Toute la journée, tous les jours.

La dernière fois

I am finally home! Sort of. Actually right now I am sitting in San Jose’s new airport
terminal (it’s vurr nice) because the airline seems to have lost my dad’s luggage.
Not the best way to be welcomed home! Although, I am about to drink my first
Starbucks Mocha Frappuchino for the first time in about 2 years, so I’m quite a
happy camper (Why two years? Well imagine a combination of a grande frap and a
pear, blended in with a trip to Sky High…and the potential results of that. Yup.
That is what happened. Anyways!) 

It doesn’t REALLY feel like I’m back home yet, since this place is all new to me, but
it’s finally starting to hit me that my normal life is about to start again. Emails with
my boss, the looming task of unpacking and laundering, little nitpicky worries
cropping up left and right. I guess I should just be glad that I got to leave
everything behind for a month or two!

My mom mentioned to me the other day (yesterday) “TIFFO wrote a reflection of
her trip in her blog. Are you going to do one too??” I responded…NO. Because:

1. I don’t call her Tiffo, why does my mom?
2. Tiffany already did a lovely job of it, you can just go read hers
3. LAZINESS.

So that was my reasoning, all very valid I think. However, I guess I actually should
do a little reflecting (just a liiittle bit) if only just to wrap things up. So here are my
thoughts. 

While on the one hand this could easily be viewed as a frivolous trip (I will
probably never need to use my limited French, and knowledge of French history is
not really all that practical or useful), I still think many good things came of it:

On top of the list, friendships, of course. I met so many great people (even outside
of the Cheetah Girls! I should probably stop calling us that), all of whom I hope to
keep seeing around Berkeley, at the very least! I know Natalie, Jill, and I are
planning to have Stella and Leffe French movie nights if anyone else is interested
(…or maybe Vin & Fromage fete part deux??) 

We spent so much time with Neil outside of class, that I think he qualifies as a
friend too. I am accumulating a history of befriending my summertime professors.

Greater appreciation of history (for example of Versailles, as pictured above!) As of
a few months ago, if anyone were to ask me which was the one subject I hated in
high school, it was definitely history, history, history without a doubt. Now I really
love it! (…or at least history as told by Sarah Roberts, anyways.) It has allowed
me to enjoy so much more art and culture…and even little things like the “Let
Them Eat Cake Cafe” in the Chicago airport make me smile. Not to mention,
knowledge of French history has massively increased the amount of enjoyment I
get out of Kate Beaton comics:
 

And SO MANY GOOD MEMORIES. As a group we tried to write them all down, but
that never really captures everything. But I will always enjoy thinking about “EIGHT
TONNES?!” and “American girls, it is not safe here!” and “Where are you from, sexy
bitches?” A lot of these recollections will probably fade over time, but at least a
fraction of them have been immortalized in blog form.

Here are a few more photos that I uploaded in the past, but never posted:

Our adorable marché ouvert, and the fromage stand from which we bought many-a
stinky cheese! Which I did not even really enjoy, because I don’t like cheese at all!

The loud Brazil fans sitting behind us at the game, back when Brazil was a thing.

Lunch at Versailles, with Neil perfectly fitted into Tiffany’s cheek/shoulder crook.

Neil and Simon’s delicate little dance on the Seine, on our last full day in Paris.

So anyways, that’s the end of my trip. I’ve decided that I am going to retire from
blogging until my next notable vacation…as much as I have enjoyed writing here,
it’s a lot of effort to upkeep! Besides, my day to day life is not nearly as exciting as
this. So when I go off on new adventures, you can find some stories here, but until
then I’m just going to keep pimpin…toute la journée, tous les jours (…full circle
effect! You like that?!) 

Finally, thank you to my lovely parents for letting this happen, in spite of so many
worries and misgivings…I’m finally home, safe and happy! Thanks for the best
month of my life.

Au revoir mes amis! Adieu, à bientôt, à la prochaine!

The Chengs in Chicago

Chicago is crazy! They have everything here - beaches in the summer but snow in
the winter, a huge lake and river on the one hand yet hundreds of skyscrapers on
the other…and all this within a 10 block radius. I decided that I’m going to come
live here with Byron for a year, after I graduate. It’s going to be awesome!

Fam-bam by the river! I love the view at nighttime. Oh and P.S. friends from
France, I came home only to find that my very own daddy is a proud wearer of
shants (see bottommost picture). 

Josie, turtles from Chinatown! Only 8 dolla! I am still determined to get some -
even more so, now that I’ve seen them in real life. Can we get a pair, and give
them cute matching names? And maybe buy them a small fountain to live in? 

Standing in Lake Michigan, the largest lake in the US! Boats and lakes always
remind me of good times with the Racklins. Haha also, someone told me that my
shirt was cute…but unfortunately (for me) it belongs to my hermanito.

Skyscrapers, right on the edge of the lake! Sometimes man-made things are pretty
beautiful too. Who-da thunk.

Cheng family 90’s boy-band album cover. The only things missing are a couple all-
white outfits and bleached tips, and maybe some JC Chasez somewhere in the mix.

Today is my last day in Chicago, which means my very last day traveling! Can you
believe it?! I still can’t. Well, I better go make the most of today! Adios amigos!

Chicago, baby!

(Crazy clouds from the flight over.)

Hello from the Windy City! I have yet to experience why it is so-named, Chicago
has really not been windy, or even breezy for that matter. But at least it is not
buckets-of-sweat inducing, like Paris! Thank god.

Yesterday, (Friday) we visited Byron at work, went to 2 museums, had some yucky
tea - I am not a tea person - walked around Chicago at night, and had THE most
delicious dessert from Grand Lux Cafe. Pictures below:

Old man Byron works in the building on the left, which is just next door to Sears
Tower (the one with two prongs sticking out on top), the tallest building in the US!

We went to the Museum of Contemporary Photography:

and the Museum of Contemporary Art (we are very contemporary people):

Both were very cool! The Museum of Contemporary Art was full of things that
were beyond my comprehension…(isn’t that always the case with art?) but there
was also a massive exhibit on Alexander Calder, of whom I am a big fan!

Later, we had dessert at Grand Lux Cafe:

This is yet again one of those instances in my life when I am jealous of my past
self. Molten Chocolate Cake and Upside-down Pineapple Cake, and not depicted is
a massive box of cookies. Whoops, got to suck up that drool.

Then, we enjoyed various views of Chicago:
 
A three minute walk from Byron’s studio. Can you believe this? The one with the
giant purple spike is the Trump Tower, of the Donald Trump type.

The view FROM Byron’s studio. Close your eyes and imagine Los Altos for a
second…and then open your eyes and look at this picture again. What is going
on?? Byron is such a big city mouse. (Who says city mouse? …Country mice.)

Things about Chicago:
1. There are so many effing mosquitoes here. If you saw me right now, I could
introduce you to at least 10 new bumpy aspects of my body.

2. The plague of our life is a leaky air mattress:

Do you see a mattress in this picture? I don’t either.

3. There are so many skyscrapers here! I have never seen so many of these
goddamn things in my life! They’re quite pretty, but I can’t believe my hermano
lives here…it couldn’t be more different from little LA.

Things I am now realizing about Europe, after the fact:
1. One of the most painful parts of being in Europe was the lack of familiar music!
I’m a musical being, I guess. Now that I’m back in Amerr-ca, listening to good ol’
throwback tunes hits me in a way I just can’t explain. Good music reminds me of
good times, and it makes me miss all of you so much, homes!

2. I think my stomach shrunk in the last month. When I eat with my family, they
can keep on chowing long after I’m done. And when I try to keep up, I feel like I’m
on the brink of exploding. This will not last long though! Ex) I am going to dim sum
later today. If dim sum does not cause severe stomach expansion…I have no
possible conclusion to that. Dim sum by definition causes stomach expansion.

3. I love water. Lack of free water at restaurants in Barcelona was more painful
than I ever could have imagined. Now I am drinking water like I will never see it
again, and it is causing me to wake up super early in the morning for bathroom
breaks (and also for blog post sessions, aka now.)

It’s been an hour now, and the family continues to slumber. Maybe I will try to go
back to sleep, after this second bathroom break. Bye, friends!

In-between time

(Included in this post are various pictures that made me laugh.)

I’m currently waiting at the JFK airport, waiting for a transfer to the ORD airport in
Chicago. For the first time in 7 weeks, I’m all by myself! It’s the weirdest feeling -
no longer can I at any time turn to the person on my right or left and make a silly
observation, or make reference to some long-running inside joke. Instead, I am
sitting between a bespectacled lady in hot pink, and an empty chair of someone
who was reading The Ideas Issue of The Atlantic (what is that?) It’s just not the same.

(A frightening bug-eyed creature. Note the wine glasses.)

Luckily, I did have the happy surprise of discovering that my entire family will be
joining me in Chicago! Either I was not listening carefully a month ago when we
discussed travel plans, or this is a recent development, either way I am happy to
hear it! As much as I pretend to hate them sometimes, family is family :)

(Yet another frightening bug-eyed creature. Note the lack of wine glasses.)

Just now when Tiffany and I got off the plane, we had a little bit of a culture
shock. People understood us! Signs were in English! It’s pretty surprising to realize
how quickly one can become accustomed to a foreign culture, and also how quickly
one adjusts back. There are some things that have cropped up in my mind over the
course of this trip, though, and I hope they don’t escape me quite as quickly! For
example:

1. I take it for granted that my life has a set track. After meeting so many people
(most of whom are Australian…) who have chosen entirely different lifestyles from
my own (bike tour guide in Barcelona, former nurse who quit her job to travel
Europe, etc) it has really struck me how my life does not necessarily have to be
the undergrad-grad-job life that I have always expected of myself. Not that I plan
to throw that life away, simply that I really do have to sit back and reexamine
things before jumping into this preset course. There are so many other possibilities
out there!

(When I asked Neil to take a picture of the Hall of Mirrors for me, he instead gave
me this work of art. And 3 more just like it.)

2. I never realized just how accepting America is of other cultures. It took being
thrown into situations where people openly told us we had small eyes, that they
only liked blondes, or shouted our presumed nationalities in our faces (Korean,
Japanese, or Chinese as it were, hence my once annoyed retort “JE SUIS DE HONG
KONG!” which is not even entirely true.) It began as a mild irritation, grew into
complete disenchantment, and settled with tired resignation. But all in all, it really
makes me love my home a lot more.

(The moment we found out we were trapped in the Louvre…again.)

3. All play and no work is not that fun at all! I’ve always wanted to travel the
world, explore new places, and live a frivolously happy life (big dreams, I know) but
it took falling in love with Paris to teach me that there is more to traveling than
just that. For the first time, I was learning the history behind the monuments I
saw, the stories behind the famous people and paintings, and I had such a deep
connection to the culture I was seeing.

(True love. Just kidding you two! Really not though.)

On the opposite end of the spectrum, our whirlwind through Barcelona - while fun
of course - barely scratched the surface at best. I can say that I have seen the
Sagrada Familia, and seen the insides of a few bars, I have no other knowledge to
offer. And no passion! All this made me appreciate the education I am receiving
that much more - without knowledge, a lot of potentially exciting aspects of life
can really be quite empty.

(Jill, unable to hold up her own large endowment. Oh you Cowans.)

Well, my flight is boarding now, I should probably go. I suppose these aren’t really
mind-blowing epiphanies I’ve come to, but it’s just the small bit of worldly
knowledge I’ve gathered from of this trip. All in all, summer in Europe was a dream,
but it’s also good to be back in the US of A!

I guess since I’m in ol’ New York I’ll have to revert to normal English sign-offs (no
more undecipherable French for you!) Goodbye for now, I’ll have some more
updates from Chicago soon!

Yo no hablo español.

The saddest thing happened when I went to France: I forgot all my Spanish! The entire
language was completely usurped the moment I learned how to say “un deux trois,
bonjour, comment allez-vous?” I honestly cannot even hold a 3 minute conversation
with our hostel’s concierge. So much for a 5 on my AP Spanish test! It’s pretty sad, really.

Other things that are not sad have been going on, though. For example, today we slept
in late and took the lovely, air-conditioned metro to Barceloneta, Barcelona’s imported-
from-Egypt beach! We’ve been learning that everything is contrived here, including the
6000 euro a piece palm trees, the mis-directed Columbus statue that is pointing to
Libya instead of America, and the sand that I just mentioned, imported “on a big ship”
(-Billy) from Egypt. I don’t mind! Sand is sand, no matter where it’s from.

After that, we went on a journey in search of the famous Spanish dessert, Churros con
Chocolate! I really don’t think it’s called that, but if you’re down with it, I’m down with it.
I have never eaten so much chocolate in one sitting, but it was so goooood. Also, I
successfully navigated there with nothing but some Rick Steves cross streets and my
free Travel Bar map, so I felt pretty good about myself.

Also today, we learned to cook Paella! (I hope you’re enjoying these google images.) I
don’t think I will be any good at cooking it myself, but I plan to try when I get home. As
far as my understanding goes, you just kind of throw as many types of seafood as you
can into a large saucepan. Then you sort of stir it in circles and figure 8’s, drizzle in
olive oil every once in a while, and shabam! Eat it.

Some un-fun things have been happening too. Here they are:
1. Natalie left us at media noche. We stood there and waved until she couldn’t see us
anymore, but she never looked back so it probably didn’t matter.
2. I fell on my butt on the way down the stairs.

WELL! I guess that’s all the un-fun things I can think of.

Tomorrow morning I leave for Chicago! Man, life is a hustle and bustle sometimes, this
being one of those times. Adios my friends, adios!

“Easy there, Tiger”

Today is Tuesday, and the end of our third day in Barcelona! Today was great, maaan.
(Tiffany, who am I, who am I?) Really though, it was. Probably almost comparable to
Giverny, for a while there! Again, mid-day wine maybe have added to that sentiment.

Let me explain. Today we went on a bike tour, with the same group who gave us the
free walking tour. They really hooked us, those Aussies did! The tour today was given
by our good friend Jimmy, and his good friend (or I would assume so, by their matching
thigh tattoos) Billy. The title of this post is a line by the aforementioned Billy, who
stroked my head as he uttered it. What can I say, we’ve made some great friends in
Barcelona.

Here we are on our tour. Those beach cruisers are easy on the booty! Natalie got the
cheetah print one, I won’t lie when I say that I was really jealous. Sometimes daisies
just don’t cut it.

Here are our lovely tour guides, Jimmy and Billy, in the flesh.

Today’s tour went down by the beach, up and around to the Sagrada Familia, through a
1 euro wine bar, and by Saint Natalie’s fountain (by far my favorite bit of the tour). By
fountain time, our tour had (after marinating in a bit of cheap golden wine) deteriorated
into complete BS - the story we got involved Saint Show-your-tits Natalie guarding the
Yeti as the ducks flew north in an X formation. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun.

Here are some photos from our tour!

This is Sagrada Familia. It has been under construction for 114 years, and is supposed
to be done within 200 years (if it doesn’t fall over first!) In the end, it should be more
than twice as tall as what it is today. It’s absolutely crazy.

Sagrada Familia, from the back. It’s really the weirdest building…

Standing in front of Saint Natalie’s fountain. This photo is oddly yellow, but I am too
tired to fix it, so here we are.

After that, we went to experience our first tapas! I have no pictures, but it was so
delicious and satisfying. How can I get tapas at home?? Someone tell me.

It’s hard to believe we only really have one more full day in Barcelona! This branch of the
trip is flying by, I get the feeling Chicago is going to feel the same way. Even though I
miss everyone a lot, I don’t think I’m quite ready to go home!

Waka Waka

The other day, I fell asleep in Paris, and woke up in Barcelona. It was the strangest
thing. We took an overnight train, and the four of us had a sleeper compartment to
ourselves! We did some great things on the train, like sleep, read, and eat buns in bed.
We also talked about love.

This is where it all went down.

Since we have arrived in Barcelona, we have done a number of lovely things. These include:

1. Checking into our hostel!

We had to lug our suitcases up 4 flights of stairs. I never regretted being a heavy packer
so much in my life.

Yoongi in our room doing the Waka Waka dance, song of the summer. (Along with
Wavin’ Flag)

2. Going on a “free” walking tour, which really just hooked us in to the many other
touristy things this program offers, including a paella and sangria cooking class (that’s
Wednesday! We’ll see how that goes.)

This photo has nothing to do with the text above or below it.

3. Having a lot of beer and sangria with Jimmy, a tour guide for the above-mentioned
walking tours. He’s kind of insane (honestly, pretty nutty), but also quite funny. We
hung out with him later that night as well, while…

4. Participating in a bar crawl! Which included a visit and free drinks at four different
bars around Las Ramblas, as well as free entry to Jamboree, a dance club in Place Real.
Rock and roll upstairs, hip hop downstairs! It had all the good parts of a middle school
dance, but was also 100 times better.

5. Visiting the Picasso museum! It was so cool to see the evolution of his style over
time. And on top of everything, museum entrance was free! Love it.

Picasso’s version of Las Meninas. I took this photo before I knew it was illegal, so I feel
okay about it.

6. Hanging our feet over the harbor, tripping out about the amoebas on the water, and
just enjoying being in Barcelona:

The atmosphere of the whole city is so different. It has more of the relaxed, beachy feel,
but still has all the hustle and bustle of a big city. It’s a weird juxtaposition, but I like it!
The people are so different too…for one, people aren’t as forward about approaching
you in the street, or insisting on talking to you. This is just within 48 hours of
experience, though, so maybe it hasn’t been long enough to say. Though I do know that
48 hours in Paris would have ellicited at least 5-6 “NI HAO!”s or “Konichiwa!”s.

Barcelona so far has been great fun, even though I’ve been really tired! Mostly I think
just from need of recuperation post-Paris. At one point, I fell asleep in a bookstore, and
June played Jenga on my lap. But in spite of all the fatigue, I’m so glad to be here.

I’m sure Tiffany feels the same way.

Hasta manana, amigos!

Le Dernier Jour

Today was our last full day in Paris. I guess you could say that we didn’t do
anything all that spectacular, but it was exactly the way it should have been. We
took 0.5 finals, had N, K, T, J, and Y time (respectively), went on some walks,
celebrated with a grand picnic, and ended the night at one of our favorite bars
(Cave bar. You know the one.)

Here are some photos from our picnic!

These are the girls that defined my trip, and the creators of at least 1 million
hilarious moments and inside jokes. Meet Yoongi, the sweetheart and the star
student, Jill of the face-making one-liner type, Tiffany the sassy one, as “Sass by
Tiffany” might imply, and Natalie, the girl whose every spoken word cracks me up.
Much love to you, CG’s.

Our picnic, from above. The whole program came out for champagne, wine, bread,
and cheese. (And donkey sausage? I was not at all tempted to try that, though.)
This picture makes me so happy!

The ice-cream crew. I had a delicious boule of framboise (raspberry), ‘cause I love
me some sorbet!…Okay and maybe also because I had already had a chocolate ice
cream cone earlier in the day. Don’t judge me! Jack would understand.

Ay ay ay, I can’t believe our time in Paris is actually coming to and end. Jill is
leaving us tomorrow morning, and the rest of us are headin’ off to Barcelona on the
8:34pm train (I might have made up that time). The only things that will console
me are the Spanish 1 euro chupitos…and maybe some other stuff too. It’s okay
Paris, I will definitely be back again.

This was such a great program - the teachers were all so cute and funny, the kids
all had their own unique, delightul little traits, and everyone just got along so well!

…Oh Berkeley, I guess I should have expected no less. I’m pretty excited to be
back there again, but we have a couple more adventures to get through first!
Au revoir Paris, hellooo Barcelona!

Je pense, donc, je suis

Today is Thursday, marking our 3rd to last day in Paris. I’m still in denial! Luckily I
still have Barcelona to look forward to, and then Chicago (to visit Byron) even after
that! Thank goodness I don’t have to go back to real life yet.

So we’ve been putting it off for a month now (we needed some intensive training
before we could allow ourselves into the ULTIMATE tourist attraction), but today
we finally did it…we went up the Eiffel Tower!

Okay so we’ve already been in its vicinity a multitude of times. But the view from
the top is something completely different altogether. We even made a schedule:

1. Go up the tower at 8:00pm, two hours before sunset
2. See the view of Paris in the daytime
3. Watch the sun set at 9:30pm
4. See the lights of Paris after dark
5. Watch the tower sparkle at 10:00pm, while ON the tower
6. Go back down again, happy and fulfilled.

And call us crazy, but we did exactly that! Aside from the mean-elevator-lady and
the phat crowds of people, our plan carried through without a hitch. Go us! And I’m
glad we saved the Tour Eiffel for last - it’s definitely the view of Paris that I want
to carry home with me.

The sun setting over the western edge of Paris.

It was a beautiful sunset! Although I’m still partial to the one from the roof of
Los Altos High. 

 
The view of the Eiffel tower glittering, from ON the tower! If it had gone on for any
longer, I probably would have come away with a really bad headache. But it didn’t! 

What a great way to celebrate and relax from finals. I had 1.5 finals this morning,
and 0.5 tomorrow! And then I’m done with French 1 with Neil Landers…FOREVER.

I was telling Yoongi, it’s going to be so weird to leave our little French-program
culture. In the last month I’ve gotten so accustomed to our wonky lifestyle! What
will happen when people don’t scream Ni-hao at us, and don’t give us free
nectarines, and when we can’t eat boulangerie sandwiches toute la journée, tous
les jours? Probably something really awful and bad. I’m just going to avoid thinking
these thoughts until I absolutely have to. Bye for now!

Head by…

Today was SERIOUSLY the best day ever. If I have ever experienced the feeling of
effervescence, it happened today from about 2-6 o’clock. Coincidentally, that
roughly coincides with the time that the restaurant started serving us a lot of wine…

Background: Today we went to Claude Monet’s house and gardens in Giverny!
Remember him? You must, he’s the one that painted that Japanese bridge and the
water lilies. Monet is pretty great.

We traveled for 3 hours by metro, by train, by bus, and by foot, before we finally
made it to Giverny. I had gotten the meeting time wrong that morning, and
therefore missed out on breakfast. So by the time we got there, it was lunch time,
and I was hungry.

The first thing we discovered was that the reservation our teacher made 3 months
in advance had never gotten through. Therefore, the restaurant was completely
unprepared to serve 40 people. THEREFORE, to keep us occupied they started by
seating us and giving us a lot of wine. Aka full bottles of red wine, white wine, and
a glass of champagne as an apologetic gesture for losing our reservation. All
this on top of an empty stomach. A recipe for disaster? Nahhh.

Our wine, from an aerial view!

Because our reservation fell through, we didn’t get to have the best meal in Paris,
as promised. I still thought was pretty darn good though!

So by the time they served us our salad, we were all un petit peu tipsy. As in our
entire French program. I couldn’t stop laughing, even through Lectures-by-Neil,
and some people had so much wine that they threw up in the bathroom. Meanwhile
Tiffany was busy telling everyone that this was the happiest moment in her entire life:

It was pretty bad. But mostly really, really good. After a delicious meal and drinking
almost all of the extra wine from our neighboring table, they let us loose in the
gardens. Thankfully for the public, there were very few people there with us on a
random Monday afternoon. Monet’s backyard has never been witness to such 
gallivanting! 

Conor on a bridge. Also one of the only two pictures I have of the bridge, the other
being necessarily excluded. 

Gorgeous family photo!

In the end, what at first seemed like a potential disaster instead turned out to be a
fabulously beautiful day! I love my life here, and have no idea how I am ever going
to bring myself to leave on Saturday!