adieu.

keats wrote a poem called “ode to melancholy"”:

she dwells with beauty—beauty that must die;

  and joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

bidding adieu; and aching pleasure nigh,

  turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:

ay, in the very temple of delight

  veil’d melancholy has her sovran shrine,

though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue

  can burst joy’s grape against his palate fine;

his soul shall taste the sadness of her might,

  and be among her cloudy trophies hung.

My state of being these last few days has been nothing short of melancholic. Beauty that must die. i keep telling myself that feeling this way means i've truly loved, have truly lived. i hold onto that as leaving Paris is even more brutal than i'd ever imagined. 

When i applied for the program in Paris, i wrote my entry essay about the connections we humans make to places (ap human geography anyone?). i wrote about how each individual gains a unique sense of place and how that sense of place shapes their life. 

i returned to thinking over this topic today, as i spent the afternoon alone visiting all of my favorite places, trying hard to soak in every sight, sound, touch, and smell of the city. How has my sense of place, of Paris, shaped my life? 

While in Paris, i carried around a petit cahier to jot down whatever whenever. On one of the pages i wrote down "subtle change". That's all, subtle change. The thought came to me that my subtle change, gained from my sense of Paris, is my range of emotion, of feeling more alive than ever.

melancholy -- an emotion of strangely sweet sadness upon realizing (or, i might add, feeling) the state of something very truly beautiful.

i feel as though i have burst  joy’s grape against my palate fine;

and now my soul tastes the sadness of melancholy's might.

i have felt such intense joy here,

la joie de vivre,

she dwells with beauty.

Perhaps not such a subtle change after all.

we will become silhouettes

in pictures.

Roma

Firenze

 Sienna

“It is fate that I am here, but you can call it Italy if it makes you less unhappy.”--George Emerson

Listen to this.

Or this, if you want a bit more culture. 

Then, watch this.

Florence is one of the most beautiful cities i've ever visited. After a long car ride from Rome, Claire and i made our way to the Arno river to read for a few hours while dad visited a museum (Claire and i were in need of a break after getting lost in the Vatican museum for four hours, a story for another time). I've come to realize that for me the best way to spend in Europe is on the bank of a river. We watched teenage boys training for crew and two old men who punted along. We wondered why we were the only non-Italians there. It wasn't until we left that we realized we were accidentally trespassing, but the woman who owned the land was nice and helped us get out of the locked gate. 

Today we went to the Duomo cathedral with dad and then went to see the David. Claire and got yelled at by some gypsies whose picture i took. Scary. We got outta there fast. We also went to the Lindt store to eat some chocolate before getting lunch at McDonalds. After a week of only italian food, we were so happy. Dad, however, refused to order anything. His loss i guess. 

Tomorrow we're off to the Tuscan countryside (Sienna and Pisa)...and then...Paris!!!!!

this is how we do in Rome

On top of Capitol Hill i.e. where Brutus killed Caesar 

famille.

They got here! And now i have someone to sing with in the car and speak to in an Indian accent. We spent the day going from medieval town to medieval town, getting lost a lot and asking for directions a lot. More pics to come!

ka chiiing (ala grace kelly/monte carlo)

this is the only photo i took in monaco, and it doesn't do it justice. 

We spent the day visiting Grace Kelly's grave, eating overpriced gelato, and sitting on a dock in the  Mediterranean.

beautiful victory.

{school assignment}

The name Nice comes from the Greek word ‘Nike’ meaning victory. In French, Nice is known as Nice la Belle.

Nice is a different world than the hustle and bustle of Paris and the pastoral atmosphere of Bretagne and Normandy. Familiar yet altogether foreign, sometimes resembling Southern California with hints of French and Italian culture, Nice is a nice (haha. Funny) repose and adventure all at once. And now I feel like I’m starting to sound too much like Rick Steve. Hmmm…I should be concerned.

In the last week, I went to church at the most welcoming ward I’ve yet to visit, swam in the Mediterranean, made friends with seven-year-old Nicole from Yorkshire while collecting beach glass, ate gelato, watched the moon rise, with the sounds of Arabic music in the background, and explored the flower/produce/flea markets in Old Town.

Nice la Belle.

For class, we were required to visit a Chagall and Matisse museum, Old Nice, a castle that is really just a hill with an amazing view, and a Russian Orthodox Cathedral. So, after church on Sunday, we first made our way over to the Matisse museum. The best part about this museum was the building itself, which was red stucco with turquoise shutters. Paris is composed of all neutrals. Nice pops with color, just like the paintings of Matisse. That is why he moved here, for the color. The Chagall museum felt like a dream. Psychologically explorative, sometimes disturbing, sometimes whimsical, sometimes ephemeral, Chagall truly captures the complexities of humanity. The next day, Melissa, Heather, and I finished the rest of our assignments, beginning with the Russian Orthodox Cathedral. There is Russian presence here in Nice, as the Czar and his family used to vacation here to escape the brutal cold of St. Petersburg. Unfortunately, the Cathedral is currently undergoing renovations and is closed to the public. But we still enjoyed peering through the gates at the domed spires and vivid colors that are so different from anything you can find in the U.S. After we winded our way through Old Nice, loosing ourselves in the small alleyways and dead ends. I imagine that this part of the city resembles Italy and I particularly loved all of the pastel facades of the buildings. The smells of fish and pizza and the sounds of lilting accents and seagulls made it a sensory experience.  Ensuite, we took an elevator up to the top of a precipice that overlooks the entire city. Breathtaking and soul-expanding.

Also, my friend Heather (who took the photo of me on the side reading by the castle) did a photo shoot with Melissa and I in Paris if you want to check out the photos:

http://passthefrenchtoast.blogspot.fr/2012/06/photoshoot.html

could've been a princess

Angers

Langeais

Azay

Chemonceau

Ambeoise

 Blois

Chambord

7 castles

3 days

and yes. i did listen to princess of china. coldplay has a song for everything. 

Each chateau had it's own element of uniqueness. But i'll admit, i don't feel the need to see another castle again for a very very long time. After a while they all seemed to blur. One castle reminded me of Cinderella. Another, Chambord, of Lady Catherine deBourgh's house Rosings. But more than literary and film allusions, i loved imagining the lives of the people who walked through and lived in these castles. In Blois there was a room full of hidden cabinets that i loved. In Chemonceau, there were vaulted ceilings with pine rafters. Definitely where Danielle de Barbaraque would've lived. At Ambeoise, Charles VIII hit his head and died (as we talked about at every castle). At Langeais, the same Charles VIII secretly married Anne de Bretagne. Both of them were short, Charles with a hooked nose and Anne with a ski-jump nose. After he his head, Anne remarried her true love Louis something and lived happily ever after. See, fairy tales really do come true.