the academy awards and slumdog millionaire.
it was so wonderful to see a movie about hope, and joy and faith receiving it's due recognition.
it helps me believe that our culture is about more than just the glitz and glamour.

which brings me to my next point.
a little organization called harvest india, lead by a bubbly and joyous man named pastor suresh, full of truth, love, and conviction. I've been in his presence twice, and both times have walked away inspired and teary-eyed. last spring was when i realized that this was the capacity i must go in to experience this vibrant culture.

saving the world?

so i'm taking an environmental policy class right now. and it's FASCINATING. not so much "let's save mother earth" hippie stuff, but "everything is interconnected and is affected by everything else and our very society is on a downhill slope due to anthropogenic climate change unless we start making some drastic changes". it's a little overwhelming at first. but it's becoming clearer that even the tiniest changes will have an impact and be able to spur a chain reaction.

it did however instantly spur an intense desire to get out of my current surburbian location and move somewhere where i don't need a car and can ride a bike/(good) public transportation. (a more in depth post about that later). since moving isn't an option at the moment, i want my next car (the first one i'll buy myself) to be some sort of hybrid. heck, i'm even embracing the smartcars that we all made fun of in europe. biodiesel reduces our dependence on fossil fuels...BUT it still pollutes and with so much corn/grain going toward fuel now instead of food it's causing other economic problems.

it gets better. apparently the US government was one of the only main countries that didn't join the kyoto protocol in 1992. it was because china wasn't joining and they thought it would hurt trade or something lame like that. we're at least one step behind the rest of the developed world when it comes to legislature concerning environmental regulations. which is weird, because the people and celebrity culture are totally on top of the "green fad". there was a great article in the Guardian yesterday about regulating the fashion industry because of "trendy" and "throwaway" fashion is contributing huge amounts of waste to landfills. England has its own "Minister of Sustainability" in parliament. I'm pretty sure we don't have anything like that here.

for once the bandwagon is doing something right for humanity, jump on it America!

recommended reading:
Plan B 3.0, Mobilizing to Save Civilization. By Lester R. Brown.

reason #9438570948375

one of many reasons i desire to visit new york:

(from teenvogue.com's fashion week blog)

ohhh fashion week.
i must tread upon the ground of bryant park and it's white tents.
one of my more girly guilty pleasures.
i scour style.com's runway photos each season for inspiration and ideas.
i just cannot deviate from the masses of women who follow these designers.
not when there's so much creativity, and brilliance and so many different ideas about what clothing and fashion mean.

barcelona

i mentioned the movie "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" in my last post and i feel the need to expand. it was such a beautiful film. first off i'm a HUGE fan of woody allen, love his style. scarlett johanssen and selma hayek are great and i'm becoming a fan of Javier Bardem. There was a bit of controversy apparently because Woody accepted money from Spain's tourism board. but i think it was worth it, that movie makes me want to brush up on my spanish and catch a flight to barcelona tomorrow morning.

i've never really had the desire to visit spain. to me it was another beautiful old european country, but there are plenty of those and i didn't feel any ties to it. plus i'm not a fan of warmer climates. a couple of my friends went to barcelona over a free weekend at cambridge, they loved it for it's beach resort type atmosphere (although i hear the men are outrageously crass and creepy...), again not quite my style.

but the movie painted barcelona in a whole new light. i'm ready to wear loose, comfy neutrals, let my hair hang au natural and spend warm balmy nights drinking wine, sitting at an outdoor cafe listening to the sounds of spanish guitar (one of my guilty pleasures is carlos santana...;D). i want to visit all of antoni gaudi's works, and the picasso museum, and the seaside carnival and art galleries and street markets.

here's some film stills to convince you:







(found here and here)

Beauty Mark

Charlotte Gainsbourg is the epitome of a french woman.
beautiful voice, perfect bedhead, that air of casual confidence
and in terms of general chic-ness, she's the daughter of legendary Jane Birkin

lucky genes


This is from her recent album "5:55"
Her first English album.
she's mainly an actress.
You may remember her as Bob Dylan (Heath Ledger)'s wife in "I'm Not There"


it's going to take a few more trips to paris to emulate that level of fabulous-ness

language

languages are a fascinating thing.
i've always wanted to speak like 10 different languages.
but i never had much motivation to actually learn.
my grandfather taught himself to speak...about 6 languages? (plus english)
(off the top of my head: italian, french, german, polish, russian, hawaiian...)
that amazes me. no formal training. never been outside of the US.
yet he knows the nitty gritty grammatical details and understands how they work.
hopefully i inherited that gene.

the states have plenty of diversity and people that speak many different languages.
but traveling to other countries where english was not the native language gave me a different perspective.
i've been having a desire to learn as many languages as possible and i don't know where (or how) to start.

i have a decent foundation in spanish. i've had intro spanish classes since elementary school but never have been fluent. i've got a good handle on grammar and alphabet and an ok vocabulary (the words escape me after periods of non-use). due to many (lame) reasons, i only took 2 years in high school (the minimum to get into university). only to arrive a UCI and learn i needed 3 years to eliminate my foreign language requirement. so i have had the need to complete basically one more spanish class looming over my head for the past 2 1/2 years. what have i been waiting for?
a. terrified by rumors that UC language classes are insanely intensive. every day of the week for at least an hour during the quarter plus studying outside of class.
b. looking at class websites from past quarters and reading something along the lines of "this class needs to be your priority, it will take the majority of your time and you will not pass if you fail to do so." um...not compatible with civil engineering thankyouverymuch.
c. worrying i wouldn't remember enough to transfer straight into spanish 1C and therefore would have to take spanish 1A, 1B AND 1C. an entire year of intense spanish...and failing engineering.
d. learned from my academic advisor i could just take Spanish 2 at community college and that would count (and be WAY easier...no offense to community college kids but sometimes UC's get their class priorities a litte mixed up)

so d. was going to be the answer to getting that requirement out of the way.
and then i went to europe.

and now i want to learn french and italian. desperately.
so i should just take one of those languages right?
except i have no foundation in those, so it would require starting from scratch with intensive language class. back to square one.

i found UCI offers a condensed version for summer school. basically French or Italian 1AB first session and French or Italian 1BC second session. it's still intense. each class is 3 hours/day for 5 weeks. but it's summer and i won't be taking engineering classes. and a friend of mine expressed interest in taking french before graduation.

so here's the dilemma:
*take spanish 2 this summer to get rid of the requirement?
OR
*take french 1AB and 1BC this summer to learn something new?

p.s. then i saw "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" by Woody Allen and have since been obssessed with visiting Spain, thus spanish...

snap, crackle and pop

sometimes when i can't physically travel, i choose to travel to a different place in time...via music. This has been made infinitely easier thanks to my rad christmas present: record player that also converts vinyl to MP3.

(via apartment therapy)

now i can spend more time with friends like dylan, springsteen, elton, the stones, bb king, muddy waters, the beatles, neil young, arlo guthrie, joan baez and other ridiculously brilliant musicians currently hanging out in my inherited record collection. maybe its just me, but i much prefer the sound of a record over a cd. it sounds more...real? i can't describe it. it so raw, unaltered...like i'm listening to it being recorded in the next room.

urban outfitters always seems to know what's up. they're currently offering both old and new bands on LP. for pretty decent prices. even though the older records aren't vintage, they're still good albums that are hard to find for cheap.



(from UO)

Joy to the world!

mr. florian kaps, you are my hero.

polaroid has been brought back from the dead and i can once again instantly document travels.
(jen gotch has spread the good news)

home:






oakland:

newport beach:


hollywood:

(all polaroids by me)