Throwing Stones

The other day I was mildly stoned and running. I had a thought, and it was pretentious. I thought that if someone I knew were struggling in life and looking for cheap wisdom I would tell them this: Find something difficult to do and learn to love failing at it.

The Crazy Horse Saloon

So I'll try now to catch up on what happened in Paris.

On Wed 11/16/11 Angela and I had tickets to the Crazy Horse. Having scouted the location earlier we knew to take the metro 9 to the Alma Marceau station. From their we went the the George V Cafe and had a lovely relaxing dinner.
This was the coldest night during our stay. After dinner Angie and I walked around to kill some time and wait for the Eiffel Tower to light up. It sparkles wicked crazy every hour on the hour. At 20:00 it went off and we attmpted to pose for photos. It was foggy though so our photos didn't come out exactly as we would have wished. Here are some blurry approximations.



The Crazy Horse Saloon
Was the main attraction for Angela. She has spent a great deal of time in the last 5 years studying burlesque and cabaret and so many things lead back to the Crazy Horse. It was with much excitement that we walked into the lobby. We had purchased the medium level ticket package at 100 Euros. This included admission and a 1/2 bottle of Champaign. After we had purchased the tickets Angela wondered weather it might have been worth it to throw down another 20 Euro each to get first tier seating. It's not like we'd have the opportunity to go again very soon. I had soothed her by telling her there would be no bad seat in the house.
Once inside we were ushered down stairs and led to a coat check. After the coat check we were lead to the management table, where we had been informed the manager would assign our seats. I had a good feeling that Angela's look would go over well, and it sure did. As soon as he saw Angela in her flowing red formal gown he exclaimed "Oui, Oui, Oui!" he examined our tickets then and said, "You are getting complimentary upgrade, for style!"
We were led to the front of the seating with no one between us and the stage. Our adorable bottle of Campaign awaited us.
The waiter came and opened our bottle and a pushy photographer tried to sell us ugly keepsake photos of ourselves. We annoyed her greatly by not buying them. C'est la vie.
Soon the show started and it was stunning. The show consisted of tits, lights and bodies moving on conveyor belts. They have elevated cabaret to something spectacular. I would love to go back, it was easily worth what we paid and more.
After the show we were happy and enjoying the champagne buzz. We hoped on a couple of metro lines and wove our way to a gay bar which we thought was called Raid with and extra D, or Raidd, which we found out later translated as Stiff. Smack palm to forehead, of course. Devin and Dylan were already inside waiting and drinking. It felt like such an achievement to meet at a destination in a foreign city after not seeing each other all day and no cell phones to guide us. Apparently people used to manage such feats all the time.
We had a couple more drinks then soon grew tired from the long days and odd hours. Gay dance clubs it would seem are not much different in Paris or Los Angeles.
We headed back to the Metro and to Vincennes. We stopped for Pizza and Crepes on the way back to the apartment. It was a chilly walk but it felt nice to be alive in it.

And then eventually we were asleep.

This could be the start of a beautiful

Sunset

Anderson the turkey

Orange you glad its a holiday

Sleep was deep and delicious last night. We arrived here at Angie's grandma's house just after 10. We ate cold fried chicken and drank beer. We both fell asleep in our reclining spots at opposite ends of the couch.

We woke up early and started cooking. The turkey is in the oven and grandma is down for a nap.

Fun

Sneaky blurry

Not sure banjo and G-ma would pose for a photo so I'm being sneaky! The turkey just went in.

Angie and G-Ma!

Turkey day begins!

Time ticking down

I walked through the chatue de Vincennes yesterday afternoon. It's quite a large compound with a moat, castle and keep. It was cold so I didn't stick around for the tour. We have a large tub in the timeshare, so I had a bath to warm up after my walk. Angela was already in the process of prepping her self fabulous. Last night was my first chance to dress up so it was exciting. Angela wore a formal gown and I had a sparkly purple bow tie. It felt nice.
Once ready we shlepped it down to the metro line one and transferred to the 9. The metro exits with a nice view of the Eiffel tower. We found a little cafe near the crazy horse saloon where we had a nice dinner. Or waiter was lovely and very kind and very interested in angela's tattoos. Angela had ravioli and I again had a croque mosiuer (sp).
After dinner we wandered around some and waited for the Eiffel tower to pop. Once it did we went to the crazy horse, I will talk about that and raidd bar later, we are leaving.

Morning off, big night tonight

Angie and I decided we would take the morning off and catch up on rest and just enjoy "being" in France. Devin set his alarm for 8, and then it went off every 10 minutes until 8:45 or so. Angie got up and made coffee so the boys could get up and make good on their plan to hit the town early. Angie and I walked to the market and the bakery to get breakfast. Its been surprisingly cheap to shop for little bites in Vincennes. After eating we laid back down and promptly fell back asleep. It's now afternoon here and I'm starting to really perk up and get excited for tonight. Angie and I have tickets to the famous cabaret crazy horse tonight, it has been a big dream of angela's to go there. We plan to have a nice dinner on our way to the crazy horse and then meet the boys at a gay bar called Raid afterwards.

Yesterday we started off by visiting laura at her office, we had a late start though so we missed having lunch with her. After a brief stop for photos at the arc de triumph we went to the crazy horse box office so that Angela and I might buy tickets. We then spent a couple of hours shopping on the champs de élysées.

We were hungry, as a tourist gets, and stopped in for a bit of pizza and beer. The beer was nice so we had a couple. Wile eating and drinking we made a plan for our next activity, though it was late in the day we thought we would go to the catacombs. We hopped on a metro that ended up being an elevated train as opposed to an underground tube and it ran the closest we had been yet to the Eiffel Tower, truly stunning to see from the train, we appeared to be the only people on the rush hour train that cared to look as we went passed.

When we finally found the entrance to the catacombs they were closed sonwew stopped into a cafe for beer and cocktails. It was happy hour which was fortunate for our pockets. The little cafe was rather cute.

We were beat from a day of tramping about so we headed back to our room. I picked out a random cheap bottle of wine at the market which turned out to be very good. We drank our wine and soon fell asleep. I woke up wide awake at 4am and my tossing did the same to Angela. It took hours to get back to sleep, and as soon as I did devins alarm started up. Oh boy!


I just cleaned the apartment and now i'm feeling like a quick walk through the Bois de Vincennes.

How to say yesterday in French

I don't know.

Yesterday we woke up a touch hungover from our first night out. We met a local named dero who owned 4 hotels on Sunday night. He bought us a beer and took us back to his house where he gave us expensive wine and then turned into an asshole. When he told Angie she should not talk because she was annoying we decided to leave. Good wine though.

So we woke up yesterday to a breakfast of leeks and eggs prepared by Devin. Delicious! We took the metro to the chatelet les halles stop and walked along the seine to Notre dame. We walked through Notre dame and took many pictures for mom. It was big but didn't make me the so much about god. After Notre Dame we bought croque monsiurs and ate them on a pont over the seine. Devin had a hot dog. ;)

After breakfast we ate some famous ice cream and walked and walked. We ended up at a museum of modern art with a name I can't recall. We paid three euro to take an escalator to the top where we could watch the sunset. We stayed until the light show at the eiffel tower went off, pretty!
We were pretty beat so we had Indian food and called it a day.

We woke up late this morning, I woke up first. I went to the market and bought bananas, grapes and cheese. I then went to a bakery and night croissants and a baguette. Angie was up making eggs and potatoes when I returned, Dylan and Devin woke up shortly there after and we all ate.

Now we showered and prepped and we shall head to meet Laura Conrad, who was in devin's class at natoma, who was briefly my girlfriend in the 6th grade who now lives in Vincennes per chance just one block or so from our time share.

Au Revior!

Also yesterday is hier

Arrived and rested

The super shuttle picked Angie and me up at 6:20am and uneventfully drove us to LAX. It was overcast and Los Angeles was damp from a nice overnight rain, as if we had given the city a bath so that it would be nice and clean when departed. I'm sure we can trust Angelenos to keep it that way while we are gone. Security and bag checking was a simple affair and we then had plenty of time left to have a sit down breakfast. Fence toast for Angela, of course, and a breakfast burrito for me.
The first flight was to Chicago, after boarding Angela sussed that our flight wasn't totally fully and that we should grab the empty row in front of us, we did and it was a bit a fight to hold on to our empty seat while a group of stragglers boarded but it proved to be very much worth it. We had a row of three seats which allowed us to lay across one another and really spread out. The flight to Chicago was even faster than advertised so we arrived in Chicago in just over three hours feeling pretty spry and excited.
The chicago airport is good as far as Midwestern airports go. It's large and has plenty to look at on a lay over. We ate a snack and then walked laps for the duration of our time there. Angie has never technically been to Chicago so I was trying to find views through the window to give her a glimpse of what she's missed. I think I found sears tower, do they still call it that or is it like the Verizon tower now? I know those corporate types are big on buying up naming rights and I can't imagine sears still has that type of weight to throw around.
Our flight to Paris left on time, and was sadly full. Our row was perhaps overfull as we had a rotund rita sitting in our third chair. I was a little relieved that this woman spilling over her chair was French, and not a typical overfed American tourist, at least I didn't have to grapple with my sense of national embarrassment as well as a strangers back fat. Angela rode next to Rita for the first few hours, till the leaning had killednher back, I then switched with her. I was mad at Rita for the first half hour, but then I decided it wasn't her fault, after all my legs don't really fit in the allotted space either, so I forgave the fatty on my row and blamed the airline in my mind, after that she just became a nice comfy pillow to lean against. On the flight I watched parts of mr poppers penguins, which was pretty stupid. I had rented "the change up" through iTunes prior to leaving, which turned out to be extremely funny. I watched it nearl 3/4 of the way through the trip while everyone else slumbered and it made me feel a touch awkward to be convulsing with stifled laughter while everyone else around me slept. The flight was a touch long and uncomfortable, but not unbearable and finally at 8am (11 pm la time) Paris time we arrived.
We got our bags and made our way to an info counter where we learned our train was under construction for a couple of days and not running. We would need to catch a shuttle to a different platform, this was confusing and a bit stressful but not as hard as it could have been. While on the bus and the train a couple of different American sought out our council on how to get were they were going so I suppose we gave off a false sense of confidence.
We switched trains at the chatelet les balled station and soon found ourselves in vincennes.

Ok my dinner is on the table, which through a strange turn was prepared as a brunch by my girlfriend from the 6th grade. More on that later.

Chicago loves america!

One flight down

Walking around the chicago airport mentally preparing to not hardly move for the next 8 hours.
Watched larry crowne on the firs flight and actually really enjoyed it. Rare to see a decent film on a flight.

Coming Clean Before Leaving

I heard on the radio the other day that there are only two stories to be told. Someone comes to town and someone leaves town. I don't much care for the over generalization of the arts but I pass it along from the comfort of a hollywood laundry all the same. I have one more day of work before I leave for a week. I'm ready to get a break from my job and my co-workers. I'm ready to sit somewhere foreign and picture a map of the world and think about how far away I am from my daily life.

Short/Long

I'm waiting for a bus this morning but I'm really waiting for a plane.