evergreen: timeless appeal

In editorial terms at least. Tonight I met up with my roomies, K and J, for dinner. I am clearly not sharing a room with them anymore but I assure you that I will forever refer to them as such :). Anyway, it was amazing, seriously, I love these two girls so much. They were my first friends in school and we've been close through everything together. We made plans to go to a Pilates class on Friday which will be wonderful since I haven't formally been active since my week of Bikram. Between our fitness and eating out habits I hope to spend a lot of time with my bests. All except C (she graduated last May)... but hopefully we'll all be reunited soon.

As you can see at the end of the video, we sushied, and my avocado roll and seaweed salad was delicious, as per usual. Also, much earlier in the day, another bright and sunny one, I took special notice of the flowers. I ate my pita, hummus, and salad lunch beside a beautiful bouquet (delivered in celebration of a "sister's" birthday) and was inspired to go outside and explore the garden in front of our house. Then I was reminded of my favorite garden...

As you very well know, gardens are a special place for me, and this one most of all. I visited it on that same trip to France and it's located in the backyard of a beautiful villa. It is so much more than the standard French garden though (even if the beginning is in the traditional design), the globetrotting woman who lived here wouldn't have had it any other way and spent dollars upon dollars importing nature and experts from around the world to design it.

To make your way through, you must first turn right, at which point you get your first gorgeous view of the Mediterranean.

It was beyond anything I had ever seen before, and will probably never see again.

Then you reach the Italian garden, which now that I think about it, was very much like the ones in Florence.

Next there is the sculpture garden with pieces old and new collected over decades to a standard green backdrop.

(A brief pause to gawk at the views)

Then to the Oriental garden, where I was reminded of the famous Japanese one in San Francisco. So calming.

The rose garden that followed was unfortunately disappointing because of the time of year that we were visiting. Of course, that didn't mean that I enjoyed it any less.

There were scattered Roman sculptures throughout. Oh la la.

Here we have the garden of the Americas, gotta love our cacti.

And behind this fountain, the twisting natural chaos of an English garden, my preferred layout.

Finally, after climbing through the beauty that all of these gardens are, I found the perfect photo-op to capture it all.

One day, some how, I would love to go back. In the mean time I will make the most of the flowers both inside and outside the house I now call home. Classes went well today, tomorrow is my "Friday" and then a fun college weekend awaits. It's been too long since I've had one of those ;). Hope you all are having a fantastic week. "The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself." -Henry Miller