Petit Bateau

Posted on May 26th, 2010 in Miscellaneous, Paris

For my graduation I was so excited when my parents decided to throw me a party! I hate throwing parties in celebration of myself, it always feels a bit narcissistic to me, but when it’s someone else’s idea I say great! My mom had the idea of renting one of the Yachts de Paris for the occasion which turned out to be the perfect way to not only celebrate my graduation but also welcome the incredibly warm weather we have been having.

All of my darling friends were able to make it. I feel so lucky to have them as they are truly the coolest girls in the world! Not to mention stylish!

Blue skies and puffy pink clouds…my favorite!

A cocktail dinner was served so everybody mingled with one another around the boat as we enjoyed lots of delicious little treats.

My favorite boys were able to make it to! Including my good friend and colleague Rija, my petit copin Pierre, and my dear friend Kenji all the way from London!

Kenji is definitely one of the most stylish guys I know. His pink pocket scarf was perfectly coordinated with my jewelry and dress.

My sister Britta was able to get time off from her hectic life in the New York fashion world for a week in Paris. We have really different styles as you can see but appreciate one another’s tastes!

My sister wore an amazing vintage dress while I wore Stella Forest.

My friends got me this beautiful hair clip that is actually two clips joined together. It was so sweet of them and I absolute adore it!

It’s not a party without cupcakes! We stopped by Berko and got these insanely delicious and cute treats for the occasion.

There were plenty of other desserts too…

…and pink flower arrangements to match my dress!

My not so petit bateau was called the Acte III. It was amazing with a deck on the front and back and lots of old school charm. {image via French-Kissed}

{image via French-Kissed}

The whole night was seriously like a dream. I can’t be more thankful to my parents for planning such an unforgettable evening for me and all my friends and family who came and celebrated with me! I wish you all could have been there too! Thank you so much for all you sweet comments congratulating me on my graduation! It always warms my heart to hear from you.

The Graduate

Posted on May 24th, 2010 in Miscellaneous

This has been a very busy weekend! No matter how much I want to I am just finding it hard to get my blog posting back to normal! I hoping that after all my promsises I have made to you about posting more that this will finally get updating more frequently starting this week. This weekend was madness, in a good way. I am now a college graduate with a degree from The American University of Paris! My college journey took me a long way as France is actually the fourth country that I studied in. Greece, Turkey, and the U.S. are the others. I couldn’t have picked a more perfect place for me and I only wish I had realized it two years earlier so I would have spent four years at the university instead of just two. I’m feeling a bit bitter sweet about the whole thing…

The ceremony was held at the world famous Theatre du Chatelet.

The venue was stunningly beautiful.

I wish I had gotten some more (and better) pictures of the whole thing but it was very hectic and I was trying to the enjoy the moment without worrying about documenting it.

My grad outfit was very girlie as usual. You can see some of the details here.

And the decor matched it perfectly!

There were champagne toasts…

Followed by a lovely lunch with my parents and sister at Mariage Frères.

It’s been hot here finally! So we went for our tea iced rather than hot…

And these are literally the biggest glasses of ice tea in the world! They hold a whole pot!

So now that I am grad I will be sticking around Paris to continue working in advertising. The bad news is though that this next three months is going to entail a lot of me traveling back and forth between Paris and New York to get my work papers sorted out as me and my employers have had to bend over backwards to try to figure out the best way to ensure everything will be approved. Unfortunately the most sure fire one is the longest process of them all but I am trying to be patient. I feel so lucky that my company is so nice and doing everything they can to keep me in Paris. They really are great people! Congrats to all you other new graduates out there as I know I have some readers that are celebrating the end of studying as well! I can’t wait to share with you in my next post the pics from my graduation party cruise!

Pardon my French….

Posted on May 15th, 2010 in Miscellaneous

Something terrible has happened. My beloved Macbook Pro, at only nine months old, had a major meltdown the other night. The hard-drive fried somewhere between Gmail and iMovie, and no Apple “genius” at the Paris Carousel du Louvre store can recover my information. Meanwhile they are holding it hostage assessing the damage. All my photos gone…my school work gone…and a major project for work gone forever just thirty minutes after finishing sixty hours of work on it. Putain de merde….yeah I said it, pardon my French but this really sucks. Oh well, c’est la vie? Gotta move on and don’t worry, just bare with me a couple days and I will have plenty more pretty pics for you here. For now I leave you with some old polaroids I found on my old macbook here and direct you to the Inspiration Gallery to see what is new, pretty and exciting in there…

~ Inspiration Gallery ~

Ode to Paris

Posted on April 30th, 2010 in Paris

When I came home from my grocery shopping this evening I ran into the old man that runs the shop on the ground floor. I greeted him with a friendly “bonsoir!” and he looked surprised. “You must not have been in the building long” he said as he reached for his cane he had leaned against the wall while locking up. “It’s been a year” I told him. It’s crazy for me to think it has been over a year now I’ve lived in this apartment. I remember the day I came to look at it for the first time, peeping my head out the window to catch the view of Centre Pompidou to my left and the crowd gathering for happy hour on the terrace of the bar on the opposite corner. That Spring and Summer I spent many warm evenings leaning out this window at twilight taking in the smells, sounds, and sights below from the comfort of my lofty nest above it all.

When his ear caught my accent he asked me if I was British and I clarified for him I was indeed an American girl in Paris. He asked me if I knew what was great about Paris and why I wanted to live here. I always get nervous when French people ask me this sort of question, feeling as if to them there is a right and more importantly a wrong answer upon which they will judge me fit or not to have the privilege of living in their country. Scanning my mind for what I thought he wanted to hear the truth came out as an enthusiastic “la vie!” He quickly reassured me that the best thing about living in Paris was all the…museums. Maybe my limited vocabulary stopped me short of a more articulate response but when I say the life here is what is best about Paris I do mean exactly that.

The first several weeks after I moved in I felt like the whole world was before me. I had a year left of college, a career about to begin, all the zest and enthusiasm a twenty year old should have and an imagination filled with possibility. Since then I have just gotten so busy between commuting an hour in the metro from home, work, school, and meetings, and all my responsibilities I have taken on in these places all while just trying to make sure the dishes get done when I return home at the end of the day and my laundry is washed so I have something clean to throw on the next morning. La vie in Paris is not always as glamorous and leisurely as one might imagine.

Moving here you foresee afternoons talking about Sartre and Camus at charming cafes in the Latin Quarter, sunrises on the Seine after many bottles of wine, and loosing yourself intentionally in the charming little unknown streets you feel like no has touched since Napoleon. I’ve had those times, but in the last year the pressure to get through work and school and take care of myself on my own has often clouded these rarer moments with stress and worry, like my mind no longer belonged to me because there was so little space and energy left to dream.

It’s a funny thing when your greatest dreams come true. They say make your dreams reality, but when they come true don’t stop there. Live in the moment, but always keep dreaming.

Like this monsieur I encountered this evening, I love the museums of Paris with the changing expos to choose from, and the multitude of luxury and leisurely things there are to do, but this is not my day to day life. I simply don’t have the time. In Paris it’s the simple happenings that go on in the spaces between all the things I have to do that make me love my life here so much; from the beautiful and charming decor of the tabac where I grab a quick espresso next to the blooming flowershop, the glowing apartments lining the cobble stone streets I peer into imagining the lives of the people who live there as I carry my groceries home in the late evening, the sidewalk café culture with friends and couples rendezvousing and chit chatting I eaves drop on as I pass by, or even doing my homework amidst the smell of dryer sheets at the laundromat as I wait for my clothes to dry on one the tiniest, oldest, and most charming streets in the world.

Ça mes amies, ça c’est la vie. Life is not a string of musées, views from the top of La Tour Eiffel, and shopping on Avenue Montaigne. It’s full of responsibilities, chores, ins and outs, and the daily grind. Pour moi, there is no place I am happier doing just that than Paris.

Thank you so much for all of your lovely comments on my recent posts. They mean so much to me and each and everyone brings a smile to my face. I promise I will return all of your comments as soon as I get the chance to check in on all my reader’s amazing blogs. I ask you to bare with me for a week or two here while my posts slow down as it is crunch time for papers and finals at school, wrapping up assignments at work, and the daunting task of working out my work visa for next year. In the meantime I am sending my love from Paris to all of you!