Kel. 27. Lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Graduated from UC Berkeley 2001. Has a small obsession with TV. Enjoys chick lit and teen movies. Major shopaholic. Blogging since January 17, 2002.

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Date/Time: Sat, Dec 30 @ 11:50pm
Reading: Everyone Worth Knowing by Lauren Weisberger
Listening: It Ends Tonight, All-American Rejects

 Alyson.  Barry.  Emma.  Gela.  Kelly.  Kate.  Linda.  Marieke.  Marina.  Reen.  Robyn.   Sarah.

• paris day 1
• paris pics
• i'm back from paris
• off to paris!!!
• birthday

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October 29, 2006

I'm finally getting around to blogging about my trip... I kept a written travel journal but I also want to have kind of a "recap" here on my site. It'll probably take me months to finish it up though, lol. I guess you'll just have to bear with me. :D Anyway, here goes...

Thurs/Fri, October 12-13: Day 1
Waking up early to get to the airport was hard. Security was easy. Probably because we were heading out of the US instead of coming in. Though Rob was asked to take off his flip flops when we were going through security at SFO. Weird, right? Speaking of weird, I saw the craziest thing at the Chicago O'Hare airport (we changed planes there and it is a NICE airport!). I had to use the restroom so I walked into a stall and immediately noticed that there weren't any toilet seat covers. Then I noticed some sort of sign on the wall with instructions. It said to wave your hand in front of the sensor and a plastic toilet seat cover would be dispensed directly onto the seat. When you're finished, you wave your hand again and the toilet flushes along with the cover. OMG. Has anyone ever seen this?!?

Flights were uneventful. But uncomfortable. It's so hard to sleep on a plane when you have no legroom. I barely got any sleep. One day I'm going to fly first class, damn it. :P We landed, picked up our luggage, and found the taxi line with no problems. Unfortunately, the jet lag was setting in. UGH. We left San Francisco at 9:30 on Thurs morning and arrived in Paris at 8:30 on Fri morning. It seriously felt like I had been awake for 24 hours even though technically our flights were only a total of 13 hours. The taxi ride was looooong. We were heading into Paris during the morning rush so it took a little over an hour cause of the traffic. As we got closer to the city, I started to see glimpses of the Eiffel Tower. SQUEEEEE. That's when it hit me. I was in Paris!!! I had been looking forward to and planning the trip for months and it was finally here. :D Our taxi driver took us around the turnabout at the Arc de Triomphe... that was INSANE. Twelve streets feed into the turnabout and it's pretty much every driver for himself. Anyway, we finally arrived in the Latin Quarter at Hotel Claude Bernard, our home base for the week. It's a really small and charming hotel, centrally-located and has all the basics, including free internet access in the lobby! That was a pleasant surprise. When we checked in, our room wasn't ready (it was only about 10:30am) so we left our bags and headed out to get familiar with our arrondissement. And find some food (airplane food was horrible)!

After walking around aimlessly for awhile, we finally walked into a boulangerie to get a sandwich. We managed to order a Croque Monsieur (a ham sandwich with cheese on top, so good) but it was tough. We know almost no French and coupled with the jet lag, we just weren't very sharp, hehe. After some more walking (this really helped us stay awake and adjust to the time change), we decided we needed coffee and happened to stumble upon the all too familiar Starbucks sign. We HAD to go in, LOL. I got a Tall (Moyen) Mocha, which was completely different than the mochas they serve here in the US. It's not as sweet and chocolate-y so it tastes more like coffee. It was to die for. Too bad it was about twice the cost!

We went back to our hotel since our room was supposed to be ready by this time. It was so we grabbed our luggage and headed to the elevator. WOW. I have *never* seen a smaller elevator. It only fits 2 people at a time. So with our huge suitcases, Rob and I had to take it up to the 5th floor one by one. We arrived at our room, opened the door and found that it wasn't much bigger than the elevator. LOL. We freshened up and unpacked and then decided to do some more walking so we wouldn't be tempted to fall asleep. According to the trusty street map, the Luxembourg Gardens are just a few streets away so we headed in that direction. As we approached, we grabbed a mozarella, tomato, and cheese panini to enjoy in the gardens (YUM -- the bread was so soft and the cheese so flavorful). The flowers were still in bloom so the garden and its fountains were absolutely breathtaking.

We then set out for Boulevard St. Germain to find Monoprix, which is a store that carries grocery and household items. We purchased bottled water, orange juice (I was still a little sick at this point), and miscellaneous snacks for the week. It was now 5pm and we were *exhausted* so we went back to the hotel. We watched CNN for awhile (it was the only channel in English!) and finally went to sleep at 8pm.

Up next: Segway Tour!

Posted by Kel at 09:14 PM | Comments (5)

October 27, 2006

I finally uploaded my Paris pictures and they're here at sour-lemon.org in case anyone's interested in taking a look. :D I miss it so much!

Posted by Kel at 10:35 PM | Comments (4)

October 22, 2006

Back home. I'm tired but happy. It was a great trip! I'll upload pics and write a trip report soon.

But first... I start my new job tomorrow. *wibble*

Posted by Kel at 11:45 PM | Comments (9)

October 12, 2006

Posted by Kel at 12:27 AM | Comments (1)

October 11, 2006

It's my BIRTHDAY!!!

Yay. Well, except for the fact that I'm sick. YUP. Been sick now for 2 days. I was sick for my last day at work! So I was sniffling from being sick and teary from all the emotion of leaving. My own office totally spoiled me with a going-away/birthday party and great gifts. I got a spa treatment and also a gift certificate to a dinner cruise while I'm in Paris. *sniff* I'm going to miss them all so much. :(

Anyway, I'm still not feeling 100% but I guess I'd better get up and start packing and doing laundry... 1 more day til I leave for Paris! I just hope I feel better for the flight. Guh.

Posted by Kel at 08:03 AM | Comments (8)

October 8, 2006

I'm heading into the last 2 days of work at my current job. It's a very strange feeling... I'm sad to leave all my great co-workers, I'm scared that I might be horrible at my new job, but I'm really excited to be doing something different. I'm totally all over the place. :/

I had a really fun (early) birthday shindig today with some friends. We played miniature golf down in Castro Valley (I SUCK) and then came back up to Berkeley for pizza at Zachary's (OMG, SO GOOD). Rob also got me the yummiest strawberry cake from Neldam's Bakery. Aaaahhh, I feel so spoiled. :D

Anyway, I thought I'd upload some of my recent favorite songs since I haven't done a music post recently...

Right click, save as...
username: cookie
password: monster

Fergie - Fergalicious
Fergie - Clumsy
These Fergie songs are damn catchy.
JoJo- Too Little, Too Late
Michael Buble - Home (I just discovered Michael Buble and fell in love).
Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars (Acoustic) (This song makes me go... GUH. Note: this file's in m4a format).

Countdown to Paris: 4 days!

Posted by Kel at 10:25 PM | Comments (3)

October 7, 2006

OMG, I seriously need to start making cuts on my TV schedule. Cause I am SO backed up. There are a billion episodes on my Tivo!

I think Six Degrees may be my first casualty. I do have the third episode saved on the Tivo so that'll be the deciding episode.

More comments on returning shows...

SPOILERS ARE AHEAD...
CSI
Really enjoyed the first 2 episodes... Catherine's "rape" (the morning after scene gave me chills) and the Sam Braun storyline was intriguing. And I liked that Catherine turned to Sara for help. Finally! I like both characters a lot and I wish they would get along. :/ They always seem to be shown as adversaries. It's like the writers don't know how to write friendly relationships for female characters or something. Annoying.

Gilmore Girls
OMG. Lauren Graham is amazing. She makes me *feel* Lorelai's pain. GUH. She is so good. Now, I know that the show will eventually make its way back to Luke/Lorelai but until then, I'd love to see more of Christopher (I'm sorry, I like him!). Good to see Lane again but I really hate that she's pregnant. I feel like it's such a cop-out storyline for her. Blah. On a shallow note, I absolutely love Alexis Bledel's hair lately. I have hair envy.

One Tree Hill
I totally rolled my eyes after the cold open of the premiere. I mean, really. Nathan washing up on land holding Rachel. WHATEVER. I wish she would go away. And what's with Nathan's angst? That came out of nowhere. But I'm glad that Brooke and Lucas finally broke up. As much as I don't like that pairing, I don't like watching Chad and Sophia even more. The thought of their real life problems makes me cringe. I feel bad for Sophia. :/ It looks like the signs are pointing towards a relationship to develop between Lucas and Peyton. Yay. I've been waiting since season 1! And can I just say how happy I am to see Skillz in the credits? Antwon Tanner's awesome.

Veronica Mars
Hee! There was a BSG reference! :D I thought the premiere was great... well, except for the whole Kendall/Cormac storyline. But that's because I had no idea what was going on. Hopefully it'll be explained in the upcoming episodes. Anyway, I normally don't like new characters right off the bat but I really, really liked both Piz and Parker. They both have such different personalities from the rest of the characters yet they fit right in. Strangely enough, I wasn't feeling Veronica. At all. She's normally a know-it-all (in a good, lovable way) but she took it too far. I couldn't even enjoy the Veronica/Logan scenes because I was so annoyed with her. KB did have rocking hair, though... that's me, I'm all about the shallow.

Supernatural
Daddy Winchester!!! *sniff* The premiere rocked. Seriously, my mind was blown. Jensen, Jared and JDM were all so, so awesome. The ending killed me dead. The scene when Sam drops the coffee cup and runs to his dad... just, GUH.

Battlestar Galactica
The premiere was SO frakking GOOD. Gaeta rocked, the insurgent team of Chief/Helo/Tigh rocked, Lee and his angst rocked, Starbuck and her bad self rocked. Baltar and Ellen did not rock but that's fine... it was all pretty damn amazing anyway. And the ending! I gasped when the prisoners were given a rest break and the cylons appeared. Noooo!

Whew. Hope everyone has a good weekend. :D

Posted by Kel at 12:59 PM | Comments (1)

October 4, 2006

I don't know if I liked the Lost premiere or not. I'm leaning towards... not. I guess I just feel like things are happening for no reason. Do the writers even know where the story is headed?!? They're just creating more and more questions without providing any answers. And it's kinda frustrating. :/

Henry Gale (or Ben or whatever the heck his name is) still gives me the creeps.

I checked out The Nine tonight and darn it, I liked it! Just what I need... another serialized drama to get invested in. :D

Posted by Kel at 10:02 PM | Comments (2)

October 3, 2006

I LOVED Friday Night Lights.

Spoiler warning!

It was gritty and moving and thoroughly engaging. And there was just enough character development to make you want more. I want to learn about the lives of Smash and Tim and why they seem so darn angry. I want to find out what Jason's injury will do to his self-confidence and to his relationship with Lyla. And I also want to see how Coach Taylor will deal with the town, the expectations and the loss of his star quarterback. SO MUCH GOING ON!

I don't even like football but this is a GREAT show. I hope it does well.

If you want to catch the pilot, it's up on NBC.com. Go Panthers!

Posted by Kel at 09:07 PM | Comments (2)

October 2, 2006

9 more days until Paris! :D

So Prison Break (MAJOR spoilers ahead).

Farewell Governor Tancredi.

Farewell Tweener. :( I really liked him, too. At least he got the chance to say goodbye to Debra Jean. That was a really sweet moment. Now I REALLY don't like Mahone.

And SARA!!! Was it just me or was there a shadow behind her in her apartment when she saw all the drug paraphernalia laid out? EEK.

But of course, just as the show's getting good, it has to go on a 3 week hiatus. Stupid baseball. *grumbles*

Posted by Kel at 10:51 PM | Comments (3)

October 1, 2006

I love October. Because it means my birthday's coming. :D

I keep seeing promos for Friday Night Lights. I wasn't originally planning on watching this show but... I might. It looks pretty! And I love the Fort Minor song that plays over the promo. What is wrong with me?! I don't even like football, people. *sigh*

Does anyone know any fansites where I can find hi-res photos for the new TV shows (ie. Studio 60, Heroes, etc)? I haven't had much luck while searching today.

So, my thoughts on a few returning shows...

Prison Break
There's something *off* this season for me. Maybe it's because the prison isn't the primary setting anymore. I've always enjoyed the prison politics and now that they're outside, it's not so exciting for me. Especially since I CANNOT STAND the thought of T-Bags loose in the world. It gives me the creeps. And I just can't take Mahone seriously. He's too smart. I mean, really. REALLY? But whatever, Michael in a suit keeps me coming back. Though how DOES he keep that suit so clean? :D

America's Next Top Model
BWAHAHAHA. This show is awesome. I don't know everyone's names yet except Monique. Girl is CRAZY. I thought Jade (from last cycle) was arrogant but Monique is about ten times worse. UGH. No favorites just yet but I am liking the twins. They've both had amazing pictures. Oh, and Anchal rocks because she was the only one to actually say something to Monique when she was monopolizing the phone.

Grey's Anatomy
Whoa, McSteamy. Go Addison! Hehe. :D In all seriousness, I am SO GLAD it looks like Derek and Addison are headed towards separation. Actually, I am SO GLAD *Derek* has finally realized that their relationship is over. Addison really wanted to try and repair their marriage and he went along with it because he thought it was the right thing to do. Ugh, he just prolonged their pain. And made himself look like a complete weasel since he continued to string Meredith along. I really liked Meredith and Derek in the first season but season 2 left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Still loving Cristina. Still don't like George. But I like Callie. Which is weird since her storyline (as of now) revolves around George. And am I the only one who doesn't think Izzie should return to the surgical program? I love her BUT she got too emotionally involved with a patient, she worsened his condition to get him a heart... she pretty much broke every rule in the book. I'm willing to suspend belief for my shows but seriously? She would not be returning to surgery.

Smallville
I *really* enjoyed the premiere. I can't believe I'm so excited about this season. It might have been the promo picures I just stumbled on... or maybe it was because it was a solid episode. I loved the fight between Clark and Zod ("Kneel before Zod"). I loved that Chloe brushed off her kiss with Clark... and I actually believed her. I loved the open-ended Lex/Lana scene at the end (so angsty!). Plus, this episode introduced Jimmy Olsen! I think the show needed a fresh face. I'm definitely intrigued. It'll be interesting to see where Clark is headed now that he's pretty much all alone (can't confide in Lex or Lana and Jor El and the Fortress are closed to him).

Posted by Kel at 09:44 PM | Comments (2)