Parisian Weekend (a.k.a. pictures of food)

Niek and I just got back from our mini-vacation in Paris.  As we packed up the car, I was filled with this sense of amazement that I actually live close enough to drive to Paris.  We usually pop down when some good friends fly over.  This time, our friends happened to be working with a group of college students for a study abroad program.  That left them quite busy but with just enough time to squeeze in a few socializing days with us.  We didn't make it to any of the big art collections this time, but if you're in Paris and you're in the mood for a different kind of museum, I can recommend the Musée des arts et métiers (or as my friend likes to call it, the museum of arts and meters).  We're all big nerds, so we enjoyed looking at the air pumps on display and the recreation of Lavoisier's laboratory.  The highlight was supposed to be a working model of Foucault's pendulum, but someone at the museum was too lazy to set up all the metal cylinders along the perimeter.  Still, who doesn't like to see the earth rotating?

I have a tendency of only taking pictures of food while on vacation.  I think that happens because I'm usually so busy enjoying myself, I only pull out my camera while sitting and resting.  Sitting only seems to happen at restaurants or bars.  Hence the lack of pictures of anything other than us stuffing our faces.  I think though, that you can really appreciate some of the amazing food we found in Paris. 

Niek and I were both in the mood for some Asian cuisine, and Paris did not disappoint.  Our first night we went to Happy Noodle, a tiny establishment packed with customers dining on gigantic bowls of soup.  The noodles are made by hand and were probably the best I've ever had.  When we arrived the guy was rolling dough out by the window and cutting it into noodles.  I didn't think to take a picture until we were finished eating, and by that time he was finished.  

The last time I was in Paris all I wanted was an almond croissant, but I unfortunately never got one.  On our first morning, we made it priorité nombre un to get a croissant and a cup of coffee.  Oh, sweet heaven, that was some good almond paste wrapped up in buttery goodness.

On Friday we got to tag along on one of the study abroad program's walking tours of the city.  I wasn't at all sure what to expect, especially with a group of 41 students.  41!  They all seemed like such sweet people, though, and made our walk around the Bastille and Gare de Lyon even more fun.  Now that I live in Amsterdam and have no teaching duties, I miss interacting with twenty-year olds.  Halfway through the tour, we stopped off for lunch.  After consuming a savory North African pancake, I had no room left for the sweet pastries my friend bought with her lunch.  Don't they look so beautiful in the display case?

What would a trip to Paris be without a bit of French cuisine?  I'll just let the photos speak for themselves.  Amazing, cozy restaurant with the friendliest wait staff and great food.  We got there around 7:45 on Friday night and just beat the dinner rush.  Lucky we arrived when we did, or we would not have gotten a table.

Niek ordered one of the house specialties as his first course: Foie Gras de Canard

Amazing bottle of wine.  A little sad that I could only have one glass of it.

I did not know that my steak would come drenched in this creamy sauce.  It was pretty amazing.

My camera remained firmly in my bag all day on Saturday (the day we went to the museum).  That was also the day we hit the children's clothing stores in the afternoon, and I think I would have felt a little weird taking pictures of onesies and teeny tiny sweaters.  After an exhausting afternoon of oohing and ahhing over baby couture, we had our final dinner of the trip at a fabulous Thai restaurant.  No pics (too tired and ravenous), but I tell you it hit the spot.  I could go for some more of the squid salad that I ordered.

Sunday was our last morning.  Niek and I had one more almond croissant after we packed up our car.  We grabbed a few sandwiches for lunch at the bakery across the street from the hotel and hit the Montparnasse Cemetery as our final activity for the vacation.  I had no idea how many famous people are buried there.  Père-Lachaise gets all the attention, but this one is equally as cool.  Highly recommend.

There were too many graves we wanted to visit and not enough time, so we had to make a priority list.

My friend is a sucker for Baudelaire's poetry.  I'll try not to mock her for this.

My favorite grave from the inventor of a safe gas lamp.  See, he's reading in bed by the light of his own invention.

Au revoir, Paris and our amazing friends!  Although too short, it was an amazing vacation.  I can't believe it's over already. 

California pining

Whew!  I am back from my conference in London and starting to feel a little more relaxed.  Well, I felt relaxed this morning, and then the panic about finishing chapter rewrites before the end of the month really set in.  All the members of my panel deemed the session a success, and it was fun to meet so many scholars and hear some great papers.  There were tons and tons of Nederlanders at the event, and I think I may have spoken more Dutch in London than English.
I would write about food in London, but considering the fact that I basically lived off of Pret a Manger sandwiches and Costa coffee for three days, there's very little for me to say on the matter this time around.  Instead, I will do a fluff post made up almost entirely of pictures of my time in SoCal.  Sadly, I didn't take that many pictures in California, I think because we were just busy having a good time with our friends...and oh yeah, getting ready for the conference.  Here are just a few things that made going back to the West Coast so great and just so different from my life in Amsterdam:

Beautiful views on a bright, sunny day at the Getty.  Regan still has a reader card for the Getty Research Institute, which means we got to park there for free!  Admission to the Getty is free, but there is a $15 parking charge, and it's pretty damn hard to get up there without a car.  That is why it pays every once in a while to be a graduate student.

Primo's Doughnuts.  Regan and James are regulars there.  Mrs. Primo even came out to give a goody bag of doughnuts to Regan's sister, who was leaving for Kansas after a visit out to L.A. I love a good doughnut.

Do not tell me that you wouldn't all do the same thing.  I look forward to getting a pedi before each and every visit.  Niek said he finally felt like he was on vacation after his pedi session.  The guy who did mine made a few comments about my runner's calluses, but he assured me that he had seen worse.  His words didn't seem to match with his facial expression, and I think we was relieved when I asked for the "extra" treatment.  God forbid my toes have calluses on them.

Ice cream isn't a food I really associate with L.A.; it's more of a frozen yogurt town these days.  However, if you're going to have ice cream, it will be fancy and made in small batches by cool hipsters somewhere near downtown.  I had some mocha Bailey's concoction and a scoop of a fancier version of cookies 'n cream.  The woman behind me in line asking which ice creams were vegan made it clear I was no longer in Europe.  Like the Dutch would ever consider a non-dairy based ice cream. 

Honestly, there is really nothing more to say about this.  Huevos Rancheros is an amazing dish!  Anything that combines breakfast with guacamole is a-okay in my book.  We went here twice for breakfast.  I miss you already, corn tortillas and avocados!

Last food picture, I swear.  Regan and James wanted to take us to a place in the Art District called, Wurstküche.  I love that the name of the place is in German but on the menu the sizes for the fries are written in Dutch, you know, because they're "Belgian" fries.  They actually weren't really Belgian style fries, but they were good with the handmade Bratwurst and the five kinds of mustard.
I laughed a little when I noticed the children's birthday party winding down in the private events room next to our table.  The cool parents were leaving with their little ones just as the younger crowd was showing up for happy hour.  I guarantee I never had a birthday party at a downtown hot spot when I was growing up.  I ate a lot of Usinger's Sasuage, though.  Does that count for something?




We did plenty of other things in between all the eating: Niek and I got to run up Runyon Canyon a few times, I went to a knitting store and spent too much on fancy types of yarn, we had plenty of good coffee, the conference presentation went fairly well, and so on and so forth.  A big highlight was the hike to a waterfall in the San Gabriel Mountains.

We hiked along the path of a 1920s camping resort.  The above sign was my favorite.  Regan is determined to rent the cottage pictured below for a weekend getaway.

James found a salamander, and then we proceeded to take about a million photos of the little guy before we let him slowly (ever so slowly, it was cold that day) take off for a more secluded spot.

I'll leave you with this slightly cheesy picture of me and Niek at the waterfall.  And before you start thinking, "Whoah, Diana, maybe you did have a few too many helpings of taco salads and french fries," I promise I have come by that little belly honestly.  It's only going to get bigger this summer, and hopefully in the fall I'll have a little person to show for all this gestating I'm doing.  L.A. was so much fun, and I miss all my friends so much already.  However, it's a good feeling to be home in Amsterdam.  I've got tons to get done in the next six months, and it's hard to write in L.A. on vacation.

The things we carried (in our suitcases)

As I stood over my suitcase last week trying to figure out how we were going to pack everything without going over the weight limit, I started questioning my dependence on American goods.  As you can see, I brought back the every important essentials of life like cake flour and chocolate chips.  It really took more willpower than I thought it would not to buy the seven other varieties of King Arthur Flour at the local grocery store.  I'm pretty sure most people who visit the U.S. do not think to themselves, "I should really bring this rye flour back with me.  I might need it if I suddenly get the urge to make myself some bread.  Maybe I should go get some of that corned beef I saw on sale, too.  Then I could feel like I was at a deli anytime I want!"

It's all about what makes you feel at home...to a certain degree anyway.  I just keep wondering what I would find in other ex-pats' suitcases.  I have to believe anyone living abroad feels compelled to bring back little pieces of home when they return from a visit.  You should have seen the various products I pouted and fussed about leaving on the shelves of Trader Joe's in Chicago.  I also left a bunch of linens and family pieces that had belonged to my grandmother at my parents' house, much to the disappointment of my mother, who is working to downsize.  I regularly thwart her attempts as I continually ask her to hang on to stuff I know I'm going to need at some unassigned time in the future.  To my parents with a house larger than my apartment: what a storage facility I've made out of my childhood bedroom.  Sorry.

We did pretty well coming right in at the weight limit for our luggage.  We could have made it without borrowing a second suitcase from my parents if it hadn't been for these:

With a much greater selection and much better prices in America, our luggage coming back from the States will always have at least a few books.  I think I should be thanking Delta for restricting the weight limits this year even more.  I can't imagine what else I would have thought to bring back if I had had double the weight limit.

Vacation officially over

I took an unintentional break from blogging during the rest of my time in L.A. and then the three weeks I spent at my parents' house in Indiana.  There was just a lot going on, and I was too tired to open my computer most days, let alone write a blog post.  That's alright since I saw most of the people who read my blog.  To those of you who do read and I did not see during my almost eight weeks in America (which is a shame and it would be nice to meet in real life sometime) you can catch up with my picture journal below.  Because, I just know you are dying to know what I did.  My life is, after all, intensely interesting.

Here we go...
I studied a bunch with my friend, Naomi, and we drank a lot of coffee together, just like true graduate students should

Regan arrived home from Nigeria (yea!), and finally after many years of cajoling she convinced me to go to Disneyland. Ask Regan about Disneyland sometime.  She will tell you all about her happiest place on earth.  It was actually way cooler than I thought it would be and it was lovely to have one last day with Regan and Naomi.  Thank you, Regan, for convincing me to go.

After leaving L.A., I was reunited with Niek in northern Indiana and spent three weeks relaxing and helping my parents finish some home improvement projects (no photos of those, though).  I was also in a wedding on the banks of the Ohio River.  My friend and her family made all the food for the reception, and it was delicious.  The bride and I had a nice laugh about the local culture down in southern Indiana.  She pointed out that the reception hall was located conveniently next to the Royal Order of Rednecks Lodge complete with a rebel flag hanging proudly in the mayor's yard...I wish I were kidding about that, but I'm not.  At least Niek got to experience another side of America.

We managed to squeeze in a trip to Chicago for a few days where we marveled at Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, walked around the city, visited the Art Institute, ran along the lakefront, and I introduced Niek to the joy of a deep dish pizza.

And then it was back home just in time to celebrate my town's festival.  Niek and I ran the 5K (Niek's first, and he was amazing) and ate an apple dumpling (the only real reason to be at the festival).  We declined the polka dancing and missed the yodeling contest (my town was founded by Swiss immigrants), but overall had a good time in small town America.  And since you know how much I love to eat, rest assured we took advantage of summer's bounty (sweet corn, blackberries, blueberries, tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden, cantaloupe, etc, etc, delicious).

And just for fun, here is how I poured milk onto my granola every morning.  I never tire of watching the Delftware cow vomit up milk.

That is, in a nutshell, what I did over the last seven weeks.  There were plenty of other things I did not document with my camera, and I would say it was a successful trip for my work and as a vacation.  I was sad to leave, but I'm happy to be home.  Thanks to the Gladware I insisted on buying and bringing back with us, we even got to enjoy peaches fresh from the tree and tasty, Michigan blueberries one more time before the plane touched down.  Way better than the "breakfast" the flight attendant tried to give us. 

Hope you all have had a nice summer.  It's back to work and back to blogging.