The Second Happiest Place On Earth

So in celebration of my birthday Diane and I went out to Disneyland for a magical day of fun. Unfortunatly, it was raining most of the day. However, we didn't let it get us down. We simply overpaid for a cheap pancho with a picture of Mickey Mouse on it and went about enjoying our day.

That day we bought season passes for ourselves which would allow us to visit both California Adventures and Disneyland on select days. So a few weeks later we decided to take advantage of our season passes and head back out to Disneyland.

Thankfully this time it was rain free and much emptier thus allowing us to stroll the park more and take in some of the newer attractions we hadn't seen before.

Both days were a great time and I can't wait to go back again. Oh and I finally got to ride the new updated version of space mountain they have there. I have to say it was a fantastic ride, good job Disney!

Here are some pics to document the two days:


Rain rain go away!













Spin it faster!


















Just hanging out with my best buddy Mickey.

Disneyland is finishing up celebrating its 50th Anniversary, we were lucky enough to be able to celebrate with them.

Alright, $3.27!

So today I made the trip up to the Strawberry Festival in Oxnard (I'll post some pics later) and on the way noticed a gas station selling regular gas for $3.27 and got very excited considering in my area it's now $3.45.

So I made an extra effort to stop and get me some of that "cheap" gas. How sad that I'm now excited to have the chance to pay $3.27 for gas. It was only a few weeks ago that I was devestated that it surpassed the $3.00 mark and now I'm happy for $3.27.

I still remember paying $0.89 a gallon back in High school and filling up for $10. I miss those days.

Heading South

Again I apologize for my infrequent and delayed posts; I'm trying to catch up and be more frequent, I just seem a little lazy about it.

Anyway, so on April 21 Diane and I went down to Redondo Beach (south of LAX) for a crawfish boil with the Texas exes. Not being one to eat or want to eat crawfish, or jambalaya, I was stuck eating two nasty hotdogs. So in order to get some of my money's worth I partook in the keg of shiner. However, even a keg of shiner wasn't enough to salvage the event which turned out to be rather boring. Basically we just sat around and ate, then watched the raffel and of course they were playing our moment of glory dvd from the Rose Bowl, which seems to be a common fixture at all of the Texas exes events out here.

We decided to leave the event a little early as there didn't seem to be any hope of it turning around. On our way out of the parking lot I noticed the Redondo beach pier, having always had a fondness for piers and having never been to Redondo beach I decided perhaps we could salvage the day by visiting the pier and making our drive down there worth it.

At first it was mostly your typical touristy souvenir shops, but then at the base of the pier we came across a type of large indoor arcade. Naturally we went inside to see what it was all about. We quickly started finding random tickets that people had either dropped or forgotten to take from the machines. It then became a type of game for us to walk around and see what tickets we could find. Then we came across the skeeball games and decided to partake in those as well as a game of air hockey. With the tickets gained from the games and from the ones we found I was lucky enough to trade them in for a brand new red Redondo beach key chain! Diane got herself a shiny new picture frame with her tickets and a little charm (she didn't have enough tickets for her picture frame).

After all this excitement we realized we still needed to see the rest of the pier. We walked out on the pier, stopped and played a few minutes in a hat shop, took some pictures with the ocean behind us and finally decided to call it a day.

All in all I'd say the day was salvaged, although Redondo beach was pretty unimpressive and I have no intention of returning, and I've come to the conclusion that the Texas exes chapter out here is pretty boring. But hey I gave it a try and at least now I can say I've been to Redondo beach.

Here are some pictures to document our fun at the pier:

Enjoying the lovely view

Who's that girl?













Hello Ms. Daisy


















Hello there

Yee Haw!

Swing Batter Batter!

Alright so yes it has been a very long time since my last update, despite my desires to update more frequently in order to keep you all up to date on every exciting detail of my life. Well nothing too extremely exciting has been going on but I have been up to a few things so I'll try and start posting them in the coming days.

First up, I went to my first Dodgers game on April 19. It was a Dodgers-Cubs game, and as I went with my friend Sanjiv I naturally rooted for the Cubs.

A fun tidbit about the game passed on to me by Sanjiv is that the Dodgers and Cubs had played eachother 2,006 times before our game and the Dodgers had won 1,003 times and the Cubs had won 1,003 times, thus making our game not only the 2,007th game but the tie breaker as well! Very exciting I think. And to make it even better, the Cubs won! Below are a few pics to document the event.



Mmmm, our first Dodger dogs!



Dodger field as seen from our seats. Pretty good seats considering the price was right.


I paid how much for that beer????

Sweet Memories

Oh how I miss a good French protest.

Looks Like The French Are Back Doing What They Do Best

Those silly French, will they just explode if they don't complain about something?

See Article

For A Boring Time Go See The Libertine

So this weekend I went to see The Libertine with Johnny Depp and am still bothered by how bad this movie is. I'm still trying to figure out the purpose of the movie and why anyone ever thought to make it. It couldn't have been for entertainment purposes because it was an extremely boring movie with little to no action. I thought maybe it would be a powerful and moving history lesson yet I feel it was neither powerful nor moving but was simply a small history lesson of a story I think we're all just fine never really knowing.

So the moral of this blog is don't go see The Libetine, even if you're an enormous Johnny Depp fan you're more than likely going to be disappointed.

If you have seen the movie please don't hesitate to tell me what you thought of the movie, perhaps you found a meaning to the movie you could share.

Bringing Home The Bacon

Well today I started my part time job to pull in some money while continuing my search for a full time job. I'm working on website marketing for an advertising agency in Malibu. Basically this means I'm optimizing our clients websites so that they come up first when doing a yahoo or google search. Nothing too exciting yet but it's only been one day and I'm still learning. Seems like there will be opportunities to do more work but we'll see. It's basically my boss, the founder of the company, and one other girl running the company so it's small and very laid back. We share the office, which is very very tiny, with Malibu Magazine so I'm getting to hear all about that business as well which has already proved to be entertaining. My boss says there is potiental for this to turn into a full time position but I don't know what all that would emcompass or if he could afford me so in the meantime I'm going to continue my search.

Anyway that's what will now be occupying my time, giving me a little extra money, and experience. Besides that not much going on in my life right now. Trying to get back into keeping up with the blog and hopefully will be adding some more pictures to the website soon so keep checking back.

The Great Race!

Well early this morning I ran my first 10k and actually completed it! It was right here in the neighborhood and was the Great Race of Agoura. Apparently it has been voted one of the top 6 best 10ks in the nation. It was set back around the neighborhood but the majority was spent back in the horse farm area of Agoura just alongside the mountains. So it was a very lovely and peaceful run.

For those of you who are wondering, my official time was 1 hour 13 minutes and 8 seconds. Didn't do that great in the overall picture but I'm pretty happy with myself considering it was my first time and I hadn't run in over a month.

I was a little scared going into it knowing I had never run that long of a distance before but wanted to see what I could do. Turns out it wasn't as hard as I thought it would have been and now I can't wait to do another one. Just need to let the knee heal some before I tear it up again.

The Lost Files

So some of you may remember my heartbreak back over the summer when my hard drive crashed and I had the nutty, but very nice, French computer guy tell me that there was no way to retrive my files. I was determined to never give up on retriving those files since I had some very sentimental photos and other various important files on there. I asked anyone I could think of whether or not they'd be able to fix my hard drive and alas Rogge came to my rescue yet again. He drove out to LA with me and while out here gave my hard drive a look with an external enclosure. Turns out he was able to view my hard drive, however it was covered in virsues. So he did three virus scans, found tons of viruses, cleaned it up and came with me to buy an external enclosure of my own. And I am now happy to say that I am now able to view all of my old files once again!

I came across an old video I had made out of photos which I had intended to post on my website but failed to do before the crash. So I'm now proud to say that it is finally on the webiste under the video section. I hope you all enjoy it!

In other news, I'm still unemployed, not much progress on the job front, it's great being back in cali and seeing everyone, Mickey isn't that happy with the move but he'll get over it, Diane is doing well and we're having a good time together. And for those of you who were wondering, I do plan on continuing with the blog and website, I've just been pretty lazy about actually doing it lately. I'll try to get better though so don't forget to check back every once and a while!

Back In The Land Of TexMex And Dr. Pepper

Per the request of a few of y'all here is an update on my blog. I apologize that since coming home I have neglected keeping you all informed of my rampages.

So I've been home for three weeks now and surprisingly haven't had that much culture shock. True there have been a lot of developments in Houston and many areas look a lot different but other than that nothing seems to have changed. I've meet up with most of my friends and despite having limited communication with them for a whole year within minutes we were right back where we were before I left.

Since being home I've overindulged in Texmex which has now caused me to head back to the gym. I've attempted to look for jobs but tend to prefer being a bum instead. I've traveled quite a bit over the state and have more still to come. And I've also done tons of shopping and have been spending a lot of time at the spa getting pampered. I know it's a rough life I lead these days. I sometimes think I could get used to being unemployed, just need to have a rich husband to provide me with my income to support my spa and shopping habits. Hmmm maybe I should switch the job search over to a rich husband search.

A few things I've noticed since being home are that Americans really are fat and loud.

Well this weekend I'm heading off to my dad and stepmom's lake house and then it's off to Austin for the weekend so I'll try to come back next week with a few good entries.

Au Revoir France

Well today is to be my last day in France as bright and early tomorrow morning I will be boarding my flight that will take me directly back home to good ole Houston, Texas.

This marks the end of my 16 month adventure here in France. I've had a wonderful time despite the numerous bumps along the way. And despite how much I say the French drive me crazy I truely am going to miss them since it's this craziness of theirs that keeps my days interesting.

So tomorrow I return to the U.S. and the repatriation will begin. How bad will the reverse culture shock be and what will I do without the excitement of the crazy French in my day?

Well for now I leave you all and when I return I will be back in the States. So to everyone I can finally say, See ya soon!

So as things turned out I would end up alone this Christmas in Paris. However, upon telling this to a friend of mine she decided there was no way I could be left alone on Christmas and invited me to her parents house in the suburbs of Paris to celebrate Christmas with them. So this Christmas I had the opportunity to see a French Christmas. There are obviously a lot of similiarities but there are quite a few differences as well. First off, Christmas eve is the big day and they tend to do nothing on Christmas day. So I was there at her house on Christmas eve for the big dinner with the family and then the gift opening after our extremely long french dinner. Apparently french christmas dinners revolve around salmon, foie gras, oysters, and a dessert that is like a sponge cake log with icing called a buche. For our main dish we had deer and dad you'd be so proud as I actually tried it and ate a whole serving. I also tried the foie gras believe it or not, but did not finish that. As for the escargot and oysters, I'm still just not there yet.

The dinner was great, we were 13 in all, we had several courses and it lasted for hours. Afterwards everyone exchanged presents and they were even nice enough to have given me two boxes of chocolate. The entire night didn't end until almost 4 a.m. and that even included the grandparents!

One other difference I noticed is that they don't do stockings here. Kind of sad in my opinion, but oh well.

Well below are a few of the pics I managed to take. Unfortunately I didn't get any big group ones or anything.

Here I am with my friend and hostess Elodie.


The grandparents.


Here is Elodie with her tree that her mother and her decorated. I think it's still a relatively new thing to actually decorate the tree here in France.


Here is the star of the night, Elodie's nephew Ryan who is 4. We all watched him open all of his presents and then proclaim after each one that Santa made a mistake because he didn't ask for that. Then he put everyone to work on putting all of his toys together while he played with what he could. A little too demanding but he was cute nonetheless.


And well that was my Christmas this year. Can't wait to see where I find myself next year.

Snow Covered Paris Part Two!

Well today I was fortunate enough to see it snow in Paris yet again. For most of the day there was a constant light snow that was nice to look at but that wasn't settling on the streets. There were small patches on the roof of my building that I could see from my window at work but that was about it. However, once it got to be about 5 p.m. it started snowing a little heavier and it was sticking a lot more. Still not as much as I would have liked, but I'll take whatever snow I can get.

So naturally I got very excited seeing all the snow and went out after work on a mission to capture the snow in Paris. However, since it was dark and I don't have the best camera it was quite hard to capture. Also there really wasn't that much snow on stuff so it doesn't always look like snow. But here are a few pics I managed to get.

Here is my favorite picture I took. It's in the Tuileries (the big park in Paris) and you'll just have to trust me that's snow on the ground and not just how the ground always looks.


I took this one to try and prove that this was in fact snow since here you can see footprints through the snow.


Here are some snow covered cars just outside my office.

So British, So Crazy!

So Printemps (a large department store here in France) has launched this ad campaign this holiday season. They seem to have teamed up with Eurostar and are doing a whole English team and everything is either So British, So Crazy or So Noel, So Crazy. No big deal really, I'm used to off beat ad campaigns here in France, however once I came across the store windows for the Printemps men's section I became a little bothered by this particular campaign. All I have to say is thank goodness they're doing this to the Brits and not the Americans, although I'd hate to see what they'd do if they were to ever decide to do a campaign with Americans.

There are 9 different manequins placed in the windows at the Printemps men's section, all with the advertisement of So British, So Crazy, and coupled with various artifacts from England and images of England in the background. Below are my 4 favorites. I apologize for any window glares, I tried my hardest to avoid them but there's only so much you can do on a crowded street.

Chez Kristine

Here are some much overdue pics of my current apartment.

Here you can see my bathroom on the left and the hall that leads out to my front door on the right.


This is my infamous toilet. If you look closly on the left there you notice an outlet with a plug in it; that's right that's my toilet plugged into the wall, I have an electric toilet!


Here is my bedroom portion of the apartment. Look I finally have a real bed!


On the left is the kitchen portion of my apartment and on the right another shot of the bathroom. You can see the edge of my bed there to give you an idea of just how small my apartment actually is.


Hope you enjoyed your virtual visit of 2 Rue des Rosiers!

Tis The Season To Be Merry!

So not wanting this to be a completely depressing Christmas I decided to go in search of christmas tree. I have always prefered real ones so that was of course my first choice and if necessary I would go in search of a fake one. Fortunately for me I found a small real christmas tree that was actually pretty cheap fairly easily. I quickly bought it and brought it home monday night. I was a little concerned about getting it in my apt since my apt is teeny tiny, but I bought the smallest one they had and took a chance. It fit perfectly! I bought some lights and ribbons and made a few ornaments with the left over felt I had from the stocking I made myself a few days ago. Then with some Christmas music on I set out to decorate my tree and hang my stocking.

I have to say I am quite pleased with how it has all turned out and while my apt isn't as festive as I normally would make it, I'm still quite happy with it. Below are some pictures of my new tree.

Here is a picture of my tree in the dark showing off her beautiful lights.


Here you can see her decorations more clearly, you can also see the stocking I made for myself just above her.


Happy Holidays everyone!

p.s. if you've sent me a christmas card it's there under the tree waiting to be opened till Christmas day. I've received a couple so if you're curious to know if I got yours just ask. And thanks to those who have sent me one, I truly appreciate it.

Thanksgiving in Paris 2005

Since it's been a while since I've posted I'll be trying to catch up in the next few days.

So I spent my second Thanksgiving here in France just a few weeks ago. However, due to space issues/timing this years was much smaller. BUT we did manage to get a real full sized turkey this time. A few days before Thanksgiving I went to a butcher down the street from me and was able to order a turkey to be cooked for me (I don't have an oven)for Thanksgiving day. Then through the help of Diane, who brought me canned pumpkin and all the fixings for a real pumpkin pie, and my friend Arthur, who lent me use of his oven, I was able to make two lovely pies the night before Thanksgiving.

So then the big day came and we all headed over to Dave's place since he's the only one with a living room. The party simply consisted of Dave, George, Perrine, and myself. All Pepperdine people with the exception of Perrine who is our French buddy from Dave's school in Rouen. We had a great dinner and introduced Perrine to the tradition of Thanksgiving.

The next day I brought in my left over pumpkin pie to work so they could all try it because most were quite intrigued as to what exactly a pumpkin pie was. The reviews were mixed, some absolutely loved it and some found it a little strange. Most couldn't understand a pie with pumpkin since they usually only eat pumpkin soup or maybe a pumpkin puree. Nonetheless it was fun seeing them stare at it in curiousity as it's usually me doing that to what they bring in.

While it was a little strange being in France for my second consecutive Thanksgiving I had a great time with some good friends. Below are a few of the pictures we took, although most came out a little blurry.

Here's the spread!


Here I am with the dinner just before serving.


The star of the night!


Perrine and her French touch to the dinner.

Gotta Have A Smoke

Lori was kind enough to pass me this article from Cnn.com. Hope you all enjoy as much as I did.

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- A French woman who is terrified of flying admitted in an Australian court Monday that she drunkenly tried to open an airplane door mid-flight to smoke a cigarette.

Sadrine Helene Sellies, 34, was placed on a good behavior bond after pleading guilty in Brisbane Magistrates Court to endangering the safety of an aircraft.

Sellies was traveling on a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to the east coast city of Brisbane on Saturday when the incident occurred at the start of a three-week Australian vacation with her husband, the court heard.

She walked toward one of the aircraft's emergency exits with an unlit cigarette and a lighter in her hand and began tampering with the door, prosecutors said. But a flight attendant intervened and took Sellies back to her seat.

Sellies was arrested and charged by police on arrival at Brisbane airport.

Defense lawyer Helen Shilton told the court Sellies was terrified of flying and had taken sleeping tablets with alcohol before takeoff.

Shilton said Sellies has no memory of what happened on the flight and that she has a history of sleepwalking.

But Magistrate Gordon Dean sternly warned the woman: "You must understand, if you are on a plane you must behave yourself."

Sellies, who did not speak in court and was aided by a translator, was placed on a 1,000 Australian dollar (US$734; euro623) bond -- meaning she will have to pay that amount if she commits another offense in the next 12 months.

So my question to you is, do you think the French could ever pass the no smoking laws that seem to be making the rounds?

Spain Round 3

So last weekend I returned to Spain's Costa Brava for the 3rd time in about a year's time. The purpose of this trip was to visit my mom and Jim who were vacationing there before taking a two week cruise back to the U.S. leaving from the port of Barcelona.

However, before leaving for Spain Diane came to Paris to stay with me for a few days. She toured the city some more while I worked and then on wednesday night her and I took off for Girona airport. Diane's visit was a surprise for my mom setup by Jim so of course at baggage claim my mom was rather surprised to find Diane standing there with me. Once that was all over we hopped in the car and headed about 20 minutes away to the coast to a small resort area called El Mas Nou. After chatting for a bit we decided to head to Barcelona the next day and then went to bed.

The next morning we woke up and headed to Barcelona. Having already been there twice before within the last year I was the official tour guide. Not really knowing much of Barcelona besides what I've already seen I took them to see the Sagrada Familia, Casa Batillo, and of course La Rambla. After enjoying some sangria on La Rambla we headed back home and called it a day.

Since we were only about 20 minutes from Girona we decided to make that our destination for the next day. So the next morning we woke up and after visiting the beach at the base of our resort we headed over to Girona to see what that city had to offer. We arrived with no map and no idea what to do. After we found the city center, found parking, found a map, and found the tourist office we were on our way. We had a quick lunch and then set out to see what the city had to offer.

We decided to split up so Diane and I headed for towards the main shopping/restaurant street and took that through the Jewish quarter and on to the Cathedral. After visiting the Cathedral we headed for the wall. Girona was once a walled city so there are still remains from the wall which you can walk on. However, much to our dismay the wall was locked and we were only able to get on certain parts of it. But of course we did some exploring and found a really cool park with remains from old buildings inside of it and wound up spending all of our time meandering through the park to see what it had to offer.

After doing this for a while we decided it was time to head back to the car to meet our mom and Jim, but not before doing a little shopping and picking up some jewerly.

The next day it was time for our mom and Jim to board their boat and that evening Diane and I would be boarding our plane to head back to Paris. So we once again hopped into the car and headed to Barcelona. We said our goodbyes and then Diane and I set out to see a bit more of Barcelona. This time I was able to see something I hadn't seen upon my previous visits. We headed first for Parc de la ciutadella which was a lovely park in the city center complete with a zoo, large fountain, and even a pond with paddle boats. After this we decided to head to the Picasso museum on my insistance since I had yet to see it. However, on our way there I realized I had infact already visited the museum on my first visit to Barcelona, so we just continued on down the street to the Cathedral. After the cathedral we strolled over to La Rambla where we visited the market for a few minutes and then continued on to a restaurant I had previously visited which I knew had some good paella.

Once we made our way to the restaurant we ordered up some paella and of course some cava sangria. We had a fantastic lunch till we realized we were running a bit late for our bus which would take us back to the airport. We paid and hauled it to the bus station where we managed to catch the bus and headed back to the airport and eventually back to Paris.

We got back to Paris rather late and the next morning Diane was on another flight heading back to the U.S. It was a rather quick trip for me but it was nice to get away for a while and spend some time with family.

You can see some pictures from this trip on my website under Spain. Hope you enjoy!