west end lite

According to visitlondon.com, West End has a fantastic range of theatres, tourist attractions, hotels, shopping, and iconic streets. I had little desire to spend any time there (as I insist on not being a "tourist"), but! catching up with the lovely Daisy de Plume was a must.

After that full day in East London, I nearly slept in until our lunch date at Bea's of Bloomsbury. What a treat--both sleeping in and lunching with her. And though I may have stumbled through a bis exchange (gosh darn reassimilated American!), Daisy, the kind soul and adorable pregnant momma that she is, didn't seem to mind.

Following our date, I ventured over to the nearby Charles Dickens Museum to spend my time wisely while waiting for Rachael.

Yes, I'm aware this move made me a tourist. So be it! It was raining again and I'm quite the fan of Oliver Twist.

To continue with the touristing, Rachael and I went on to have cream tea at Soho's Secret Tea Room. And as we finished up our last bites of scone with raspberry preserves and clotted cream, we looked into theaters and well-reviewed plays nearby.

Then we ran over to purchase last-minute tickets to The Play That Goes Wrong. We got lucky with great seats at a very discounted price. To celebrate, Rachael and I clinked glasses of champagne before going in to laugh our asses off at the Dutchess Theatre.

And laugh our asses off we did. My empty stomach was sore by the play's end! To remedy the situation, and cap off a spontaneously hysterical evening, Rachael and I made yet another fabulous decision to late night-dine on fancy fish and chips at The Ivy.

It was the most perfect British send-off. The next morning I boarded a train to Amsterdam to visit my brother and Lorelei...

tipples in montmartre

Paris weather has been back to its old tricks again: clouds, sun, rain, sun... mostly clouds. As such, it hasn't taken that much discipline to hole up in my apartment (or a café) and studiously make these final edits and formatting changes to my master's thesis. The end is so near I can almost taste it! Until then, I'm limiting spring fun with friends. Besides birthdays. And THATrue prizes.

Last Saturday afternoon, I ventured up to Montmartre for my first event with The Chamber. Gâteaux Mama had laid out the most gorgeous spread of port-poached pears on stilton walnut crackers, herbed madeleines, deviled egg salad in sesame cracker cups, lemon shortbread, brown butter brownies, and lemon-rosemary olive oil tea cake. Forest Collins (of The Chamber and 52 Martinis) kindly served champagne cocktails as well. As to be expected with lovely company and aforementioned treats, great times were had. Last weekend was an especially good one, huh? Here's to hoping knowing those in May will follow suit. I'm gonna miss this city.

knit + tea goûter

Yesterday, I went to a tea party. I'd thought I was going to Katie's apartment to learn how to knit (a pastime I surely once believed to be only of old ladies), and instead spent four hours enjoying green-jasmine tea, Earl Grey cake, lavendar scones, clotted cream, raspberry jam, and un gateaux au chocolat. It was basically a little girl's dream come true in the company of six inspiring women.

They proved my entrepreneurial expat theory true again, with new Australian, British, and Taiwanese applications. And as I walked home, coming down from my sugar high, I couldn't help but think how much I've grown into myself since coming to Paris, too.

I have yet to accomplish any great success, at least in my mind, but I recently feel certainty in an "I'm onto something" sense (thesis-wise and not). Just as we can only work with tangled yarn by knitting past the knots, so is true in life. Granted, I'm only familiar with such wisdom grace â word of mouth... but still. We intend to actually knit next time. For now, there's a sweetness to our hopes.

"Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don't even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or a person who explained to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before. [...] Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually becomes the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed." -Alice Walker, Living By the Word

swedish sustainable tourism

Gosh, aren't you wonderful? Thank you so, so much for your support. With it, and the company of friends, I've been focusing on taking advantage of this city in every which way. The bustle of la rentrée (the return of vacationing Parisians) has meant busy, productive days and long, fun nights. It hasn't come without a cost though. I'm exhausted. So much so, that I left tonight's PageYourself office-apéro early... to come home, cook, and reminisce about the serenity that came with my one day in the Swedish countryside.

Nature has a way of doing that to me. On the last day of The Conference (and, I promise, I will recap the bulk of the program itself soon), I had the opportunity to take a tour of Christinehof Ecopark. It had been created, "to protect, preserve and exhibit the sites and artifacts of natural and cultural value [wetlands and woods] that surround Christinehof", a baroque manor house. But even with such a warning, I couldn't have been prepared for the amazing experience I shared with Petter, Eva, Ariel, Leonora, and more.

We began with coffee/tea and a homemade kanelbullar (cinnamon roll) in Fyledalen; taking in the warm sun, fresh air, and lush, green surroundings. Did you know: "following Australia's lead, Sweden was the second country in the world to introduce an eco-tourism charter"? I hadn't. And yet it seems so obvious to me now. My host and every one of her friends had a cabin outside Malmö. Petter raved about Swedes' love of their great outdoors. He told us too about the wonderful constitutional law, Allemansträtten, which allows access to any and all countryside--for camping, hiking, berry-picking, etc.--as long as the natural integrity is maintained.

After, we got a taste of it ourselves. With Eva as our guide, we mingled with grazing cows, learned about an industrious Dane, chased a herd of sheep, heard about Christenhof's education programs, took a nature walk, ate edible clovers, and made lunch: baked rye with sour cream and "chicken weed" alongside a wild green soup garnished with local flowers, parsley, and more creme fraîche.

Then we retreated inside the manor house to take a look at their eclectic collection of furniture, decorative arts, and portraits, in addition to an exhibition of the work by Sweden's first professor of textile design, Hans Krondahl. The juxtaposition was gorgeous.

And just when I thought the excursion couldn't get any better, I met "the love cake." We each enjoyed a square alongside coffee or tea as we thanked Petter profusely for the unforgettable day he, Eva, and all the staff at Christinehofs Ekopark had provided; yet another Swedish memory I'll forever cherish. With that sweet thought, I'm off to finally get a good night's sleep :) happy birthday, K!

sweden's third city

I had a good feeling about Malmö, the Swedish city that sounds so “Scandi” (according to friends like Anna) yet hadn’t existed to me before I stumbled across the Media Evolution conference that was to be held there. My late night experience reinforced this optimism; as did Liselott(CouchSurfing host)'s morning apologies for only having muesli and milk for breakfast—my Parisian standard, her suggestion that we meet for dinner on Thursday evening at the city’s annual festival, and her Friday night invite to the city's chocolate factory turned microbrewery. I got a good sense of it too from intermingling with media and academic professionals from the area. But I’m not reflecting on the conference, not yet. Today, I’d just like to share a glimpse of Sweden’s third largest city that’s still small enough to be digested in a 4-day visit. I walked to and from the Slagthuset (an atmospheric former slaughterhouse, it's possible) each morning and evening to make sure I saw as much as possible. And I can’t imagine not knowing (and loving) it now.

By the way, I’m not one for souvenirs, but couldn’t resist buying my mom (the woman who ultimately gave me the courage to make this trip possible) traditional Swedish licorice … salted. It’s a thing. Also, I totally loved being introduced to Say Lou Lou’s music.