Finalement

Feverishish

Forgive me if I haven’t responded to your e-mail/messages! Things have been chaotic from my second wisdom tooth extraction up to the past week in Paris, and now I have a pretty bad fever that’s keepin’ me desperately wishing that my cat would give me the time of day (note to self - get a more socially coddling animal next time around). Damn it Snowflake, she won’t stop reclining all the way on the other side of the bed, just beyond reach of what’s left of my feeble body to forcefully initiate some non-mutual affection - story of my life these days. Will update and respond to everything hopefully by tomorrow, but for now I’m mostly sleeping the days away. Theraflu 1, fever 0 ?

Belated: my dad is the best person in the worrrld!

Love you papa! I sent him a pair of Turkish prayer carpets for Father’s Day, who says fighting the good fight for 21 years never paid off.

Papa: this is a prayer carpet.

Jessie: yeah you do whatever you want on it. I was gonna walk on it.

Annnnd les bleus ont perdu le match hier soir. Ce qu’on a vu en sautant de bar a bar dans le marais. I’m mostly sad because I can’t cash in on the adrenaline of being in a city/country whose team is kickin’ it all the way to the top of the world cup, but otherwise, I wasn’t specifically invested in them. What with the questionable qualifying goal against Ireland. More importantly, I got my second tooth hacksawed out this morning. Who needs that glossy flat screen on the ceiling of my dentist’s office when local anesthesia keeps the dream alive with ominous slicing and cracking sounds and the smooth taste of blood swishing around what’s left of the feeling in my mouth? Miro got me pudding and yogurt for tomorrow, mmm :). Paris was beautiful yesterday. I met up with two hungarian family friends and took them to Le Passage Obligé (formerly La Victoire Supreme du Coeur) a few streets down from my apt here in the Marais. Fucking amazing aubergine gratin, might have been better than the asperges/ricotta ravioli I had there the other day. Walking along the Seine makes me really ambivalent about going back to the states.

Annnnd les bleus ont perdu le match hier soir. Ce qu’on a vu en sautant de bar a bar dans le marais. I’m mostly sad because I can’t cash in on the adrenaline of being in a city/country whose team is kickin’ it all the way to the top of the world cup, but otherwise, I wasn’t specifically invested in them. What with the questionable qualifying goal against Ireland.

More importantly, I got my second tooth hacksawed out this morning. Who needs that glossy flat screen on the ceiling of my dentist’s office when local anesthesia keeps the dream alive with ominous slicing and cracking sounds and the smooth taste of blood swishing around what’s left of the feeling in my mouth? Miro got me pudding and yogurt for tomorrow, mmm :).

Paris was beautiful yesterday. I met up with two hungarian family friends and took them to Le Passage Obligé (formerly La Victoire Supreme du Coeur) a few streets down from my apt here in the Marais. Fucking amazing aubergine gratin, might have been better than the asperges/ricotta ravioli I had there the other day. Walking along the Seine makes me really ambivalent about going back to the states.

Surgery: best done in a foreign country?

So I haven’t really been keeping you all abreast like I should have, for which I sincerely apologize, and thus it’s kind of time that I mention this ache that has been bothering me way back since my sojourn in Morocco. My bottom wisdom tooth flared up and started aching to the point that I resigned myself to soft foods. So I figured, I should probably go see a dentist. 

So this guy, right, this guy. He’s tan like I know he’s using this kickin salary to TGV his ass down to St. Tropez on weekends, and he’s also got this thing about multiple extractions at once. Well, I should backtrack. Verdict: I need to get my bottom dents de sagesse enlevé immediatement. In the US I believe it is more common to do the surgery preventivement, and to yank out all four at once, but here they take their time a bit more (of which I am appreciative).

So, okay, whatever. I did too much pre-op reading, probably shouldv’e taken the research down a notch, might’ve quelled the dry socket nightmares. He was insistent, this dentist of mine, on removing them one at a time though, so that I could still eat afterwards. I asked twice if we could do both at once, but the guy won’t have it, so I got the one that has been vigorously troubling me removed this morning. And scheduled another apmt next friday. See if I show up. Just see.

 If you have wisdom tooth stories, please share them! :)

Last friday myself, Jovana, her friend, Victoria, and Mo piqueniqued sur le Pont des Arts (pedestrian bridge) on the Seine - top 5 summer activity ever. The atmosphere was painfully convivial, with about half of Paris’ fun-loving, guitar-strumming, wine-toting kids crammed along the bridge. Love this city when the sun is setting! Missing my Seine runs with Ellie pretty badly though :(.

I move to the Marais in a week!

Diana Al-Hadid Nothing is quite as unsettling as a set of steps you can not walk up… …These steps make me think of the art piece stair case at Istanbul Modern, except these are much cooler.

Diana Al-Hadid

Nothing is quite as unsettling as a set of steps you can not walk up…

…These steps make me think of the art piece stair case at Istanbul Modern, except these are much cooler.

Delightful letters in the mail make finally checking your mail worth it :)

Peter, I got your whimsically wax-sealed letter (finally checked my mail box!) in the mail, consider this great news for your dowry! Ugh, you are amazing, it completely made my day. Expect exotic return kisses via the postal system. :)

So I started Epitech today to earn some solid €€€ on the side, and I used my first class as an excuse to take the frenchies to the Luxembourg Gardens. The sun was out, everything that could have been in bloom was overdoing it, my skin was fully exposed to every harmful ray peeking through the gaping holes in the now defunct ozone barrier, the fountains were spraying nostalgic memories of 2006 Paulinascapades, and the day was completely beautiful. I really do love Paris.

I feel like I’ve seen such an overwhelming amount of natural beauty in the past half year that I just want to spoon the earth all night long, and I thought that maybe everyday beautiful sights might become unimpressive, but the Jardins were looking as crisp and ideal as ever.

stolen from flikr!

Over the weekend I went to the Centre Pompidou with Hannah and Victoria, mmmm love using the EU carte d’étudiant for free entrance, it’s the little liberties that quell the people’s revolt. Speaking of which, have you guys been keeping up with Iceland politics? The Best Party? Yeah? Too good.

We visited the main exhibition (Lucian Freud’s work is up in the expo section), and man, the place is way more vast than I remember it. Overwhelming. We walked through the women’s and sexual commentary rooms first, which is always a mixed bag of statement and shock jock … and thus amusing always :). I kept on thinking back to Istanbul Modern, and how much better the multimedia piece are here than they were there. I saw a few of the Kandinskys we had talked about in my last art class, and also saw a really gross replica of “le repas hongrois.” Don’t ask, don’t tell? Awesomely productive start to the weekend! :)

On Sunday, Vic and I met up with Freja and Miro at Pere Lachaise cemetery, which is incidentally quite close to our most recent location, and scouted out the final resting spots of Edith Piaf, Marcel Proust, and Oscar Wilde. I’m going back next week, Jim Morrison and Bizet and some others are on my list!

Things I should’ve posted because they were of such an astonishing caliber of natural beauty that it would be solangian not to, but forgot about because I was traveling everywhere in between taking final exams, Volume I, la version raccourcie.

So I’ll be the first to admit my blogging shortcomings, chronolgy being one of them. These catch up posts are more for me than anything, assuming I get into some amnesia-inducing freak accident relating to dolphins and my incapacity to just say no, and about a year from now only nostalgic tumblr posts will save me from the prison of my tortured soul. Things I’ve learned from Chris from the State dept: always have a plan A, B, C, and D.

So Provence - my dear mother and I hit up Avignon, Arles (Roman ruins), Orange (theatre), St. Remy de Prov., Gordes, Roussillon, Aix-en-Provence, and the seaside town of Cassis (which had breathtaking cliff formations, or calanques, which we explored by boat). Loved it all, perhaps Cassis best, the tours around the Provence region were awe-inducing. So much natural beauty :)!