Y ahora, Espagnol

because I'm in Mallorca, which is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean. I've lost all of my Spanish abilities gained during the 6 years I studied it in high school and everything I say comes out with a french accent, interspersed french words. Tant pis!

I'm staying with my friend Steph, who's parents live here from May til September in a house belonging to the boss of Steph's dad. It's in a very mountainous, rustic setting. And they have a pool with a pretty cool cliffside backdrop, which I've enjoyed. The goats are a little lower down the hill, munching on the weeds.

We've taken several drives around the island to soak up the scenery. This was on our way to Valldemossa.

And this was some castle we saw.

I've sort of lost my interest in the intellectual and historical aspect of ruins and cities, either due to saturation of that topic or because I'm in vaca-mode full throttle and only care about sitting in the sun alongside the ocean. So I really have no idea its significance other than it was old and uniquely circular, with a great viewpoint of Palma, Mallorca - which is the capital.

Saturday we went to the beach at St. Elmo.

I have to say that I've never swum in more beautiful water. Looking out into the ocean you saw varying shades of aqua and blue, but the coolest part was when you were IN it. The sand was white and clean and you could see better than in a pool - 100 feet out. Which of course was fabulous for me because I had no cause to get scared over what iffy thing my feet might brush against down there where I couldn't see. I COULD see.

There WAS a matter of a jellyfish

but no injuries.

Sunday after attending church (in Spanish) we took a little drive in a jeep at Steph's dad's boss's finca - which is about 2,000 acres and includes a mountain. It was breathtaking. I've never really experienced landscape like it.


And tomorrow I head home. Which should be a sad ending to my amazing adventures in Europe but I must say that I'm fairly excited. So that's prob the end to my little bits and thoughts I've disclosed in this blog. Thanks all for sharing with me. See you back in America!

Pasta, Pizza, and Pesto in Cinque Terre, Italy

Cinque Terre
is similar to Croatia (which Ryan and I visited a year and a half ago) but is way more touristy with super teeny towns. It’s nice seeing everyone walking down the main drag in swimsuits etc. compared to the Riviera where it was so muggy you wanted to be wearing nothing but it seemed everyone was dressed to the 9’s ready for Monte Carlo. The reason being tho is because all there is to do in the town is swim. And it’s a 3 minute walk from the train station to the harbor.

It’s also nice having a sand beach AND big platform like rocks to lay out on – which goes hand in hand with aqua blue water + Italian food.

We were super lazy and did mostly nothing all day except read, lay out, swim, and eat, wash, rinse, and repeat. This was the view from the restaurant we ate at the first night.

I finished Jane Eyre

which I’m going to have to add to my top 10 favs list. It was one of those books that you miss when it’s over and wish you could linger in the book’s world a few more days. I even held off starting my next book til absolute boredom took over. The funny thing is, my mom encouraged me to read Jane Eyre when I was younger – maybe 11. And I hated the first 75 pages or so. So I gave up. Admittedly, even now, the first 50 pages were pretty depressing with unlikeable characters.

Somehow when you’re 11 the idea of an 18 year old hooking up with an ANCIENT 36 year old man who’s not even handsome or charming is a pretty revolting idea. So I laugh thinking now how completely altered my opinions are. 36 seems not too old or too great a gap for an 18 year old under peculiar circumstances like these were. And romances don’t have to be limited to the cookie cutter mold of hot, suave, and rich men alongside beautiful, stylish, coquettish women. Anyway, lesson being: moms, don’t recommend your daughter read Jane Eyre until she’s at 20+. She won’t appreciate it.

Ryan and I stayed in Vernazza for 3 nights

but took day trips to some of the other Cinque Terre (5 Lands) towns.

Manarola
Which had a gorgeous vineyard hike filled with roses, poppies, grapevines of course, sunshine and great water views.

As well as deep turquoise, clear water, that was deliciously refreshing other than the scary jellyfish, which I found out later don't sting.

Riomaggiori
There was a pathway that connected Manarola to Riomaggiori called Alla D’Amore and it’s gained this reputation for being the lover’s link between the two towns. Everyone rights their names and confesses their love in graffit.

We took a boat back to Vernazza which showed off the stunning scenery.

And I can’t even begin to tell you how utterly relaxing and refreshing it was as we felt the ocean breeze and sunshine on our little sea jaunt. The temperature and force of the wind was blissfully just right.

Monterosso
Our last day was spent in Monterosso al Mare. Again just filling our day with pizza, pasta, and sunshine. Before swimming, Ryan and I took a little walk to the edge of the harbor to get a good view of the town
Cinque Terre is kind of famous for pesto – since I guess it all began somewhere around there. And consequently for lemons too. So I thought this picture with lemons and basil was pretty characteristic of the feel of the place.

There was a cat curled up in one of the baskets of peppers just below :-)

And this older woman knitting under her umbrella on the beach just next to my towel was also pretty classic.

That pretty much says it all. If you want a totally stress-free, temperature perfect, sunny splash in the sea, Cinque Terre is calling your name.

And on to Mallorca.

The South of France

Nice
I arrived at Nice on Wednesday and the first thing I did was head straight for the beach. 4 weeks of straight rain between Paris and Amsterdam will do that to you. And on my way straight to the beach, I bought a fun floppy sun hat. Wrinkles on the tummy are ok because who's going to see my stomach at 80 anyways? But faces need to be treated with care.

I heard the French Riviera beaches were rocky, but I was sort of picturing Croatian rocky, which meant big slabs of stone, not skipping stone size pebbles.

Skipping stone size is pretty painful. It takes a full 10 minutes to get situated and toss all the pointy or big rocks out from underneath your towel. And just as you're starting to convince yourself that you are somewhat comfortable, a crowd of loud teenagers gathers around your head, hidden beneath your sun hat, and decide to set up camp their just standing in a circle talking for 30 minutes. But when you peak out from under your hat to see why they won't leave or when they might, you happen to catch the eye EVERYTIME of some women who's topless, who looks at you like you are being rude because you're staring at her toplessness, which in fact you sort of are. But not to cast judgment or gawk, just to take in the reality of the situation.

She also gave me the evil eye when I pulled my camera out. I was NOT intending to take her toplessness picture, it just so happened that she was in my perfect view of the scenery. But no worries, I cropped her out for you. Hope I didn't miss any other surprises. There were lots of them :-)

I thought a bit about the toplessness thing while chilling on the beach. When I took up swimming a couple years back, at first I was sort of shocked by the nude showers we all shared afterwards in the locker room. But I kind of began to appreciate them. It fills with you with a sense of o.k.ness about your body because you see reality at all ages, not the super model rarities. It's healthy for one's body image. Well, if you go to Nice, both men and women can enjoy being filled with a healthy body image :-) a lot!

Antibes
Thursday since Ryan wasn't going to arrive til later in the afternoon, I took the bus to Antibes, where I went to the market, which is a thing I've learned to love since my all-over-France trip.

I got:

• a tapenade mix with olives, sun dried tomatoes, garlic, mint and some other spices
• cerises (cherries)
• tomatoes and carrots (to ensure my daily allowance of veggies)
• cheese. Fribourg. It's a hard Swiss cheese. A new one to add to my like list.
• green olives provencale flavored
• and a baguette in which to enjoy it all with

I was tempted to get some lavender that was wafting through the market. Or some spices. Don't they look beautiful?

Unfortunately I won't have kitchen access for a while. The food market extends to a clothes and antique market just outside. Notice my floppy hat :-)

Ryan's Here!
When I met up with Ryan I told him to change into some medium nice clothes because we were going to head down to the ritziest hotel in Nice, Hotel Negresco. We rented some bikes and rode on down the promenade to our destination.

After cajoling the door bouncer to let us in (they now have a policy against sightseeing in their hotel) we caught a picture of the lobby.

And then on returning the bikes as dusk was approaching, I thought this was gorgeous. It was a hazyish evening and the water, so still, just blended perfectly into the sky. Both were a grey, purple color. See if you can find the water line.

Monaco
Friday we headed to Monaco. The Grand Prix has been going on and since tickets were way too pricey - 100+ euros just for a standing spot on some cliff in which you might not even be able to see - we opted to not go for the race but see the other things in the city. BUT when we got there on Friday, it just happened to be right during the time of one of the GP2 races (one level lower than Formula 1) and we just happened to be climbing up the cliff to the palace as it started and had a perfect view of the racetrack.

So we watched for an hour. The coolest parts were when a car would crash and they'd take this big crane and lift the car into the air to get it out of the racetrack. And the 2 second tire changes - we timed it. But since all the announcements were in French, we weren't 100% sure what was going on. Somebody won, but don't ask me who or from what country, if that even matters.

Then we continued on uphill to the beautiful gardens around Monaco-Ville.

And went to the aquarium on the cliff that Jacques Cousteau designed and oversaw for 20 years.

Did you know that those flat fish that swim horizontally and camouflage themselves in the ground only camouflage themselves on the side with their eyes and if they get blinded, they are incapable of camouflaging themselves? These aren't camouflaging fish, but thought they were rad because the black and white ones just float there in place motionless. Fish can do that because they have compartments in their belly that monitor buoyancy.

Outside the aquarium, the palace and view from up top were cool.

And then we peaked inside the Monte-Carlo casino, but mostly drooled over the cars parked outside.

Chagall

I was pretty excited to go to the Chagall museum because I knew I liked his work. They didn’t give us much info about the artist – other than he didn’t die til 1985 so he’s pretty recent – but I’m going to go ahead and assume he was Jewish based on the fact that he has Jewish elements in all or most of his paintings. He also includes animals like goats and roosters which I’m not 100% sure what they’re supposed to mean, but will have to look it up.

Anyway, I like the ethereal, colorful, and bold way he paints.

He also did stained glass.

I wish you could see it in person because it was brilliant. It’s about the creation. I know. I didn’t get that either, but whatev. You can sort of see Adam and Eve with a snake in the left window.

Villefranche sur Mer

As our last beach stop in the Riviera, we went to the neighboring town of Villefranche sur Mer, and what a good choice. Sand beaches! And way less dirty than Nice. It was a quaint little one road town which helped.

We stopped into a bakery for lunch and I enjoyed my last quiche lorraine from France. Boohooo. Then we relaxed and tanned among the topless Europeans. European men have had a reputation for being speedo likers, but there aren’t so many of them now. Instead they're into wearing these mini mini bikershort-like suits. It’s def a step in the right direction because when everyone’s lying on their backs in speedo-ish bottoms, it’s hard to distinguish the men from the women! Sorry, no picture for you.

I Heart Amsterdam

I have fallen in love with Amsterdam.

It is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen – well everything but the Red Light district, which is filthy dirty and like Pier39 but with sex and drugs. So here are some adjectives that come to mind when I consider Amsterdam.

Green
Trees galore line the canals and streets. Buildings have rose vines growing over the windows. Even potted plants and gardens on top of house-boats. You’d never think there was room for so much green in a city of all water.

Aside from colorfully green, it’s also environmentally green. Everyone here bikes. And that’s an understatement. All the bikes are the classic antique style that people in America would pay hundreds for just for artistic merit. But here it’s the norm, only, they have tons of cool gadgets for carting around kids in little wheelbarrow-like extensions, and you’ll see 5 year olds standing up straight on the flat cover to the back wheel while they hold the shoulders of their parent who’s pedaling.

Calm
Due to the fact that everyone bikes, a car rarely drives down the street which makes for no street noise. I was walking home at 10:30pm and it was countryside-quiet. No sirens, horns, engines. Just bliss.

Light
The light is one of the most beautiful things and it goes hand in hand with the water. All the windows in the tall, tall, skinny buildings are lit up as you walk by. Hardly anyone pulls the curtains. And they give such a warm glow against the dark street. The bridges are lit too and double the light since they reflect in perfect stillness off of the canals.

Simple and Clean
Since you can see into the windows of these houses, you see that the interior design is simple and clean. Kind of Mac-like. And very artistic in a modern way.

Artistic
The artisticness isn’t just displayed in the home decorating, but in the clothes styles, the boutique designs, and I can’t even explain how but it’s in the air.

Brick
Lots of brick buildings. I even saw a brick houseboat!

Varied
This is in regards to the food. There’s everything under the sun. Healthy stuff too.

Overall, Amsterdam is totally livable. I’m going to add it to my potential list.

Bussing
I took a bus ride over here, an 8 hour long bus ride. Sounds crazy cuz trains could’ve done the trick in 4, but not crazy when it was only 19euros round trip! I met some riders on the way and we chatted for 2 hours. They had been studying in Paris and one was an art history major. So I asked him a whole bunch of bottled up art questions. He explained cubism and Pablo Picasso quite satisfactorily, was a little vague on my Dutch art questions though.

Drugs
There was a bit of an awkward moment when my bus buddies asked me about my planned Amsterdam activities. They were of the British/American tourist mold, who are the ones who supply the red light district with all of their money in exchange for the forbidden. So when they asked me if I was excited for some weed, they were mute for about 15 seconds as I said “I don’t take drugs.” Which of course sounded lame, but fortunately the succeeding “Just Say No” phrase stayed bottled up inside me :-) Anyway, I resolved to be prepared with a less awkward response the next time the subject came up and I settled upon “I’m not into that stuff,” spoken with a very casual air :-) I was all set with it on the tip of my tongue, so when I bunked down at my hostel and discovered it to be a Christian hostel, I had a few laughs from the irony.

Art
The Van Gogh museum was rad. There was a temporary exhibit on “Starry Night” and all Van Gogh’s attention and work dealing with twilight and stars.

Starry Night (one of his two)

Between that and the permanent collection I gained a new appreciation for Van Gogh. I like that he wasn’t obsessed with nudes. His obsession was with peasants and working class who he idealized, lauding their work ethic, their simple life, and their spirit. I also had no idea that he was spiritual, more-so in his earlier life than later. And I liked that he was rejuvenated and calmed by nature: landscapes, stars, sunsets…And that he was sort of self-taught. And how he analyzed color and how to capture vibrant contrasts. Too bad prints of his work don’t reflect his brushstrokes. If only I were rich enough for an original I think I’d get this one:

Night, after Millet

The top floor had works by Odilon Redon and Emile Bernard who I’d never heard of before but I liked some of their art.

Emile Redon

Odilon Bernard

I also went to the Rijksmuseum with Veronica (friend from Paris who’s now living in Holland) and her friend. In the museum we saw some Dutch art from their Golden Period. I’ve always been amazed with how absolutely realistic they can make their paintings. Like this one, where his eyes shows wrinkles and red and his hands show veins like you are just sitting in his presence.
***oops. can't find the pictures. coming soon.

And this one was fabulous the way he captured shiny objects like the satin dress. Amazing! You sort of have to think backwards to do it.

Gerard ter Borch, Paternal Admonition

And I love Rembrandt. It's the combo of realism and thick brushstrokes I think, combined with his light and dark technique.

Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, The Jewish Bride

And when I went to church on Sunday (everytime I see a ward in random places in Europe I smile) I ran into a sister of a good friend from Salt Lake. We’d actually met once before hiking an incredible mountain in Utah. She and her new husband invited me over for dinner Monday night which was super nice. And on the way home around 9:00pm the sunset was so gorgeous I decided to walk the 3 miles back to my hostel rather than take the metro and tram. This was the view I had along the river.

And then as it darkened, along the canals, notice the roofline. They have cool shapes.

Tulips or Lilies Rather
I just happened to be in Amsterdam during "tulip" season. "Supposedly" they have these gardens with loads and loads of bright and beautiful tulips all arranged in huge manicured gardens, like so.

Keukenhof is the closest big tulip park to Amsterdam and I was just at the tail end of the season, mid-March to mid-May, which means the tulips were likely on their way out, but I was willing to risk it. I prepared myself mentally for lots of fading and wilting flowers, knowing that even if it were just for the beautiful park of trees, I’d be satisfied. But what I didn’t expect was an eradication of tulips.

In the whole park, these were the only big bunch I saw.

Which was ok, because the park was exhilarating just the same. Less flowers means less people :-) and earlier in the season when the tulips were in full-bloom, the trees were still bare. So it was a fair trade-off. Plus, they had this extravagant lily exhibit in the indoor conservatory.

I’m not a huge fan of lilies owing to the smell that makes me mildly nauseous, but these were amazing and definitely worth breathing through my mouth for 15 minutes. There were also remnants of some other flowers in the park: hyacinth, daffodils, rhododendron...



I forgot to mention that at the Rijksmuseum, they had other things besides painting. Silver art, doll houses, model boats, ceramics… And they had these gorgeous “pyramid” vases, other wise known as tulip vases.

I started plotting how I could acquire my own.

Biking
I was going to go to Haarlem on my way back, but was feeling like I missed out on a bit of Amsterdam by not having biked yet. So I returned and rented a MacBike for a couple hours riding all around, and parking every time I saw a store that looked tempting. I learned that hand brakes are WAY easier to stop in front of cars, trams, and pedestrians with than pedal brakes.

Anyway, that’s Amsterdam. Tonight I’m on my all nighter bust back to Paris and leave right away once arriving to take a train down to Nice. I’m soooo ready for the beach!