Maybe not so Lazy

Arc Arc Arc was almost an elephant. Wiki it.
It glows... Doesn't it?

I went to pick Marshall up from school today so I could take him to the park. His school is, quite literally, on the other side of town, so it took about 45 minutes worth of Metro sitting to get there, but it all went smoothly. Kristen gave me directions and I had gone there twice with her before, so I remembered the way easily enough.

We went to the park for a nice amount of time. I sat on a bench in the shade and tried to figure out how clock gears are able to keep time whilst Marshy played with some of his friends from his old school. It was nice. I got some good pictures in as well. I'm quickly falling in love with black and white photography, I have to say.

So VERY lazy

Good day, Peacock, and how are you, sir?
Contrasting colors!

Poppies will make them sleepy... or whatever these things are.
Rawr-gurgle-splash

Hey! Look! Be distracted by all the new pictures I haven't posted yet and rejoice! Ignore the fact that well... I did nothing today. Nothing at all. Well, I did draw and read quite a bit of Kafka on the Shore, which is an amazing book, I have to say. I'll need to go to Barnes and Noble when I get home and purchase more books, I seem to have gotten my bookworm streak back. I'm going to pick up Marshall from school tomorrow, so wish me luck with that. I should have some nice park pictures, I hope.

I have quite a few books on my reading list for when I go back to work after I get home. Speaking of work, I guess I should start saving up for a Macbook Pro. I might have enough by next summer to buy it for VCU, if I can still afford to buy gas, that is. I just hope I can figure out how to use the Operating System before I head down. If I'm unable to do basic maintenance on my own machine, I shall be rather vexed.

I went to church with the President

I was in the pew across from him. The security was crazy tight and they had a couple of blocks surrounding the church barricaded to traffic so the only way to get through was by walking. It was eerie just how silent the city was with no traffic and little to no other pedestrians, but certainly swarming with police and guards of various types.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really not a fan of the President, but famous people are famous people. We all had the mutual thought that if it was a President we actually liked we'd have been even more excited than we admittedly were. The Secret Service was EVERYWHERE, as would be expected. And on a side note, the President wears reading glasses. He had them on the whole time except when he knew people were taking pictures of him.

The Bishop and the Archbishop of Congo were there too, but their thunder sort of got stolen, as you can well imagine. In other news, my English skills have greatly suffered as of late. I have to keep double checking my blogs and when I talk I tend to muddle things. My words get all jumbled and such. It's sort of funny, actually.

Artsy B&W

Ka-shing!
Color just doesn't do as good a job sometimes. You can almost see the blue anyway, somehow.
Such a pretty courtyard.
Only Anglophones find this a funny name for a Chinese restaurant. There are no real curse words in French anyway, so it would be nigh impossible to explain to a Parisian. Perfect timing on this from a moving bus, though.

I went to the Ketron's church (or Cathedral, if you like) today. They were having a rehersal and BBQ for the Rite 13, which is sort of like a coming of age thing for the 13-or-so-year-olds at the church. During tommorow's service they're going to have a little thing where they recognize the kids and all that.

I had a hamburger at the BBQ, which I am pretty sure I haven't eaten in a very very long time. Kristen has promised me fried chicken which is impossible to get here unless you go to KFC. Um. Yeah. I actually saw a Starbucks here the other day which made me do a double take and then wonder if I had stumbled into the Twilight Zone accidently.

Well, church tomorrow so I should get some sleep. There might be an interesting guest at the church tommorow anyway, so I certainly plan on attending.

Cloud Drama

In the back is me and Richard, with Cathy (left) and Doreen (right) in the foreground. Kristen's Aunts and Uncle.
SNAILS NOM NOM NOM
The clouds were perfect for statue pictures today.
Fly horsie!
This... is Cloud Drama

Today was fun. Cathy, Richard and Doreen are going back home tommorow so I hung out with them. We went to the center of the city, which was a bit hectic because Dubya is arriving today and our bus stop was right by the hotel where either he's staying or some of his people might be. Security everywhere, you know. We got lunch at this nice place near the Louvre and I had escargot and onion soup. The escargot was superbe and the soup was good too, I was able to finish most of it, which is impressive for me because I'm not really a fan of onion soup (which is strange because I love onions in any other preperation.)

After lunch we went to the antique mall attached to the Louvre, which is filled with some amazing stuff. There were so many old pocket watches that looked like they were in mint condition and I wanted one so bad, but I think that a 700 Euro Louis XVI era silver pocket watch is a little bit out of my price range. Just a little. I think I'll have to go back and just window shop. It's sort of like the Louvre, except free and with things for sale at insane prices. (20,000Euro rings were not uncommon)

Apres la, we walked back to the bus through the Tuleries where I snapped some more pictures. The clouds were just amazing and perfect for dramatic statue backgrounds. I took a picture of the Eiffel tower, a proper picture I suppose. We ran into another Gypsy in the Tuleries. They're really easy to spot for me now, actually. I can spot 'em comin' from a mile away. I think I might be qualified to write a travel book now. Hmmm.... yes... that could pay for my college tuition, couldn't it? At least for a semester of VCU.

Meander

It's not by Picasso, but it's still weird.
Blurry...**
And technically upside down...**

I didn't do too much today, mostly just hung out and then went with Kristen to pick up Marshall. I'm going to be picking him up from school sometime in the next few weeks and we'll go Jardin Hopping together. I have my sights set on Jardin de Luxembourg, which is on the same bus route we use to get home alot. The 84 bus is my favorite. I finally made a list of all the things I want to do in the next few weeks and it's rather long. Quite a few of the things written I would consider optional, however.

I got to check out some cool shops and by check out I mean I walked by them because I'm not going to spend 50 Euros on a Summer dress. I checked out that statue that I thought was by Picasso and it's actually part of a State cultural commision for the National arts fund or something like that. It's a pretty weird sculpture.

I found that the best way to watch people without them knowing is glass reflections. It looks like you're looking out the window, but really you're looking at a person. Yes, that does sound creepy, but people watching is entertaining. Especially when you're people watching an extremely attractive boy on the Metro that keeps flipping his hair. Just saying...

** These two pictures are from yesterday. On the train to Giverny, I found that the luggage rack had a reflective surface on it, I thought it looked cool, and so I took a picture. Low and behold, on the train back, the same brownhaired boy (or at least his long lost twin) was in the same car on the same side as before, leading to another, unfourtunaly, blurry picture. They are out of order, the bottom one was taken first. I flipped the pictures so that it's easier to see what's going on, the normal orientation would be upside down.

Picture Dump

This is the ceiling in the Louvre. JUST THE CEILING.
Michaelangelo's 'Dying Slave'... that's all I have to say about that.
That's not a carpet, that's a stone mosaic.
RIDE THE HIPPOCAMPUS YEEHAW!
Port des Lions, the secret entrance.

There's a casting of this same statue in the National Gallery of Art in D.C. It's on top of a water fountain.
Da Vinci. The glass makes it look a little weird. It's either St. Sebastian (in which case I have 5) or Bacchus, or Bacchus as St. Sebastion or something. The placard/name tag thing was in French so I'm not too sure.

Mayan somethingerother.
Egyptian Somethingerother. Stupid reflective/protective glass...

For Jenny, because she wants more Louvre. And because I was transferring pictures to my flash drive since my SD card is almost full (turns out 1gb=apx. 400 pictures) and found out that my Beirut album was still on there so listening to that has put me in a great mood, combined with the awesome of the rest of the day.

OMG IT WORKED, I CAN UPLOAD MORE THAN 5 PICTURES. WINDFALL!