Mont St. Michel

On..sdf

still working.

random rants n remarks

My cooking, apparently very yum
It turns out everyone loves my cooking! They are so nice. Everytime I make something, Gersende says, oo that smells good! Haha, I am loved here! Everything from my spaghetti to meatballs to chicken to even my scrambled eggs. I'm lovin' it.

Organizing my entries
Does this help you to read my entries if I bold a topic line? I think I write too much for you to read so maybe this'll help you skip past things you don't want to read.

BBQ
A couple weeks back I was stumbling through paris trying to get back to Republique from St. Michel and thought I could take a short cut through the marais. I tired and failed miserably. The marais is full of tiny narrow streets with tall buildings and I got pretty lost. Somehow I met a bunch of french kids and ended up having drinks with them that night/morning, and got invited to a bbq. (side note: I told Gersende about it and she was said, "you'd be a massive idiot if you didn't go!") She didn't mean the comment to be derrogatory, its just her way to talking. So tonight was the BBQ. Clement lives in the suburbs of paris. Note to self- I need to comment on the suburbs. I met Melanie and Saed at the metro and Clem came and picked us up. The whole situation was totally cool up until the point where I was sitting in the car and thought to myself, wow I have no idea who these people are. I couldn't really remember how good of a judge of character I was the night I met them, and here I was sitting in a car with 3 strangers going somewhere in the suburbs or paris. So I think my wall went up a bit. Anyhow Clem drove through this huge gate, which turned out to be his driveway. There were a handful of ppl there already, and I only knew 4 of them. But it made me feel better that everyone didn't know everyone and it was somewhat of a random bbq, just like all of our college parties.. random crowd. The bbq started pretty promptly after that, there was chicken and sausages (hot dogs) in baguettes (buns), ha! To my surprise, baguettes make pretty good buns.

More people showed up throughout the dinner, and then most of them left. By the end there was a handful of us again, and this time it was more fun because they were ppl I knew and were comfortable talking to. Melanie went off on Bush, HA and Clem got mad at Saed for certain reasons which I won't write about, etc. etc. It was cool to see how similar (and not so similar) the ppl in our countries are.

Clem had asked me to bring some whiskey, (Good bbq, Yeah!) and so I brought the jack I had bought in Berlin for cheap. MM I haven't had jack in sooo long. It totally reminded me of home. So many memories.. pause.. reminiscing moment... ok done. Anyway french ppl aren't really rowdy like the states. A few people got up to dance, but mostly everyone just sat at the table. And that's how they have their fetes. Ou sorties. I really felt like my french improved tonight, or at least I got used to listening and diffferentiating words, even though I didn't know what they meant. I got along pretty well tonight with my french, yay. And on top of that made a bunch of french friends who are my age (23). Yes, MY age. I said that to Gersende and Nada and they gave me attitude for saying that! (they are 26+). So I was shocked that they said that, because I didn't think it was a big deal and would mean anything. AnywaY, they've totally called me young and a baby, or made comments about our different ages. And I'm totally shocked again cuz obviously they do notice a difference in age! Bah!

So all in all the bbq was a success, and a good time. I'm glad to be hanging out with french kids cuz 1) it'll improve my french a lot (not just gramatically correct, but also how people really speak french), and 2) i get to learn more about french culture the way french ppl live. It's a super rad situation.

superman the movie
I saw superman the movie last night. I give it a good rating. The movie was well done (minus ALL the impossible things that happend. I might get into that more later). BUT did anyone else feel like something was missing? Or not supermanish? I felt that the love story was played on too much, and there wasn't enough tradgedy and sacrifice. In all other superman series and movies he has to give up something for his responsibility. Kinda like spiderman. The movie ends on a totally happy note.. he has a kid, and he's got Lois. Btw, whatever happened to clark kent? (what a good transition into the impossible things. Let's roll with it.) Also how the hell did he lift up the island made of kryptonite? That makes no sense whatsoever. Apparently kryptonite doesn't have a big effect on superman when he's lifting a frickin island and throwing it into space. And what the hell is Lois' husband going to do when he finds out his kid has superpowers? That'll be a sticky situation, better run now Lois. And why was superman so weak in the very beginning... did he hitch a ride on that meteor back to earth, and he couldn't jump off it before it hit the atmosphere? Also why couldn't the kid open the dang kitchen door, especially right after he pushed a grand piano into the henchman without even flinching. Bah. Other than all that, it was a good movie.

paris and its suburbs (banlieues)
Paris is really enclosed. I compare it to the pentagon. Once your'e inside, you are sustained by anything you need. Post offices, restaurants, food, accomodations, etc. The pentagon is a self sustained city. So is paris. It is completely different than the outside. And the thing is, I only notice it when I take the train to outside of Paris. It's like a whole new world. Where did the tall buildings go? Did I just pass through a wall that surrounded paris? Those are the questions I ask myself everytime I leave the city. Paris and France are two totally separate things. It's not like the bay area (San Francisco) and it's suburbs where they are somewhat similar, or at least there's a medium (namely Oakland/Emeryville etc) between total metropolis (SF) and suburbia (um, how about Moraga).

But being in the suburbs really made me miss home and it reminded me of why I love the suburbs so much. I love sitting in my hot tub and staring into the sky, watching the stars, listening to the peaceful silence. vs. the city hearing motorcycles, and they are really really really loud ones, drive down the street at all hours, people walking under my window and me eavesdropping on them, insane unexpected parties down the road at club gibus, etc. I really do love living in this situation cuz well, I never have, but really having a taste of the suburbs again made me miss it a lot.

le quatorze julliet (bastille day)

so last night i saw hands down the most unreal fireworks show, ever. just imagine, sitting in front of the eiffel tower is just plain amazing as it is. put insane fireworks right in front of it, and a pretty sunset behind the tower. that's what it was last night.

everyone met up at champs de mars at 6 to try and get a good seat to watch the fireworks that started at 1030. it reminded me of the fourth of july in tahoe years ago when my family dropped maya and i off at the beach at 2pm to get a seat for the 8 o'clock show, except this time i didn't get an insane sunburn. kiyomi invited her friend annie who brought two other friends, francis and laura. so the show started a little bit after sunset at about 1030. classical music began to play from set up speakers all around the park, and the show was on.

this is a video clip of the fireworks... just imagine this 10 x more amazing.
if you hit the actual play button in the middle of the picture, it will play on the same page (not opening a new window taking you to youtube). also check out my flickr for more sweet pix.



after the fireworks we waited until the thousands of people left the park, and headed to the marais to go to a firemen's party. all the firehouses open up for the night before and of bastille day for a big party. we tried to catch the last metro but it was totally full and we couldn't get on... soo we ended up walking the whole way there.

here's more pix of the cool fireworks.

zizou

On the 3rd of July, i went to st. chapelle with jocelyn. it's possibly the oldest church/chapel in paris (it's even older than notre dame). it's smaller, but the stained glass is amazing!

The first picture is the best picture i could get of the whole room, and the second picture is a closer up of the glass. The windows depict each book in the Bible, starting with Genesis on the left back of the room, and ends with Revelatioin at the right back.

Outside on the balcony upstairs, they had carvings of biblical stories in the walls. i found those the most interesting because it made me feel like the stories were so true. If i had lived in the 13th century, I would have had no doubt believing the Bible. This is the only picture I got of the carvings, and I suppose it doesn't depict what I'm talking about all that well. sorry! Anyway, after that we went to Champs de mars with Chelsey and drank too much wine as usual. Um, yeah.

On the 5th, France played and beat Portugal. Here are some pics. We went to Bar Drop recommended by Rafael and Gersende. Awesome game! France's spirits are so high! Allez les bleus!



(these pics were taken at Bastille)
On the 8th of July, joce and i went to l'arc de triomph and trocadero.


we then met Ana Luiza for Thai food at a Thai restaurant that my guide book recommended. The food portions were SMALL. but the price was alright i suppose. after dinner, ana left to a jazz concert at caveau d'oubliettes, but then nada came by with but of course, more wine. the night kind of goes into a blur. but i think we walked to montparnasse to try and go up the building but it got too dark, and then we stopped by the jazz concert, but that wasn't really happening, so we ended up at shywawa? Then yeah, haha.

The next day I went to Jocelyn's aunt's house for dinner. YUM. home cooked good food! it made me feel apart of the city... or some kind of homey feeling. we went back to drop and watched france LOSE. Zizou and Materazzi were both f'in immature and I blame them both. Good sportsmanship goes BOTH WAYS! But I feel like Zizou is the only one getting the heat. zidane this zidane that. he's an idiot and made a mistake, but c'mon give him a break, it's not like he's being violent to players intentionally. Anyway, it sucks that France came out on the losing side of the whole situation. Allez les bleus! Anyway at the moment that Italia scored it's fifth PK, I swear the entire country of France fell silent in disbelief and despair. Zizou is not just adored, but worshipped here in France (I've seen people bowing down to big posters (zoolander size) of him on buildings). So when les bleus lost, it was incredibly sad. And after about 15 seconds of silence, everyone gave applause to the teams, the games, and the WC. Everyone still felt the depression though. The city that night was pretty quiet and not that many people were in the streets. Sad day, yes it was. After the game, I needed something good to eat so I went to St. Michel and got a greek sandwich to cheer me up. ha!

ey! ey! qui ne saute pas n'est pas francais! ey!

boy did i come to france at the right f'in time! first was fete de la musique, then it's the WM then it's bastille day, then it's tour de france, etc. etc. etc! tonight france beat out portugal, bringing us straight to the wM finals. i've never been in a place where the whole city is cheering for the same thing!! right now, even as i am writing this, there are innumberable horns being blown, cheers being shouted and well you get the point. and that's just my street. i went to champs elysees two nights ago after france beat brazil, and it was just madness. people were climbing trees with no shoes, riding atop street lights, fireworks being shot into the trees and atop buildings and even into the crowd, it was defintely FUN (for the first hour). all until masses of people began running for no apparent reason towards me and nada who were sitting on the bench. deciding not to get stampeded, we ran also away from l'arc de triomph. there's a bunch more pictures on my flickr if you wish to see them. just click the pictures on the right, or the link that says, MY PICTUREs. oo here is a video i just uploaded onto youtube. hopefully it works.



so to catch up, i went to berlin two weekends ago to watch the Ukraine and tunisia game. with a less than stellar match, the atmosphere was truly incredible. the wm ticket was so official, it was heavy, thick cardboard paper, and it had a hologram on it. we got inside just as they were singing the ukrainina national anthem. the ukrainian side was going nuts, and afterward so was the tunisia side. i'd have to say though that ukraine definitely would have won in a cheer competition with tunisia side. anyway we had a blast at the game. i was really tired though from my last week of staying out too late and not sleeping. the night before we went to a club which i forget the name of it now, (EDIT: the name of it was Delicious Donuts!) but they woudln't let us in because they just opened (at 5am, crazy huh) and there were 15 guys inside. so they told us to go get some girls at this other club (which i forget the name of also now) and so we went and got half the girls in the club to come with us. impressive huh! well too bad there were only 2 girls in the entire club and one was with her bf. so we really only got one girl to come with us... and then we never made it back to the first club anyway.

the next night we went to some bars and i ended up tagging along on a mission to find a mural of joga bonito. we went through beach clubs, prostitute central, and everything else interesting in berlin's nightlife, including a free hoppin hip hoppity hop party which was tight until we realized the average age of the club was 16 and the music they played was back in the 90's which put me quinn mike christian and paul back into high school. anyway it was still a good time, and it was also christian's bday so we drank to that.

oh, also that night i went with quinn to rent a car at tegel airport. we had a shitty map so we ended up on the right direction but lost in the small streets of berlin. we decided to stop and eat at some restaurant we found. i had bbq ribs in the name of nostalgia (of home), and quinn and a typical german dinner, a snitzel. i think that's what they were called. once we got back to near our hostel we found a cafe and drank some beer and watched france KICK ASS. got back to the Circus hostel afterwards, met up with the rest of the guys and went out (see above paragraph). quinn christian and paul drove to munich after we got back that night, which i thoguht was totally crazy! but they made it to munich safely.

the next couple of nights i spent by myself but met some english guys whose names i completely also forgot. there were four of them, all really nice guys but one smelled incredibly bad. i learnt "i think he's fallen down the loo" haha. on sunday i took a half day walking tour... it was absolutely the best. i learned so much about the history of berlin and how much it sucked. i could really never live in that city because there is just too much sad history there and i don't think i could live with seeing things that reminded me of that every day.

the rest of that week wasn't very exciting. i finished my last day of school that friday, and got to watch france win some good matches. met kiyomi, who is a nyu'er who is also friends with nick and gang. she's gonna be in paris for a while. i also went to ayumi's dinner on the last day of school. gersende told me i could walk to her place so i did, except smart me decided to walk with 4 bottles of 75 cl beer ( a little less than a 40) and 2 bottles of coke PLUS 3 more bottles of 75 cl beer cuz nada said they didn't have any. the original 15 minute walk ended up with a sweaty shirt and 45 minutes later.

ayumi cooked curry and it was good! nada brought a roasted chicken and since nobody was eating the last of it, i went ahead and demolished it, licking the entire chicken carcass including the bones clean. i think i get that from my dad. after dinner we went to bateau far (sp i know it) and danced somewhat the night away to the illest techno music i'd ever heard. and when i say illest i mean i almost felt ill after listening to it. j/k. i just ended up spending most of the time outside the boat cuz the music was too weird. and it was yet another late night, i mean early morning for us.

next night france beat brazil. nada and i went to (side note, i mention nada a lot huh! i guess we hang out a lot here) champs elysees after the game ended. the metro ride was fine over there, but once we got out, there were TONS and THOUSANDS of ppl crowded to get out of the damn metro. i felt like i was going to die in there. i coudln't move, the station was 90 degrees F, and everyone kept touching me with their sweaty arms. however by the grace of some miracle, we actually made it out of the metro and walked with the huge parade along champs elysees. people were lighting flares, waving them around, climbing trees and street lights, and even shooting fireworks in random directions (some landed in trees and some atop buildings... good firehazards, no?). we made it all the way down to l'arc de triomph and sat on a bench for a while, just chillin. when all of a sudden masses and masses of people started running towards us... ( OK i just realized i already wrote about this night in the first paragraph. go reread that instead!)

the next day we had a picnic on canal st. martin. this was gustav's 3rd last day or something because his flight kept getting overbooked and he kept getting paid to stay an extra day. in all i think he made 1,000 € to stay an extra two nights. i sure hope i get paid that much bank to stay in paris, sheesh! so we had this picnic and chilled for like 5 hours. and guess who stopped by to have a picnic too? fleur de la coeur from Harry potter 4. she sat like 20 feet away from us. i asked her out to the upcoming hogwarts winter ball but she rudely said NO. gosh, what a meanie.

PS! Thanks for all the comments you guys have left. i really appreciate reading them! Sorry that i don't write back to you guys who comment as it would be nice of me to do that, but im really bad at this blogging thing and just writing entries is hard enough for me ;) anyhow if you get a chance, leave a comment or shoot me an email, jonwongathan@gmail.com and i'll get back to you as best i can. a bientot-

jonathanwon blog update

hey all,

check out my flickr site. it's taken me forever to upload pics so i hope you like them. to see them, either click a picture on the right side of my blog, which will take you to that individual picture, or if you want to see all my albums (or sets) click the "My Pictures" link in the links section.

-jon

last week

let's see if i can remember this last week. Im going to try and be as detailed as trish's posts, just so I can try to remember as much as I can, and also prove what a great memory i have under the influence. herrr it goes.

On Wednesday I got invited to Morvan's pique nique under the eiffel tower with his friends. i brought along with me gersende and we brought some wine and crackers. there were about 20 people there including us. about 5 minutes after we sat down, the rain started to come down. but it didn't really stop anybody. a bottle of cider was passed around and was supposed to be the friendship bottle or something, and everyone took a sip from it. come to think of it, maybe that's how i got sick! damn friendship bottle. morvan brought his hookah so we smoked out of that for a little. at this time itd been raining pretty long and most everyone wanted to go, but we couldnt leave until everyone else in the park left. that was morvan's goal, so we stayed until the last people left the park (which was like 200 people) and then went to a bar in the 15eme, which has the cheapest beer in town. it was 4€ for a liter, which is actually almost the cheapest i've had, except for a hostel, which was 3,90€. I also saw a bar fight when we were there. the bigger guy was shouting at a smaller hippieish guy and was shouting something like "I'M A NICE GUY!" and then he proceeds to take a step back, lunge and head butt the dude. then the chairs start flying and the glass breaks, it was great. someone must have called the police and i think he got taken away. left around 1230a, got home, and decided to drink more with gersende. so that was my wednesday.

On Thursday went out with nada sharon and gustav. It was Sharon's last night in Paris, and we checked out some cool bars that I hadn't been to yet... One was Caveau des Oubliettes, and it has actual grass growing on the floor, sweet! After that we went to Le Pantelon and there we met these asshole frenchy mathematicians who thought they were the shit. After drinking there we hit up the bar across the street, The Crocodile but didn't stay long b/c the prices were pretty high. So we walked towards St. Michel and found a place next to Shywawa and watched a replay game of england. nada really wanted to stay and watch game 4 of the heat, which came on at 3am. so we stayed for a while longer to watch. At this point we are all kind of pooped so we decide to leave. We all went home via the notorious noctillien. I had never taken a bus (in paris fyi) and decided that it would be a good time to take the "shady" bus at 4a to try out the bus system.

On Friday, I downloaded the third episode of Rescue me. it downloaded really fast and I tried to watch it before everyone was supposed to arrive at 830p. Only got half way, when Chelsea, the only one who is on time in paris, got to my place. Nina and Nada came over like an hour + later, and nina's boyfriend Johnny from london came over around 12ish. We stayed up really late. I am getting pretty tired at this point during the week.

Saturday was nada's bday. Woke up around 4. Went to GoSport to buy a bike pump for her, and then went to her dinner at this place near Bastille. everyone was so incredibly late to dinner and i felt pretty bad for nada. G and i got there at 830 because g's friend decided to come at the very last minute. we thought we were going to be the last ones there, but it turns out we were the first. anyhow, dinner was alright. I had duck (i think that whenever i go out i have to have duck now because i miss it sooo much from home) and it was the really crispy kind. pretty good. but overall the whole dinner was kind of dry. Everyone threw in about 30€ for dinner. and if you can believe it, that is actually cheap for going out! After dinner, we went to meet up with Ana Luisa's cousin at a bar called troskel's off Mo Grands Boulevards. It was really smokey and I was really tired from the past 3 days of drinking and so I was kind of bored for the first part. We finally hit up the basement which turns out to be a lot cooler place, and it had tables we could chill at. Nada got drunk, and I got a lot of texts from her after we all left so I think I can say that she had a good time.

On Sunday Mario was here, so I met up with him during the France game at his hostel. It wasn't a super nice hostel, looked kind of dirty, and the bathrooms were definitely OUTside. Anyhow, we waited for a crap load of time for 1 person to come out with us, and during that time, that 1 person grew to 8 people who came out with us. Being so close, we just walked to the Eiffel tower from the hostel. mario and i had bought a couple bottles of wine for ourselves so we were good for the night. the other kids were all from the states and it was actually pretty annoying... just cuz their trip was more like a spring break trip to mexico mentality. one guy even got in a confrontation with a french kid. and i'm not trying to bag on americans or tourists, but i'm finding it to get on my nerves a lot more. maybe i'm turning more french. i dont think so though.

Anyway after the eiffel went off we went back to the hostel to drop some girls off and mario and i walked all the frickin way from the middle of the 15th to st. michel after having finished our bottles, trashed. it took us i think over an hour before we got to shywawa, i think it was around 430? we ordered a pitcher of desperado, and just as we got it the bar told us we had to be out of there in 10 minutes. crap. we met some other americans at the bar, talked with them a bit then downed the rest of our beers and were on our merry way. metros were still closed so we chilled at n.d. til around 530 and called it a night.

On Monday I woke up late, got to school an hour late. after school everyone came over and we went to the monop to buy some food and we came back to my place and cooked dinner. haha kebabs that didn't fit in a pan so we took them off the sticks and thre wit all in a pan :) after gersende got home, and lots of wine, we were telling drunk/embarassing stories in french. the funny thing is that it totally felt like i was in class b/c we were using the imparfait, passe compose and plus que parfait. plus we had gersende to use her correct french while she told us stories.

On Tuesday after school i went to fnac to buy some ridiculously expensive av cords to hook up my laptop to the telev. Nada came over to use the net, but we got pizzas at the franprix to have for a snack but ended up into dinner. she completely burnt her pizza because it was on a pan, and not a grill thingy. finished off all the wine we had left over from the night before and talked to gersende before going to sleep. again this is 4 in the morning... which i totlaly don't understand because it only feels like an hour or two goes by when in actuality its like 5.

for example, my day typically consists of, waking up around 1130 taking a shower and running to school. going to school. eating dinner. hanging out with friends. and boom, it's 4 am and i've only done 3 things today.

On Wednesday it was la Fete de la Musique. i.e. summer solstice so let's go out and party day! so i totally couldn't wake up on wed because i was so frickin tired. was supposed to meet the UN (united nations - that's what gersende calls me and my friends cuz we're from all over the world) at the bike rental place at 12. I got up at 1230. call nada, changed the time til 2. today is such a luggish day and i can't seem to get myself going. so i get there at 330. only nina and nada came and we rented bikes. sidenote: i am very happy because i rented a bike only speaking french and i understood everything he was saying. woohoo! we didn't end up riding all around the city like we'd planned, and only rode to jardin de luxombourg. cracked open some wine and chilled in the park for an hour. rode back to the first a little buzzed, haha, well maybe it was only nina cuz she pedaled like super super fast back to the rental. anyway after that met everyone at the fontaine de st. michel. ended up at le pantelon again, watched the match, i forget who now, then went out side to find that it was pouring rain! whoopie! i felt so smart right at that instant because i am still wearing my polo and shorts and didn't have an umbrella! we headed over toward teh pantheon and lots of bands were playing in the street. they were like mini concerts, and there were about 4 or 5 of them on the street up to the pantheon. around 130 all the shows stopped, so we headed to tthe dreadful don carlos, AGAIN. i dont' like this bar. ffor many reasons. but im not going to get into it. we get there and it's packed.

oh by the way, if you're still reading this, congratulations my friend! i can't believe you read this far, ha...

to make don carlos a short story, it's packed, ana luiza spills wine on me for the second time in 3 days, and around 330 chelsea and i leave the bar, try to find a cab, can't find one, she takes the rer, and i walk home, god it was far. another 45 min to an hour i think to walk home. sleep around 5, knowing i need to wake up in 4 hours to do my laundry (b/c each load of laundry takes 2 hours cuz the dang machine is broken! >:o ) before i can pack before i leave to orly for my flight at 6.



up next... the WM!

Pique Nique sous la tour Eiffel

Last night the weather said it was going to rain. And sure enough, after 3 days of being 25degrees+, it rained on us. But this time it was good rain. Morvan invited me to his pique nique that he and his friends have every wednesday. I brought along gersende and got to the parc in front of the Eiffel. Right after we got there, it began to rain and like i said earlier, this was good rain, the kind where it's still really hot outside and you want to go running in... yeah, that kind. Here's a pic from the parc..

johnny d says this isn't anything worth posting

...but since i spent 2 hours making this, i'm going to post anyway. it's really bad resolution because i had to shrink it down so i can make it somewhat web-feasible. this is the walk into my old, tiny studio. NOTE: you have to WAIT til it all downloads! (it's 2 megs, sorry)



maybe i should explain what you're seeing. first it's walking in front of my building. then it's me typing in my digicode to get in the front door. then it's turning on the light. next is getting in the elevator with a mirror where you can yes, see yourself. or me in this case. then it's me getting out of the elevator on the 5th floor and walking up the stairs to the 6th floor. In france the ground floor is "0" floor, and the first floor is the 2nd floor american style. So i climb the stairs and right on the right is my small bathroom. right after the bathroom down the hall is my room. hope you enjoyed my real interesting trip home every day in may!