Lizzy's Quote Note

I have a sticky note going of all the quotes/lyrics Lizzy has given me. I love them. So I thought I'd post them here. And actually some of them are mine. And a few aren't very serious at all.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child,
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES.
Then listen close to me -
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.
-Shel Silverstein

“May the sun bring you new energy every day. May the moon softly restore you by night. May the rain wash away your worries. May the breeze blow new strength into your being. May you walk gently through the world and know its beauty all the days of your life.” -Apache Blessing

Stay far from timid, only make moves when your hearts in it, and live the phrase sky's the limit." -Notorious BIG

"Today I have a simple choice: I can be held captive by irritation and restrictive ways of thinking and being, or I can practice genuine spiritual freedom by expressing love in all I think, say and do."

"...all good things are wild and free" -HD Thoreau

Las tumbas son para los muertos
Las flores para sentirse bien.
La vida es para gozarla
La vida es para vivirla mejor.
tombs are for the dead. flowers are for smelling good. life is to enjoy it. life is to live it well.

“It is important to remember to be human. Being human is having all the emotions, which includes feelings of sadness, insecurity, and at times inadequacy, yet realizing that, though we may have these feelings from time to time, we are NEVER inadequate. We are every bit the person we are supposed to be and always everything that we need.”

u + me + stupid tv shows = :)
- stinky nasty ~@~ people that are from the eliot annex

"do not rush it and love will find u again. Love, Mmmuummmy"

But I won't regret, cause you can grow flowers
From where dirt used to be

I can't explain the state that I'm in
The state of my heart, he was my best friend
Into the car, from the back seat
Oh admiration in falling asleep
All of my powers, day after day
I can tell you, we swaggered and swayed
Deep in the tower, the prairies below
I can tell you, the telling gets old
Terrible sting and terrible storm
I can tell you the day we were born
My friend is gone, he ran away
I can tell you, I love him each day
Though we have sparred, wrestled and raged
I can tell you I love him each day
Terrible sting, terrible storm
I can tell you...

Sunday night when I cleaned the house
I find the card where you wrote it out
With the pictures of your mother
On the floor at the great divide
With my shirt tucked in and my shoes untied
I am crying in the bathroom
In the morning when you finally go
And the nurse runs in with her head hung low
And the cardinal hits the window
In the morning in the winter shade
On the first of March on the holiday
I thought I saw you breathing
Oh the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications when I see his face
In the morning in the window
Oh the glory when he took our place
But he took my shoulders and he shook my face
And he takes and he takes and he takes

When anything that's anything becomes nothing, that's everything
And nothing is the only thing you'll ever seem to have

Bobba Adventures Pt. 2

This is a photo-filled post about my day of nature and art with Bobba!

We started out our day by heading to Harlow Carr, a very big public garden. We decided to tackle one half of the gardens first before lunch. As usual, I was on the lookout for cute animals to photograph. But I didn't have much luck until...A GIANT BEAR ATTACKED BOBBA.


Kind of. My most exciting find was, in fact, a slug.

Cool looking slug, right? Mostly I was just excited to use my camera's close-up mode allll over the place. And I sure did. I think I have about 20 flower pictures, but I'll just post my two favorites:

Marigold!

And...something else.

We made our way up to the greenhouse and looked around. On our way out, I noticed that they had a bunch of troughs full of miniature plant worlds. What a sight to behold. I spent probably a little too much time in this part of the gardens, to the point that even my Bobba seemed a little bored. This was my favorite tiny world:

We went for lunch at Betty's (a famous tourist spot in Harrogate, apparently) which of course included tea. It was very good! I met a couple of Bobba's lady friends who happened to also be there for lunch that day. Evidently (that's a Bobba word) I was friends with one of their grandsons when I came over when I was about 7.

After walking around more of the gardens, we decided to check out the little art show they were having. I was planning on just looking, but there were a couple of artists I actually really liked, so I bought some little prints of their paintings to put up on my wall. There was one painting that I aaaabsolutely fell in love with (http://www.nikkycorker.com/originals.php?page=picture_details&pid=320) but it was only available as the original painting, which cost £400. I don't know why I love it so much, but I really do. Hopefully it comes out as a print sometime.

We had some time to kill after Harlow Carr, so we drove into "downtown" Harrogate so Bobba could give me a little tour. One of the stops was the free art museum. What I really love about England is that artists here truly appreciate animals. Here were my favorite pieces of animal art:

Papier mache chicken.

I really appreciate the way this artist utilizes the small mouse figures in eggs to evoke a tone of chicks.

This work was simply entitled, "Bob." Forreal forreal.

Some of the artists took themselves a liiiittle too seriously, perhaps...

"Landscape as a visual metaphor to express ideas, memories and emotions." I am definitely using that the next time I have Malibuuuu! And possibly as a topic for one of my lit essays. Jk, literature is legit.

I did manage to find a couple of paintings that I liked that did not involve animals:

I especially like the second one because it's not actually a painting, it's a paper cutting. And it reminds me of Persepolis.

After the museum, we went to Bobba's friend's flat for...tea! So much tea. And so many little cakes.

So, an unexpected day full of art. I figure if I'm spending a month in Europe, I should probably have one of those. Can't wait to hang up my little prints! Which, by the way, are all colorful interpretations...of sheep.

Cousins!

So if you thought it was bad that I hadn't seen my Bobba in 6 years, I hadn't seen my cousins, aunt, or uncle in 10. Needless to say, I was really excited to see them again. None of the cousins on my dad's side of the family are my age, and I always wished I had cousins my age that I could be friends with.

I saw them for the first time when just my cousins--Asher and Georgia--took me out to dinner on Thursday night. They picked me up at Bobba's and we walked into Harrogate to pick a restaurant. We decided on a place called Thai Elephant Restaurant, and had an awesome dinner. I was really happy because even though I knew we'd get along just fine, I hadn't seen them since I was 10, so we didn't really know each other anymore. But conversation was easy and we clicked really well, and I just genuinely enjoyed hanging out with them. So yay, I have cool cousins! After dinner, we hung out at Bobba's for a little before Asher and Georgia headed home, and I was highly entertained by Asher's "joshing" relationship with Bobba, as she calls it. Oh Bobba.

I saw my Uncle Raphael and Aunt Chris the next day when they met us for afternoon tea after Bobba and I went to Tropical World. They took us out to a restaurant called the Mansion (because it's in an old stately home, which was beautiful). It was really nice to see them again, and I was really happy when the conversation flowed easily with them too.

That night, I went out with Asher and his friend from high school, Gabriel. We went out for drinks (I'm going to miss being able to do that when I get home) then had a big dinner at Pizza Express. It was fun to hang out with Asher more and to meet someone else my age. Because I've been meeting a lot of old ladies these days. I'm usually introduced like this: "This is my American granddaughter who's come to visit me...from America." So yeah, going out on Friday night was fun.

Saturday was our big family outing day. Bobba and I drove to my cousins' house, and then we split up into two cars to drive to Castle Howard, which is, as you might guess...a castle. Aunt Chris, Asher, Georgia, and I were in one car, and Bobba and Uncle Raphael were in another. On the way up, Georgia and I found that we have similar tastes in MTV shows. Also, I told her about the words "sketchy" and "sketchball," which she's gonna start up in England. I appreciated her response when I said sketchball: "Oh, you mean a dodgy character?" So I think I'll start that one in the U.S.

We got to Castle Howard and started our day with a picnic that Uncle Raphael had prepared. It was delicious! We sat and ate for awhile and then headed into the castle grounds to look around. It was beautiful! You should google Castle Howard. Now. Go.

One of my favorite parts of the grounds was that there were peacocks roaming around everywhere. Exhibit A (all pictures of exotic creatures are enhanced when my Bobba is in them. I'll have to post the one of her next to an anaconda at Tropical World):


We walked down the back green, which had a bunch of statues ("There are bottoms everywhere!" exclaimed my Bobba, since all the statues were naked) and a sweet fountain. And there we took our first cousins picture!

We walked around the pond on the grounds, and guess what?? It's still duckling season here. England win.

We walked around for awhile more, I found out my cousins and uncle watch Dexter (!!!), we went through the gardens, got some ice cream (with a flake!) and then headed back. Luckily, traffic was a little better for the return trip. Aunt Chris invited us in for tea, so we sat around and talked for a little before Bobba and I left. But before we did, we took some silly (Scilly??) pictures. Here's my favorite off my camera:

I'm glad that Georgia and I look familial, because we flank really well in photos. So in conclusion: very successful few days with my family. My cousins are awesome! And I'm looking forward to keeping in touch with them and seeing them sometime soon (and by soon I mean sooner than 10 years from now).

Bobba Adventures Pt. 1

This is my Bobba (holding a traditional bobba):


She lives in Harrogate, which is about an hour away from Reeth. The Aldersons drove me down to see her on Wednesday, and I'm staying with her for a week. She's from Northern Ireland, and she's Jewish (according to her, she's got a lot of chutzpah), and she is shorter than me:

The first night I was here, she asked me to help her reach something on a shelf. I...helped someone else...get something off a high shelf. And she keeps hugging me and telling me how much she loves me. I could get used to this. This is Bobba's car, which I love because it is soooo tinyyyy.

So yeah, that's my Bobba. My first afternoon here, we went to Valley Gardens, which is a public park in Harrogate. It was a little cloudy, but all the flowers were still in full bloom (I think I have about 20 pictures of flowers so far).

We had an ice cream (with a flake!) at Valley Gardens and then headed back to Bobba's flat (when I was younger I called it her "pancake" because I was soooo clever) and had dinner. We watched Midsomer Murders, an English murder mystery series, and then got ready for bed. I liked seeing some of the older pictures Bobba has up in her living room. Here are my parents on their wedding day:

And my Bobba, uncle, mom, cousins, sister, and me at my cousins' house back when I was maybe 5 or 6. Spot (my dalmation) is still white here. Cray-cray!

We woke up early on Thursday (8:30...too much) so we could go to Knaresborough, a neighboring town. It has the ruins of a castle, a cute little main street, plus an awesome view of the train viaduct over the river:

We went to the castle museum and learned things about things, then headed back. My cousins took me out to dinner (more on that in the next post) and by the time I got back, it was almost time for bed. The next day, we headed to Tropical World (another location from my childhood) which is essentially a giant terrarium where they have butterflies and some cool animals. I took about a million pictures, so I'll save them all for facebook, except for my favorite. Check out this meerkat reigning over his meerkat kingdom:

My Bobba tried to take a picture of me with the meerkats, but accidentally just got a picture of a meerkat nose. I am holding daily digital camera/laptop tutorials for her, so maybe next time.

The biggest reason that it's so awesome to see my Bobba is that I haven't seen her in 6 years, since the last time she came to visit us at home. It got complicated for her to come over or for all of us to go over, so it's nice to be able to go on my own and hang out with her by myself. We've been getting to know each other again, and drinking tea. A LOT of tea. Definitely the most tea I've ever had within one week of my life. But luckily I won't have to deal with tea withdrawals when I go home...because she gave me a tea pot. Pinkies up.

Reeth

After a rest night in London last Sunday, we took the train up to Darlington Station on Monday afternoon to meet up with Rachel's family--all of them. Rachel's two sisters Laura and Gillian, Laura's boyfriend Ryan, and Rachel's parents had flown into England the day before and picked us up at the station. Rachel's extended family on her dad's side (he's like my mom, who came over to the US to get married) lives in Reeth, a tiny village in Yorkshire. They're staying in an adorable cottage right in the middle of the village (although essentially the middle of the village is the entire village).

My first impression of Reeth was that I loved it. There were beautiful green hills all around with old stone walls dividing people's land. The village itself consists of a small church, a couple rows of stores in old stone buildings, a few pubs, a post office, a general store, a bakery, an ice cream parlor, a village green, and rows of beautiful old stone houses. To get from one end of the village to the other takes at most 5 minutes, which is a big change from London and Paris (and even Coutevroult). And there are sheep and cows everywhere! This place is straight out of a post card.

I essentially only had a day and a half there, so we got moving right away. We dropped our stuff off at the cottage and then headed to the Black Bull--one of the pubs--for dinner, since it was about 6pm by now. There I had my first Giant Yorkshire Pudding, which is a big soft bread bowl full of beef and gravy that you add french fries and vegetables to. I was definitely full. Next up we made the rounds to some of Rachel's aunts and uncles (her dad has 10 brothers and sisters). We met Uncle George and Uncle Jack, who were very nice, and then we went over to Aunt Hannah's. She. is. hilarious. She's this tiny older English woman who had her hair up in curlers. My first impression of her was when she went up to Rachel and said, "I'm glad you're here, because I was calling Gillian 'Rachel' all day yesterday...aren't I naughty?!" And then she burst out in little English giggles.

The rest of the night involved hanging out at another pub called the Buck, where I had a pint of cider (Strongbow...not Longbow...since that was really confusing to me) giving me a grand total of 1 1/2 pints of cider for the night. Therefore, I was silly. It was a lot of fun to sit around and talk with Rachel, Cote, Gillian, Laura, Ryan, and Rachel's cousin Mel, who's a couple years older than us. There were Asian and Jewish jokes galore, just proving that Cote and I are deeply loved by the Aldersons. And we had a long discussion about awkward things (turtles, turkeys, palm trees, etc.). AND we made a new handshake. Incredibly successful pub visit.

Our last stop was a return to the Black Bull. I was all set with my 1 1/2 pints, but I did spend the rest of the night playing pool (Rachel and I won once, woooo!) and listening to the juke box, which we took over. On top of being a horse whisperer, it turns out that Cote is a pool maven. Here she is, being a Cote:

And that was our first night in Reeth. I am a fan. The next day was our first full day (and my last for a week) so we got up and headed out to the Swing Bridge, which Rachel's grandfather helped to build. The bridge sits over the Swale, which is the very shallow river that runs through Reeth and all the nearby villages (collectively called Swaledale). We started out on a 15-minute walk out to the bridge. And thus begins a riveting account of our magical journey into a beautiful land of green hills and animal friends...

We walked to the edge of the village and started walking past farmland, as in pastures where cows and sheep were grazing. But then...we walked INTO a field of sheep! They were everywhere! I was excited to bond with the animals, so I made my way over to my new friends...but they didn't necessarily reciprocate.

NBD...I knew I'd have more opportunities later. After a few more minutes of walking, we arrived at the bridge. And just at that moment, the sun came out and lit up the bridge, the Swale, and the hills.

And it wouldn't be a true PAC(K) outing without a silly bridge picture:

Yeah Cote. We hung out by the bridge for awhile in the sun. Rachel and I kicked off our heels (or flip flops) and waded into the water. Then we discovered that there were tiny fish swimming all around us! They were eating stuff off of our feet, which made me feel like one of those fancy ladies who gets that fish pedicure treatment. Please note how tiny they are in relation to my foot (and the world at large):

So I at least bonded with one thing in nature. We headed back to the cottage and started getting ready for Rachel's Uncle Jack's 80th birthday party. This started another series of friendships with animal friends...

We got to the village where the party was being held (after driving past a field...full of bunnies. That was beautiful animal moment #1) and got out of the car. Immediately, this pidgeon landed near all of us and started pecking at our feet. It was following people around, and when Ryan bent down and reached his hand out, it started biting his fingers. Cote was naht a fan.

Nicole Cote: horse whisperer, pool maven...pidgeon kicker. We left our pidgeon friend and walked over to the tea room (I want my 80th birthday party to be held in a tea room) to meet the rest of the family. But on the way, we found...STEALTH CAT!

The night's animal friend count: 2. (20,002 if you count the bunnies). We went to the party, ate our meal, and then went outside after dessert to get some fresh air. And who did we find? Our pidgeon friend (at this point he deserved a name so we named him Jasper). Turns out Jasper was trained, and Ryan got him to jump up on surfaces and then perch on his hand multiple times. Check ittttt!

Aaaand, after a couple more hours of minglin' with the Aldersons, we headed back, playing a game of "dodge the suicidal bunnies" on the car ride home. We won.

This was a very long post. As a reward for anyone who got this far, the much-talked-up picture from London Dungeon in which Rachel's face is probably the greatest thing I've ever seen:

Paris avec les Bloque-mates!

Leaving the Levesques last Saturday was very sad, but on the bright side, it meant that I was on my way to Paris for 2 days to see...my blockmates!!! A rendez-vous in Paris, how fitting. The Paris party included Petah, Tori (plus 2 friends), Johnny, Hannah, Rachel, Cote, Pauline for the first day, and me. We stayed in an apartment in the 17th arrondissement that Tori's family friend let us stay in for free. Pretty amazing of him. And he left us a bottle of wine to boot.

So as I am just about a week behind in posting, and I want to catch up asap, the next couple posts will be ones of few(er) words and many pictures. To begin: Petah met us on Saturday morning at the train station and took us back to his host family's apartment to use the salle de bain, have a glass of juice, and meet his host family's cat, who I befriended immediately:

That's a French-ass cat! Next up, we made our way to Tori's apartment, and Tori met us at the Metro stop and WE WERE REUNITED YAAAAY! Because two Victorias are better than one. We put our bags in the apartment and promptly started on a magical tour of Paris led by none other than Petah (for anyone who doesn't know, his actual name is Peter, but I always say his name in a British accent because...he's Canadian. Yes.) First up on our Parisian tour: lunch. Because we were really hungry. But we made it cultural by eating on the Seine.

Afterward, our tour included the Louvre, the Tuilleries, Notre Dame, Paris Plages, Musee d'Orsay, l'Ile de la Cite, the Champs Elysses, the Arc de Triomphe, Pont Neuf, Pont des Arts, and many other things along the way. When I say these things were on our tour, I mean that we walked by them and took pictures of them. However, we did do some actual shopping on the Champs Elysses and we stopped for group pictures at the Arc de Triomphe.

B-e-a-utiful! After Petah's tour, we were le tired, so we grabbed some crepes and made our way back to the Seine to eat. I oderered an ouef-fromage, and the crepe man piled it high with delicious French cheese. I was really happy about this until I started eating it and it erupted in a lava flow of grease that landed on my French-ass purse which was but a day old. Sad. Hannah saved the day by lending me her Tide to go pen, and that plus a little dishwasher detergent on the spot later did the trick. Yet another crisis averted on this trip with the help of mes amis.

We went back to the apartment, rested up, got changed, and decided to break out the champagne (pronounced sham-PAH-nya). We figured we'd have one bottle, but one bottle turned into three, and three bottles turned into nine silly bloque-mates and friends. Here's PAC(K) being really serious about our champagne:

And here's everybody being themselves on the couch. Petah was a beast, and Johnny was taking a picture of me because he thought my way of drinking (see cider picture from my last post) was laughable. Rude.

And finally, the crowning (literally!) moment of the night--when I gave Tori her birthday present, a princess tiara from the Tower of London. You can tell by the look on her face that this is undoubtedly THE greatest gift she has EVER received in her life EVER and she absolutely could not be ANY happier about it.

So many moments. To end the night we headed to the Eiffel Tower to see it lit up, and it was beautiful. You should look up the Eiffel Tower at night if you've never seen it before. We missed Devan a LOT so we called her from under the Eiffel Tower to say hi and that we missed her a LOT. Unfortunately it was a short conversation because international calling is foolishness, but it was nice to have her there in voice and spirit. A magical end to a magical Parisian tour.

On Sunday we got up, went to Sacre-Coeur, then Rachel, Cote and I went back to the apartment to grab our bags while the others went to the Champs Elysses to get a good spot to watch the Tour de France come in. Making our way back to the apartment by ourselves was easy with the help of my teeny tiny Metro map:

We grabbed lunch, got our bags, and made our way to where everyone was standing, leaving us 20 minutes to see the bikes come in before we had to turn back around and head through the solid mass of people on the street to be on time for our 5:30 train back to London. Apparently whoever won the Tour de France (I still don't know the winner) was not on the same schedule as us, because he and the other cyclists arrived 45 minutes later, just as we were going down the stairs to the Metro. Oh well, at least we can say we were kind of there.

And then, a few hours later, we were back in London once again. France--and especially Paris--went by so quickly! It was a bummer to leave so soon, but I liked seeing this sign as we made our way back to the mew:

France! Levesques!

Last Wednesday, we took the Eurostar from London to Paris for the first part of our French excursion: staying with the Levesques in Coutevroult outside of Paris. They live about 40 minutes NE of Paris by train, right near Eurodisney.


First off, I love the Levesques. Technically I've only stayed with them for about 11 days of my life, but I feel like they're my family from another...country. When I stay with them, I actually feel completely at home. So the Levesques are les bombes. Just wanted to put that out there.


The afternoon that we got there, Claire (the mom) and Pauline (the daughter) took the three Americaines to Pauline's uncle's farm to visit their dogs and see their pidgeonry. Inside the pidgeonry is a giant stone head of Julius Caesar. Just 'cause. After that, Pauline took us to ride her horse, Louna. I rode her last time I was there, but Rachel and Cote had never ridden before. As usual, Rachel managed to snap a picture of me struggling while I wasn't looking (I feel like there's a pattern here) but even though she was terrified of horses, she still tried riding Louna and looked like a cowgirl while she was at it. And a Mountie. And a horseback bobby.



After riding, we helped Pauline put Louna in for the night. Turns out Cote's a horse whisperer. We headed back to the house to get ready for dinner, which included champagne and cheese beforehand. Pinkies up!


The next day: EURODISNAAAY! That is how the Frenchpeople say it, and I love it. I will never say it any other way. We woke up early so we could get to the park right as it opened to pick up the free fast passes that the Levesques arranged for us. Diiiid I mention they're awesome? I was especially excited because I got to see Alan! He was one of Pauline's classmates during last year's exchange, and one of the French students I talked to the most. We went on so many rides: Pirates of the Caribbean, Peter Pan, Buzz Lightyear Star Command, the teacups, It's a Small World, and then Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, and Indiana Jones twice. I was a little dizzy, and Rachel again faced her fears by going on the tall rides. Sooo proud of herrrr!


There are a bajillion details I could mention about this day because it was so much fun, but the highlights were: the rides, taking a million pictures of It's A Small World, not having to wait in line, the Disney character dance show in the afternoon, and the parade at night. As we left, there was a group of break dancers outside the park who put on an amazing show. The best part was when they brought this little 2 year old boy out and made him dance with them. I took a video but I can't put it up here, so hopefully one day it ends up on facebook for all to see. Overall, a beautiful day at Eurodisnaaay with my French amis:



The next day was already our last. We went to the Val d'Europe (a giant mall) in the afternoon, where I bought myself a French-ass purse, Rachel got a pair of earrings for her brother's fiancee, and Cote got a shirt. We went back to the Levesques and hung out for a little before people came for the barbecue that the family put on for us. Yet another nice thing they did for us. It was Pauline, her parents, her uncle, and some of her friends that I met last year during the exchange program: Carole, Jeanne, and Xavier. The conversation was a little awkward at first since the majority of them don't speak too much English and the majority of us don't speak too much French, but after Claire served her cocktail to everyone, everything got way less awkward and way more funny. These French people love to dance, and they had a line dance to basically every song. They taught us and we struggled, and Cote got it all on her video camera. Really really wish I could share that with everyone in the world. It was a lot of fun, and we got a picture with the whole family:




After the barbecue, we all walked down the road to the Coutevroult town sign to take funny pictures. The French girls all ganged up on Xavier and stole his shoe, then took pictures of him. We got a lot of awesome pictures, none of which I have because Claire took them on her camera. Speaking of Claire, she is just hilarious. I don't think I could actually put it into words, but she is the most ridiculous, hilarious, French woman I have ever met.


We finished off the night by playing bilingual Pictionary (that was interesting) and then heading to bed. It was so much fun, and such a great way to end our stay. We all definitely bonded, which was beautiful. The next day we got up early to take the RER train into Paris with Pauline, and it was really sad to say goodbye. Ils me manquent :-(