Tuesday, July 23, 2013

What do you do on the hottest day of the year?

And when you live on the top floor of a building that hasn't discovered it's the 21st century yet?

You go to a nice, air conditioned museum!

JP had never been to the Georges Pompidou Modern Art Museum, and it's one of my absolute favorite museums, so we decided to spend the afternoon there yesterday!
Because I'm pretty sure it was hotter inside our apartment than it was outside... 

Anyways, this museum: (!!!) 
Even if you don't like modern art all that much (I love it) you can still appreciate the masterpieces in here!
They had an exhibition right now displaying a lot of Roy Lichtenstein's pieces, an artist I had heard of and seen pictures of his pieces in magazines and whatnot, but now I love him! 

Our time here is winding down (we leave for London a week from tomorrow!) so we are busy checking the touristy things we want to do off our list!





^^^alright, this was my favorite part of the whole exhibition!! 
Lichenstein did a lithograph of Monet's 'Rouen Cathedral' paintings (3 of which I have prints of hanging in mine and JP's room back in Provo!)
And I seriously love how you can see the whole work in progress, even his notes on what colors he wanted to use!






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 ^^^Kandinsky is another artist I love! JP didn't quite understand it, but I'll convert him eventually ;)


Dada:
However, JP loves the dada movement! Who knew?! I didn't.  



^^^ This was the best. This group of art students were having a very in-depth conversation about whether or not this should be considered art, and they were arguing back and forth and I was so entranced listening to their reasoning for both sides. I just creepily stood and listened to them for like 20 minutes.


Friday, July 19, 2013

Montmartre

For our final tour with JP's school program, we toured the area of Paris know as Montmartre!
If you follow me on instagram, you already know that this is one of my absolute favorite parts of Paris!

Not only is it the highest point in the city (lending to the best view), but it's got such a "village" feel! This is the area where tons of artists and authors lived and worked (Degas, Picasso, Van Gogh, Gertrude Stein, Toulouse Lautrec, and lots more) and it's still a definite artists quarter, giving the area a really neat hip and edgy feel. It's my dream to buy an original work of art off the streets of Paris, but it's probably not going to happen this trip haha 

We ate at a restaurant up here last week with Eric and Kimmi, and then walked up to Sacre Coeur at about 1 AM! (It was such a 'french meal', we were chatting and eating all the different courses for over 3 hours!) 
Montmartre at night is beautiful, and the experience was also pretty hilarious. There is definitely a different crowd around Sacre Coeur that late at night compared to this time when we finished the tour in front of the church around 7 PM (it stays light in Paris until almost 11 PM on these summer nights, it's crazy!).

 ^^^ The Love Wall! 
"I love you" is written 1,000 times in over 300 languages on this 40 square meter work of art. 
One of the artists said: “The bursts of color on the fresco represent the pieces of a broken heart, the heart of a humanity so often torn apart and which the wall tries to gather together.”

^^^ That right there at the top of the hill is the oldest windmill in Paris!







 ^^^ This means "The Agile Rabbit"
It is one of the oldest cabarets in Montmartre (the Moulin Rouge is in this area too!)

The view!
See if you can spot the:
> Centre Georges Pompidou (the best modern art museum in the world, in my opinion)
> Notre Dame
> & the Pantheon



Sacre Coeur
I don't know how to describe how amazing this church is! It's a stunner for sure, I love it!

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Sardinia Part 2!

Our second day in Sardinia was quite the adventure:

JP and Eric decided that we needed to rent a boat, despite the fact that neither of them have really any experience driving a boat... especially in the mediterranean sea... but that didn't deter them! And the man who rented us the boat didn't seem to mind either...?

So needless to say we found ourselves sailing the open sea with JP and Eric as captains and Kimmi and I sitting in the front slightly terrified.

It was totally worth it though! Especially because we didn't die.
We dropped the anchor down whenever we found a beach we wanted to lay out on, and went swimming in the crystal clear water whenever the sun got too hot. It was magic!




^^^ JP jumped off a 40-50 foot arch! Craaaazy boy.




Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Sardinia: Part 1


Ahh I don't even know what to say about Sardinia. It was magical.
After finding a super good deal on ryanair and a really cheap apartment to rent, we all decided we pretty much had to go ;)

It's a little island off the coast of Italy and it's pinterest come to life!
The clearest water I've ever seen, and it's the most gorgeous shades of blue. 
The white beaches are really that white, and it was perfect weather. 
Sort of felt like I had died and gone to heaven? 

The first day we decided to go to the best beach on the island (of course), and discovered it required an hour hike in! 
But it ended up being quite the adventure: around every bend we were running into lizards, donkeys, wild pigs, or goats (not even kidding!) and during the hike back at the end of the day we got caught in the most massive rainstorm I've ever witnessed haha

Oh, and these pictures aren't edited at all, the water really looks like that!













Monday, July 15, 2013

Vive la France!

July 14 is Bastille Day in France!
It's sort of like their 4th of July...

I had Les Mis songs running through my head all day, (and JP and I might have belted a few duets throughout the afternoon...) and I even wore the colors of the revolution because I was feeling some french pride haha

JP and I joined the rest of Paris (literally, I have never seen so many people in one place) in front of the Eiffel Tower late last night to watch fireworks and they were amazing!! 
Of course the pictures won't do them justice, but I took so many I just have to share them :)