wanderingsara

Once again, time flies and October has suddenly snuck up on me. September was beautiful beyond expectation, but today I look out on grey skies and rain once again. The air is blustery and it smells like changing seasons, wet with a slight bite full of possibilities. I took advantage of the lovely days by walking around areas I don't often frequent, camera by my side. Here are some of my favorite shots so you may take a moment to wander this magnificent city before getting back to work or whatever else you're supposed to be doing on the computer.... read more

What to write? It feels as though not much has been happening, but of course, life marches on. The apartment is set up and almost all organized, and at least Guillaume and I aren't sleeping on the couch anymore! He is working too much and I'm not working enough, but hopefully with time things will even out. So what have I been up to? Well... Moving! We left our old apartment in Issy-les-Moulineaux for our new place here in the 15th. It's 2 rooms, on the 5th floor, no elevator, so we asked for as much help with the move as we could get. Luckily Guillaume has a lot of strong guy friends and we were able to get it all done in a weekend. It took another week for us to put everything back together, ... read more

It is summer in Paris, despite the weather. The entire month of July passed with maybe 2 sunny days. As a California girl, this is not acceptable. Summer took a long time coming to Chico this year, so I really only got about 2 weeks of it before flying off to Paris where the clouds and rain were a little too happy to see me. How California spoils me, I had forgotten how in Europe, when you have a sunny day, you must take advantage of it because you can't be sure that it will be followed by others. There was a week or two in the beginning when I would head out to get bread and then stay in and write, sketch, nap, what-have-you, while waiting for the sun to come out. But there comes ... read more

Every country has it’s own rules of the road, and so you almost have to re-learn how to drive with each new place. For me here in Thailand, this was especially true as the main mode of transportation is motorbike. My first weekend here was spent renting my little 150cc automatic bike from the friendly people at Mr. Mechanic and then learning how to drive it. This was made more complicated by the fact that they drive on the left and that the traffic is constant. I found the principle to be the same as in Europe, the “you watch my back, I watch yours”, as opposed to the “be aware of everyone” driving ideal in the states. If someone goes in front of you, that is your problem, because they don’t really look first. Don’t ... read more

The first thing that hit me was the heat. Or perhaps the humidity. Or probably just the crushing blow of the two combined. Either way, stepping off of my plane, first in Bangkok and then again in Chiang Mai, felt like walking into a wall of sticky, all-encompassing heat. Luckily every interior is furnished with remote-controlled air conditioning, so you can hop from one refreshing island of coolness to the next. Karissa met me at the Chiang Mai international airport (I guess since there are flights to Laos and Malaysia, this tiny 2 gate airport can call itself international) Saturday afternoon after my overnight stay in Bangkok. She had been waiting for me at the other arrival gate, but luckily I had her number and we soon found each other, excitedly running towards one another and ... read more