Trop Bon

"too good"

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Les toits du Louvre. Taken by my host mom on the day of my départ.

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You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Psalm 16:11

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I fell in love with Paris. Paris--and this is the tricky thing--though it is always and indubitably itself, is also in its nature a difficult city to love for itself alone. What truly makes Paris beautiful is the intermingling of the monumental and the personal, the abstract and the footsore particular, it and you. A city of vast and impersonal set piece architecture, it is also a city of small and intricate, improvised experience. My favorite architectural detail in Paris is the little entrance up the rue de Seine, a tiny archway where, as I have found out, you can push a pousette right through to get to the grand Institut de France. You aren't looking at it; and then you and the pousette are IN it, right in the driveway where the academicians go. For a moment you ARE it. The Institut belongs to you. Tens steps more and you are on the pont des Arts. The passage from the big to the little is what makes Paris beautiful, and you have to be prepared to be small--to live, to trudge, to have your head down in melancholy and then lift it up, sideways--to get it.

Paris to the Moon, Adam Gopnik.

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4 dreamy days in and around Salt Lake City, Utah with this boy and his sweet, mountain pup, Otis. Ridiculously beautiful and lovely.

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Afternoon at lake Mary, Salt Lake City, Utah.

(WHAT THE HECK??)

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Wanderings around Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, Midtown and Central Park. Got to run around the city with my awesome friend, Naomi, who taught English in Paris with me last year, have my first fish tacos and margaritas with my friend, John, and make chicken+apricot+almond tajines and swap abroad stories in my cousin's sweet brownstone. So happy I got to see these folks. 

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Kara Walker's "A Subtlety" or The Marvelous Sugar Baby at the Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg. 

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Paris --> NYC. First stop on Sally's All American Summer Tour. 

BACK IN AMERICA! Been a long time coming... Spent the past four days in Greenpoint, Brooklyn with my good friend, Cat, who I met two years ago when we were studying in Paris. I couldn't have asked for a better person to spend my first couple of days transitioning back into American life. She was a good sport as I marveled at everyone walking around with their big iced coffees, frequently (and poorly) directly translated French words and remembered that the people I passed on the street who were speaking English weren't tourists... I'm getting back in the swing. We packed in as much AMERICA as we could to make up for lost time.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HOSPITALITY, CAT! I will gladly return the favor whenever you're in Charleston.

*above featured dude turned 6,000 that day and insisted that I take his photo. 

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last week in dreamland...

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last week in dreamland. hittin' up my favorite spots: le canal st. martin, le marais, le comptoir général, tuck shop, l'agence et le musée rodin. 

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throwback to yet another dreamy, last minute, last visit to Baulne, where afternoons were spent eating long lunches in the shade in the garden, walking around barefoot in the grass, climbing up in the cherry tree with Bernard and filling baskets of fruit (n'hésitez pas à les manger, hein!) and, as usual, traipsing through the fields and creeks with my favorite parisiens. Back when goodbye was weeks away...

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Champagne on the roof for the last time with these parisian beauties. This is our 6th time to have to say goodbye to each other... I think we've gotten pretty good at it. qu'est-ce qu'elles vont me manquer...

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Secret underground Parisian cave jazz--one of the coolest things I've ever witnessed and gotten to be a part of in Paris. These folks were ridiculously talented and beautifully welcoming (we even ended up concert hopping with them the next day). We played and sang and danced with them until 3 am.

Best way to ring in your 24th year on earth. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DPOP! Thanks for all the music you bring into my life and for always inspiring me to keep singing! So blessed to celebrate your life with you doing the thing we love the most. 

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A (Davis) in Paris, featuring the musical stylings of Snarky Puppy au Parc Floral, as well as Charles Bradley and His Extraordinaires and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings à la Défense. Not to mention an Afro-Peruvian band au Comptoir Général and some killer parisien jazz musicians underground aux Gobelins. 

So. Much. MUSIC!

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Dpop, Zach and Tyler--friends from different parts of my life (childhood, high school and college)--all rolled into town last week! Reunions in Paris are definitely not the worst. A new cast of characters even entered the scene: a group of Spanish dudes running around the city in traditional garb serenading the ladies. We ran into them a hilarious amount of times. 

HAVE I MENTIONED THAT THIS PLACE IS A TOTAL DREAMLAND IN THE EARLY SUMMER? Or do the photos speak for themselves? 

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Summertime Parisian happenings. 

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Parents à Paris, featuring: la Coulée Verte, Café des Musées, le Jardin de Luxembourg, Deyrolle, Chez René, le Louvre et le Baron Rouge.