A Broad Abroad

While studying abroad at the Sorbonne (in Paris, France) I've found a great way to occupy my bits of free time, get to know my new city un peu meilleur, as well as experience the Parisian life style bite by delicious bite - by visiting the best patisseries Paris has to offer. 

I have this adorable little guide book called Les Patisseries de Paris Chocolatiers, Salons de The, Boulangeries et Glaciers by Jamie Cahill.

This little beaut not only has these creme de la creme patisseries organized by each arrondissement, but also the closest metro station, their hours, and their house speciality!

This is extremely convenient for me who can just whip out this book at any given time, look up whatever arrondissement I'm in and find me some sweets!

You can live vicariously through my mouth instead of my soon to be fat ass as I document my little epicurean escapades. Lucky you, looks like I'll be taking one for the team. 

Extra Extra Read All About It

Where the hell have I been?!

I don't call, post, or send flowers?!

How rude of me!

Well, gather round children.

For it is story time!

Today's tale is that of my own.

Ah, yes, tis an enjoyable telling that dates back to June of 2011

The tale of my summer travels . . .

It all began when my handsome husband graduated from UCLA. 

As a graduation present and reward for all the hard work he put in, I got us two tickets to a little place down in the dirty south by the name of New Orleans (pronounced Nawleans)

Since we've been wanting to go for some time, I figured "Hey, what better time than now?! He just graduated and the humidity is at its peak... what better time than now?"

June 13th- June 17th

And I'm not kidding about the humidity.

The moment I stepped out the door I was sweating like a whore in church.

Then just around the corner comes my favorite holiday.

INDEFUCKINGPENDENCE DAY!

Spent the day grilling, eating, swimming and drinking with my man, my bestie and the homies.

July 4th

Skip to the last chapter of the book which brings us to the end of summer where my parents, younger siblings, uncle, boyfriend and I go to London for a few days before going on a safari in three different countries in Africa.

I don't want to bore you with stupid details of my even stupider trip so I'll keep it brief:

London for 3 days

South Africa for 1 day

Botswana for 4 days

Zimbabwe for 4 days

then back to 

South Africa for 4 days

July 28th- August 10th

So, yeah, we saw hippos, lions, giraffe, rhinos, crocodiles, hyenas, etc. 

But like I said, I don't want to bore you with my stories. 

NURD ALURT

My notes on the books I've read in the past year

Rich Boy is about a working class Jewish kid, Robert, from the blue-collar suburbs in Philadelphia in the 1950’s using his good looks and natural gift with the ladies to his advantage. Wanting to get out of his neighborhood, Rob leaves to Tufts university where he finds himself in a group of filthy rich kids during which the next four decades he climbs New York’s elite social latter. And on the way he loves, looses, marries, succeeds, and fails. I loved this book.

5 STARS

Easy for You is a collection of stories about Los Angeles locals. It’s hard to pin point what exactly I liked about this book, but if you are from Los Angeles like I am, this book totally resonates with you. You can visualize every step, every street, and every shop that is mentioned. Most of stories don’t have this deep earthy message to them- but it is interesting taking a peak into these lives and examining what personal and internal struggles everyone deals with.

4 STARS

Whip Smart was NOT what I was expecting it to be. After reading a review on it I was anticipating a novel about a glamorous dominatrix reciting her potentially funny and raunchy interactions on the job. Wrong- so wrong. This glamorous dominatrix was a vegan, heroine-addicted Harvard student. The reality of these "funny and raunchy interactions" were giving men enemas, brutally torturing them, and finishing it off with a rough urinary catheter session.

2 STARS

Based Upon Availability has the same formatting as the movie Traffic or Crash. It tells the story of individuals in New York City and how they all interconnect based around the Four Season’s hotel in NY, which creates the net of this book. I couldn’t put this down. Each room has it’s own story. This book has a rehab-needing female aging rock star, a jealous woman who leaves her sister beaten and tied to bed, a mental woman who believes she is pregnant, men with their mistresses and much more.

5 STARS

Sex with Kings was such an interesting read for a lover of European royalty such as myself. This book compiles true stories and history of the famous and not-so famous mistresses dating from the medieval Europe to present. The author breaks “mistresshood” into several sections- the art of pleasing a king, the mistress and the queen, the mistress’s husband, political power between the sheets, the wages of sin, and royal bastards. I found out that Madame du Barry had chronic yeast infections- and that isn’t a good enough reason to read this then I don’t know what is.

5 STARS

Water for Elephants was mediocre at best. If you haven’t seen the movie then you at least know what it is about. The book lacked depth in it's plot and chemistry development. Three/fourths of the book was painstakingly slow and the little bit left that was exciting wasn’t compelling enough to compensate for the beginning.

1 ½ STARS

Thousand Splendid Suns (the following is taken from Publisher’s Weekly) “an in-depth exploration of Afghan society in the three decades of anti-Soviet jihad, civil war and Taliban cruelty. He impels us to empathize with and admire those most victimized by Afghan history and culture—women. Mariam, a 15-year-old bastard whose mother commits suicide, is married off to 40-year-old Rasheed, who abuses her brutally, especially after she has several miscarriages. At 60, Rasheed takes in 14-year-old Laila, whose parents were blown up by stray bombs. He soon turns violent with her. Although Laila is united with her childhood beloved, the return of the Taliban always shadows their happiness.” I love this author and I loved this book! Seeing a side of Middle Eastern life, especially that of women, clarifies and eliminates any prejudiced or ignorant assumptions I had of the cultural.

5 STARS

You Never Give me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup was recommended to me as a must-read biography. I was excited to read in depth about a band I was two generations too young to live through, too young to understand the revolutionary culture surrounding Beatlemania, but so eagerly loved. In all honesty, I wish I hadn’t read it. Not because the book wasn’t good- but because it unveiled these god-like artists (minus Ringo), exposing their very much human qualities and at time vile characteristics. Not one righteous bone in their body. This whole Hare-Krishna-Eastern-Enlightenment high George Harrison was on was complete and utter bullshit. These songs that I had imaged had so much substance behind them turned out to be something that was just thrown together before a session. That is if you could get all of them in one room at the same time. However, those miracles were few and far in between. What I thought was for the love of music was really for the love of those extra zeros added to their checks. Yes, they discussed Yoko and Linda (spoiler alert: it was John’s mummy complex directed towards Yoko is one of the largest factors to the band’s death) but majority of the book was explaining every lawsuit they had which is a volume collection on its own. Don’t let this discourage you from reading this book. If you already have the Beatles pretty well figured then this reading would add a good chunk of foundation to your Beatle knowledge.

3 STARS

Cabinet of Roman Curiosities- Fuck this book.

NO STARS

Books I will read during these following 12 months