Last weekend was a whirlwind adventure to the region of Poitou-Charentes. I was there primarily for the wedding of two of my closest friends, but since we had a couple extra days, we spent them exploring the surrounding area with a rental car. One of the places we explored was the walled city of Brouage.
My friend Katie and I took a 5-day jaunt through Germany’s Black Forest region, visiting three towns: Freiburg, Heidelberg, and Tübingen. Here is an account of what we did while in Freiburg. Check back later for the other towns!
After a few hours on the train with some pretty countryside views flashing by the window, we arrived in Freiburg. It took us a little while to get our bearings and find our accommodations for the night, which were slightly removed from the city center. I won’t bother recommending the airbnb we stayed at, since in my opinion, it was lacking. There was no wifi (GASP) and when we brought groceries home that evening to make dinner, we discovered the kitchen wasnt even equipped with a pot to boil our pasta in! After some nervous debating and creative thinking, we improvised and used the electric kettle instead… and it worked out perfectly! So take this as a lesson: if you need to cook pasta, but you don’t have a stove or a pot – just shove it into the electric kettle. ;)
But let’s backtrack to earlier that day…
I’m sure you all have been positively aching for some charming snapshots of Parisian streets, so I’ve hooked a sister (or bother) up! :p To be honest, this collection of photos didn’t actually require much “wandering” at all – they were all taken within a couple blocks of one another, on streets I’ve visited many times before. But that doesn’t mean they’re familiar to you readers!
Odette is one of the cutest pastry shops in this city, so much so that it almost warrants the use of the term “adorbs,” but I won’t subject you to that kind of debauchery at this time.
As for the song above, it’s a classic from my high school days. The song reminds me of summertime, so it was an obvious choice.
I’ve been trying to get myself out into Paris at least once a week lately, as the home-commute-work-commute-home routine gets old really fast, and I’ve succeeded so far.
First, I wandered around Beaubourg and stumbled upon AntiCafe, which you can read about in my previous post. Great Success.
Then, on different day, I met a friend at Place Monge, indulged in a crepe the size of my head at Au P’tit Grec on rue Mouffetard, the interior of which is hung with vines, and then strolled through the surrounding streets while UBER-overindulging on a Nutella crepe for desert.
It seems like I can’t start a blog post without mentioning the weather. It’s been a strange combination of rain and sun, like the sky just went through a breakup and is alternating between debilitating depression and sheer joy of what possibilities lie ahead. I’ve never experienced a true spring, but I think this might be it. I’m starting to miss the sun of California a little more now. I’ve been slacking on the blog, feeling unmotivated, discouraged, and uncreative since I started a babysitting gig. I haven’t been enjoying myself the past few weeks, but I’ve managed to gather some images for this Visual Diary… they are one of the easiest and most natural types of posts for me to write.
These pictures show the bipolar nature of the weather over the entire month of May, but I think they also reflect the detachment I’ve been feeling lately. Only one image contains evidence of a human presence, instead focusing on solitary motifs or inaccessible constructions. I’ve been feeling invisible in the world lately, when I’m in the busses and trains, I can just fade into a corner and almost not exist. The foreign conversations around me mean nothing, so that it all becomes white noise; I avoid eye contact in public transportation because supposed cultural rules taught me that looking at a person in the eye can come across as either creepy or flirty; I walk past the same restaurants, shops, and train stations everyday, but I don’t know anyone; I see little windows on buildings bedecked with flowers and wonder who could possibly live there and what their lives could possibly be like, and if they’re happy; I’ve become annoyed with the French people and their way of life; and I wonder why I’m here and no longer really believe that I’m strong or interesting or cool for moving here. Even though I blend into the crowd, looking and acting like a Parisian, I feel more disoriented and alien than ever.
If I were to show you pictures of this place without any explanation, you would think I had lunch in some hip Parisian’s private home, perhaps the home of a graphic designer or art director; but in fact, you would be mistaken. This restaurant, called Derrière (translated: behind) for its placement in a courtyard behind street-level shops, has the mysterious allure of a speakeasy, but the accessibility and congeniality of your best friend’s house.
What you see when you first walk in is a leafy courtyard with green chairs and yellow umbrellas, which is charming enough on its own. Keep walking, don’t be intimidated, and you’ll duck into a large, open room, sectioned off into different areas. There’s a kind of living room with a lip-shaped couch, a salon with a full-size ping pong table and shelves full of wacky trinkets, a couple romantic corners, a dining area with long banquet table, and a tiled kitchen with a bar overlooking the chef’s space. If that isn’t enough for you, just wait, there’s also a second level, complete with secret wardrobe. But we’ll save the best for last…