Newness.

This is the start of something new.

A new semester, a new job, a new house, a new ward, new friends (and of course, lots of good old ones, too!), new shoes and cardigans...

I'm ready for a breath of fresh air - a chance to remake myself, even if it's a little bit at a time.

But before I launch into all this new stuff, let's recap a little bit of the old. Here are two photos I really like:

This one's from the Netherlands, where I traveled with four friends from Cambridge: Alex (the boy), Camille (the girl), Jeff (the boy), and Alex (the girl). We stayed with Alex (the girl)'s family and spent one day walking around the city of Amsterdam. Here are our feet in Amsterdam. I think it's really cute.

This one's from my trip to Paris while I was in Cambridge. My friend Arber took it St. Pancras station, where you take the Eurostar from to cross under the English Channel (or La Manche, as the francophones call it).

I know it's trite to rave about how much my experiences abroad changed me... but they did. And that's that.

On the downside of travel

This summer I have lucked out: travel has been a breeze, especially by plane. No missed flights, connections were neither too long nor too short, my bags always got where I was going. Quite surprising for the quantity of travel I've been doing - by 4:00 pm tomorrow I'll have flown all the way around the world. Train travel was slightly less smooth (a suicide on the tracks from Nice to Paris, a strike or two, and a suspicious suitcase that the French police destroyed with a controlled explosion in Paris Nord station), but that's life.

In short, I had near perfect faith in national and international transportation. Airlines lost luggage, delayed and canceled flights, but none of that ever happened to me. I was blithely indifferent and unaware.

Until today.

I nearly cried (and that's saying something - my emotive powers are poor) when Carlos at the International Transfers desk informed me in his thick Spanish accent that my flight to Dallas-Ft. Worth was canceled, and that there was no possibility of a connecting flight to Salt Lake until tomorrow morning, and further that it was too much of a hassle to get my checked luggage.

... So I'm sitting in an airport hotel room outside London Heathrow with no deodorant or toothbrush to speak of (all checked! So trusting...), alternately napping, reading Life of Pi (which I'm immensely enjoying), and using up the precious battery of my computer (oh, did I mention I left my charger in the Netherlands? No worry, it'll come along sometime later this week in my friend Jeff's luggage).

I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer. I learned last year to take this attitude towards travel hang-ups: "Hey, wow! Another adventure! This is going to be fun."

So I'll grit my teeth and smile. What's another day's delay after four months away? Also, that rhymes, which makes it even better.

Shame on me.

It has been far too long since I've updated my blog. Seven weeks! And I'm living a dream that deserves to be well-documented.

I'm in Cambridge, England, as I think I've said in earlier posts. And if you didn't already know I was here, we're probably not close enough for you to be reading my blog. Shoo.
Life here is wonderful. The program I am participating in is eight weeks long (meaning I leave in a week and a half... Weird). I am taking two taught courses - Varieties of English and Avant-Garde Literature - and what's called a 'supervision,' which for me means I work one-on-one with a girl who just finished her doctorate (hooded and all! Congrats, Rebekah!), reading and writing about works of (dark and twisty) 19th century literature (the boys are all here! Balzac, Poe, Maupassant, Henry James...).

A most excellent experience which will be sorely missed upon my return to BYU. This supervision has shown me how much progress my writing and reading needs to make but has really shown me my future: academia. Laugh, call me impractical, but this is the stuff I love, while law courts, operation rooms, and office cubicles make me want to wretch.

My supervision has also given me the chance to try my hand at translation. This week I wrote on one of my favorite short stories by Guy de Maupassant called 'Letter from a Madman.' As my ardent supporters (if anyone actually reads this blog at all!) you might want to check it out yourself here! It was a lot of fun to work on, and in spite of how clunky my version is, I'm admittedly proud of my first brush with translation. And in the 20 hours it's been online, it's gotten 20 reads. Quite exciting.

Hm, these are just big blocks of text. Boring! I think it's time to put up some pictures. Since arriving in England I've been lots of cool places, but I think I'll give each of those it's own (potentially brief) blog post. Consolation prize:
A picture of a cheese shop (fromagerie) in Saint-Germain-en-Laye where my dear dad and I went when he came to visit in France.

More to come.

Yet another list of things I love

1. Traveling with my dad. He's so flexible and willing to 'wing it,' which is my favorite way to go.

2. Fenocchio ice cream. Where else are you going to find weird flavors like cactus, vanilla-rose-cracked pepper, ginger, violet, dragibus, avocado, and chili chocolate?Not to mention that they're actually all delicious. Can't go wrong, no matter how weird it sounds.
3. The Mediterranean. Dad and I went to the beach today and swam in its clear, turquoise wonderfulness. It was lovely. If only my skin absorbed color better...

4. Salade chèvre chaud. That's warm goat cheese salad. Sounds weird, but is actually delicious. Of course, no little toasts for me, but I'm always up for some warm chèvre on a bed of mixed greens with fresh tomatoes and vinaigrette. Yum.
5. Joan Miró. This one's called "The Bather." The color's not great here, but I was absolutely struck by the depth of the hue when I saw it in the Pompidou Center. I know, too, that it looks like child's play. Especially looking at 20th century art, we're often tempted to say, "Psht, I could have made that!" Ahh, my good friend, but you didn't think to! Often the meaning of the work lies in its very simplicity.
6. This quote from Chagall:
Un vase debout n'existe pas, il faut qu'il tombe pour prouver qu'il est stable.
That is to say, "An upright vase doesn't existe; only its fall can prove that it is stable." I'm not quite sure what that means, but I sense that, metaphorically speaking, it is true.

Also, it's probably time to change the title of my blog: I've only got another two and a half days in France (what?!) and then I am off to Cambridge for summer study.

Dear France,

You have been so good to me. I have been so extraordinarily well-fed, I have seen so many beautiful places and works of art, I have spoken your beautiful tongue, I have walked your streets at all hours (which are sometimes quite filthy, but for that I forgive you), I have danced in your streets at the Fête de la Musique, I have put my feet in the seas that surround you, I have learned to drive your cars, I have profited from your public transportation (but also been quite maddened by it. Could you stop the strikes and the suicides and the technical problems? I guess that's really out of your control).

In short, I have quite fallen for you all over again. Can I come back, and very soon? I will miss you terribly when I leave.

Yours,
Grace

All I have to say is,

I love this


Musée nationale de Marc Chagall

Do yourself a favor and see this in person. Chartres blue is of vivid renown, but I'm pretty sure this tops it.

"When Matisse dies," Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, "Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is."

Asia, Part II

For a very brief second installment of Grace's Oriental Adventures in France, I have some visual proof of my mad culinary skills.
The process:

The product:

I even made the sauce myself! And it was so good! I am good at life.

Asia! I mean France.

As I get more and more acquainted with French culture, I see more and more of the influence of other cultures in France, especially non-Western ones. In recent posts I've talked about the French ties to Russia (like the Alexander III bridge and the Orthodox church in Nice). Now it's time to push even further east:

Asia!

I began this trip in Hong Kong, and now the voyage comes full circle. Since I have been in France, I'm quite certain that I have eaten more Asian food than French. A sampling:

1. There are a couple of cheap (and good!) little Asian restaurants near the LDS Institute building in Paris where class was held during the Study Abroad. As we had class in the morning, and my fellow-students could only stomach so many sandwiches in a row, we headed "East" for lunch! Bo Bum for Beth and Ryan, and a Vietnamese soup called phô for Judy and me. I actually went back today... all alone, since my comrades are now back stateside. Even with extra sriracha sauce, there was something missing -- food is never as good without someone to share it with!
2. I spent the last few days, from Saturday night to Wednesday, at my dear friend Amandine's house. She's quite a unique blend of cultures -- her mother is from Cambodia, speaks Chinese and Vietnamese (on top of French and blips of English), and her father is very definitely French. Eating at Amandine's is a culinary adventure. Fresh spring rolls for an entrée (very Chinese), followed by shredded green mango with mint (also very Chinese), and then beef-stuffed vegetables (very French!) for the main course. While at Amandine's a few weeks ago, her mother Vana taught me to make soft spring rolls, a talent I am eager to cultivate -- my own mother loves them! Who says an all-American Thanksgiving can't include some rice paper and shrimp!

3. Back in Provo, Phil and I love to eat Thai food. Turns out, it's not too difficult to make! Last night I tried out a recipe for red curried chicken with coconut milk. As usual, I failed to pay very close attention to the recipe (I added the curry paste and the onions in the wrong order, added some fresh-squeezed lime juice just for kicks) and it turned out great! Even the presentation was spectacular -- complements of my host-brother Théo, who is really good at (a) making food look pretty and (b) doing the dishes at the end... the cook was tired. But here's how it turned out:
It was delicious! For an entree, we had an updated version of my curried pork lettuce wraps: curried beef cabbage wraps! Turns out a head of iceberg lettuce is just about impossible to find in France, and the beef was a gift from my host mom Nannick. Still a success! For dessert, we had sliced strawberries with mint.

I can just feel the corners of my eyes creeping slowly towards my temples.