There's no place like home.

Three train rides and three plane rides later, I'm finally home. For now I'm going to make the most of my time here, but I'll be sure to give the details of the successful trip home later. 

There weren't any serious issues on the trip (besides another scare at the beginning involving my first train connection), but it certainly would have been easier to go home The Wizard of Oz style.

Le Marché de Noël

Last weekend Pierrelatte had their annual Christmas market, so I decided to meet up with the other assistants on Saturday for a pre-market picnic by the lake. I have very few pictures of the other assistants, but this one was taken on our way to the lake.

Me, E, K, C (the Spanish assistant), and M (another American assistant)

We walked for at least twenty minutes to get to the lake and it reminded me a lot of Freestone Park. Personally I still think I prefer Freestone, but it was nice to go somewhere new. It was also super cold. While we were shivering over our sandwiches, someone made the comment that we would be the only people crazy enough to go to the park for a picnic in winter. 

Me and an underwhelming tree

Sheep

Why is it called the Palais de Tokyo?

While in Paris, we visited the modern art museum at the Palais de Tokyo and although I wasn't very impressed with their collection overall, I did find a few things that I liked. 

For one thing, there were groups of kids in the museum taking part in a sort of "art camp" where they learned about the different types of paintings and got to make a little art book as they went along. It was quite adorable.

Neat Eiffel Tower painting

My favorite color is yellow, in case you weren't aware.

In Ardeche there are wild boars called sangliers (kind of like the javelinas back home). This painting of one seriously creeped me out, not only because it's pretty gruesome, but also because I had already seen a dead sanglier on the back of someone's car. After I got back from vacation, I saw another dead one in a rowboat that three guys were taking down the Ardeche canyons and then later another sanglier ran across the highway in front of our car. That's three sanglier sightings in one month!

I didn't care very much for most of Bernard Buffet's paintings because they seemed like animation from a Tim Burton film but more gruesome. I did like this homage to Francoise Hardy though.

The most entertaining/odd part of the museum was a 90 minute video they had playing of a man sitting at a desk smashing objects with a large rock. We only started watching it toward the end, so you can see what a mess there was.

The rock

Here is a quick video I took of a portion of the film. If I recall correctly, it was aptly titled Smashing. 

Ooooh!

Here's what it sounds like when the Eiffel Tower lights up.

Almost as good as the last time I saw it sparkling.

Then:

Now:

Debbie Reynolds

Debbie Reynolds is such a doll. I saw this movie called Give a Girl a Break years and years ago and I can't find it anywhere. I guess What's My Line? will have to suffice for now.

Parler anglais tue... :\

I've joined a couple of groups on facebook of other people doing my program in France next fall and someone posted this video -- I just had to share it. :)

Parler anglais tue by e_pineiro

Rebecca Black, The Beatles, Tyler, and Youtube

First of all, I've been waiting all week to post this:

These lyrics are eerily similar -- coincidence? I think yes. But it still amuses me.

Second of all, "you know what today is?" Tyler's birthday!

This is one of my favorite pictures of him as a little kid (besides the one of him on the floor as a baby when the camera angle caused him to ask his parents years later why they trapped him in a hole). It was taken in Rocky Point and the photo timing couldn't be any better.

In honor of Tyler, here is a silly youtube video.

Have a great day, babe!

Are you a mod or a rocker?

I think I actually squealed when I saw that A Hard Day's Night was up for instant streaming on Netflix. I don't think I've watched this movie since I was 10. Some of the humor definitely went over my head back then (i.e. Ringo simply smiling and giggling when a journalist asks him what he likes his girlfriends to wear).

200, 1... 2... 3... Sleep!

Yes, this is my 200th post and yes, I am posting a kitten video.

Top Eleven Bonnaroo Moments

Since writing posts about every amazing aspect of Bonnaroo would take ages, I decided to break it down into just the main highlights.

1.

Through a friend of a friend, we managed to procure guest passes that gave us special access to guest camping, free showers (general admission paid $7 a shower!!!!), better/more reasonably-priced food, chance celebrity sightings, some priority seating/sound stage access, cleaner porta-potties with shorter lines, a sneaky pathway to bring in our own alcohol from the campsite (otherwise we would have been paying $6 for a beer), and backways throughout the festival to avoid the massive crowds. After we got back to AZ and were sitting in rush hour traffic, Tyler said, "I wish we had guest passes for life." Then I reminded him that we could get in the carpool lane and all was well.

2.

Taking an RV to Bonnaroo turned out to be an excellent idea. Running water, refrigerator, a place to sleep, crazy pictures of families camping and enjoying the outdoors on the exterior of the RV... what else could you need?

While we were picking up our guest passes, another group was thoroughly entertained by our RV, so much so that they decided to add their own touch to it, taping Eminem faces to the back and writing a speech bubble for the two girls on the door saying, "Hey sis! Look at all those hippies!!!"

3.

Guest camping was just a few minutes away from the festival. We talked to one person who said that they had to take AN HOUR WALK from their general admission camping to the festival. Yikes.

4.

Adult Swim hosted carnival games, including Balloonicorn Blowout where Tyler put a unicorn helmet on and attempted to pop ten balloons in 30 seconds. He managed to get seven and earned some sweet shades as a consolation prize. I would post the video, but I don't think I would ever be forgiven.

5.

Arcade Fire was amazing! The crowd was enormous and we had seats in the guest bleachers where we danced around like crazy. I've never seen Tyler so happy at a concert before and I started jumping up and down when they started playing my favorite song of theirs as the last song of the encore. Unfortunately I'm singing very loudly in that particular video clip, so that will never see the light of day, er, internet.

6.

Celebrity sightings! In our time in the guest compound, we spotted Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (seen in the picture above with two body guards), Mumford and Sons giving an interview (see video), and Donald Glover. Much to Tyler's dismay, I walked up to Donald Glover, said hi, and made Tyler come over and say hi too. He was really nice and cool about it. But then I spent the next several hours feeling embarrassed and slightly mortified myself. I don't know what possessed me to do it because I would never ordinarily have the guts to just walk up to a celebrity. I guess that's just what having a special wristband does to you. Yeah... I still feel embarrassed.

7.

Alison Krauss was the main selling point for me when we were first thinking about buying tickets for Bonnaroo. She did not disappoint.

8.

Mumford and Sons was absolutely incredible. We read later that there were more than 50,000 people in the crowd. It was hard to believe that they only have one album so far with the number of people there belting out every lyric. They ended their encore with Old Crow Medicine Show and Jerry Douglass, playing a ten-minute rendition of "Amazing Grace" that gave us all goosebumps.

9.

Fried Oreos. They were gooey and delicious and worth every calorie.

10.

People watching. It doesn't get any better than people trying to channel Woodstock and act like hippies all weekend. I wouldn't have thought that Galactic and hippie-dancing go together, but apparently they do. Now I need to learn how to dance with a hula hoop for next year.

11.

The first night while waiting in line for the Silent Disco, I saw something in the sky that looked a lot like the floating lights shown in the movie Tangled. I didn't think that people actually launched sky lanterns, but lo and behold they do! Now we're trying to devise a way to launch our own sky lanterns without starting another forest fire.

Here is what we saw:

Thursday:
River City Extension
Freelance Whales

Band of Skulls

J. Cole

Sleigh Bells

Childish Gambino

Friday:

Phosphorescent

Matt & Kim
The Decemberists

Florence + the Machine

My Morning Jacket

Arcade Fire

Big Boi

Ratatat

Saturday:

Chiddy Bang

Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas

Mumford & Sons

The Black Keys

Buffalo Springfield

Eminem

Scissor Sisters

Girl Talk

Sunday:

G. Love

Neon Trees

Galactic

Iron & Wine

Cold War Kids

Explosions in the Sky

What's my Line?

I love finding videos of old movie stars from interviews and television. My posts have been pretty video-heavy lately, but I can't help it -- these clips from What's my Line? are all so good! Elizabeth Taylor made me laugh out loud. I could watch these clips all night, but I need to finish packing for Bonnaroo!

Disney and Dali

After showing Tyler my new favorite tumblr, we started doing a little googling to try and figure out why Walt Disney and Salvador Dali were hanging out and being awesome together. Dali is one of our favorite artists and we were delighted to discover that these men were collaborating and creating a short film.

According to the sources we read (thank you, wikipedia), the story boarding had been mostly completed but the project got dropped after eight months due to some financial concerns. When Disney started working on Fantasia 2000, they decided to finish what had been started. The short "Destino" is apparently on special editions of Fantasia 2000, but you can also watch it on youtube!

Again, according to what we read, it is a love story between the mythological character of Chronos (personification of time) and a mortal woman. (Chronos is apparently quite different from Cronus.) It is a pleasure to watch and Dora Luz's voice is enchanting.

I can't believe that it has been three years since our visit to the Salvador Dali museum in Figueres, Spain.

Like the book says, "Everyone should consider the museum as a work of art in itself." It was an incredible place that I would love to visit again someday.

Sadly, Tyler's book about the museum got lost somewhere between the train ride back to Zaragoza and the plane ride back to Arizona. :(

Summertime blues, Brett, and bean dip

So far this summer I have done very little.

It has been such an odd transition from waking up at 5:30 am every day and always having work to do to having nothing to do but feed myself and run random errands. If I don't establish some kind of summertime routine, there's going to be trouble.

My little brother's graduation party is this weekend and I've been trying to help my parents get the house ready (long story, but they are trying to put their house back together after painting and getting new carpet) and the graduation video ready. FinalCutPro and I will be best friends by the end of the weekend. Here is a preview of the video:

Still, I'm in desperate need of some hobbies to entertain myself without having to drive to Gilbert every day of my summer.

Suggestions?

On an entirely unrelated note, Fresh and Easy's cuban black bean dip is the greatest bean dip I have ever had.

Avez-vous deja vu... l'anniversaire de mon grand-pere.

It has not been the best week, so to relax and procrastinate on all of the things that I need to get done before Tuesday, I've been resorting to my "avez-vous deja vu" youtube obsession. Let the French nonsense commence.

Edit: Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

Merry Christmas Eve!

The first weekend of December, Tyler and I went to Vegas. It was a pretty last-minute trip and considering that I had 90 papers to grade that weekend, it may not have been the wisest of decisions. Still, we had a blast and I finally got to see a Cirque du Soleil show. Ka was amazing and had the most incredible stagecraft I've ever seen.

We even got to see the MGM lions being active for once. They came up so close!

We spent most of our time just walking around the casinos and checking out all of the great Christmas decorations. Bellagio is always my favorite.

Last night we went to Zoolights at the Phoenix Zoo and almost all of our pictures came out something like this:

Then there were Komodo dragons, my childhood animal obsession.

Now I'm off to get ready for the next two days of Christmas family gatherings,

church, presents, and too much food.

Merry Christmas!

Edit: Oh yeah, I graduated. :)

Buddy

We were browsing around our netflix last night and ran across The Buddy Holly Story. It had been a really long time since I'd seen it, but I remembered the roller rink scene at the beginning and the Crickets playing after Sam Cooke at the Apollo in Harlem. It's scary to me to think that I'm the same age he was when he died. I still can't believe how much Buddy Holly influenced rock and roll in his too-brief 22 years.



Looking forward to watching The Real Buddy Holly Story that Paul McCartney produced.

A Laugh