Arc de Triomphe (part deux)

One of the first sights I saw in Paris was l'Arc de Triomphe, which was also, coincidently, the first place that I took T following our adventure along la Côte d'Azur.

Reunited with my trusty Nikon D700 and 20mm f/2.8 Nikkor, it was time to do some serious snapping.

Figuring that I'd want to take T to the top of all the monuments and such, and not wanting to pay the obligatory fees twice, I refrained from seeing the view atop l'Arc de Triomphe the first time I was here. It was quite the treat to see it for the first time with mon amour.

The weather was all over the place, pouring one minute, sun shining the next, but the view was great.  It's amazing how far you can see from up there.  In a way it all seemed so close, like you could just skip on over to la Tour Eiffel in a few minutes.  Having walked much of it before, however, I can say that Paris is far more expansive than it may seem at first.

La Défense

It was so cool seeing, and only seeing, all the traffic go in and out of l'Étoile.  I'm pretty sure I would murder someone if I had to drive around this thing everyday.

You can also see la Grande Arche de la Défense in the above photo.  In typical French fashion, it lines up perfectly with l'Arc de Triomphe.  I once walked all the way from la Défense, past l'Arc de Triomphe, and down to the Louvre, where I took the métro the rest of the way home.  It took a long time.

L'Arc de Triomphe, with its marked lack of ornamentation, is one of my favorite sights in Paris.  I still remember seeing it for the first time and being blown away by its size.  It set the stage for how grand Paris would be to me and how unprepared I was, in a good way, for what I would encounter on my stay there.

Côte d'Azur - Monaco

Port Hercule

T and I didn't have much time to spend along the Côte d'Azur, but we knew that we wanted to spend a day in Monaco.  For me, there are three things I think of when I think of Monaco: the Monte Carlo Casino, F1, and Iron Man 2.

Before we could see any of those things, and more, we had to get there.... which was a pain in the ass.  The buses along the Riviera are super convenient and super cheap at 1€, and for these very reasons they are also super crowded.  Even though there was a bus stop right by our hotel, buses wouldn't even bother stopping because they were too full to let on anymore passengers.  After wasting 40 min to futility, we hoofed it to the fabled origine des bus, where we had our pick of any seat.  Success!

Port de Fontvieille, Monaco.  The France/Monaco border is just beyond here.

Along the way were greeted with a coastline that looked like this.

We spent a lot of time walking around this bluff, which overlooks much of the city and is home to the Prince's Palace.

Taking pics from Prince's Palace

Cathédrale de Monaco

The cathedral was really cool and rather different in style from the ones in Paris.

In no way was this more evident than the highly unconventional organ.

It was really pretty and had a nice seaside flavor to it.  Yes, that's right, flavor.  I licked the walls to be sure.  Salty goodness.

F1 Racetrack

After checking out all the cool stuff on top the bluff, we walked along the harbor and racetrack, where they were setting up for the Formula One races taking place in a few weeks time.

Weird art deserves a weird photograph

Taking a sort of roundabout way on foot, we ended up on the backside of the Monte Carlo.

It was dead quiet with hardly another living soul in sight.  Secret path: found!

The front side was packed with pedestrians and fancy cars.  We were very much out of place here with cameras hanging from our necks and comfy tennis shoes on our pieds.

We tried to go inside but they wanted us to check our cameras and bags, which just wasn't worth the hassle.  Screw you rich snobs!  Neat place to see, nonetheless.  Just being able to see the location of so many great stories made the trek more than worthwhile.

All in all, we had a great time in Monaco.  The wonderful panoramic views of the beautiful city and sea really were the best.  Great way to cap off our vacation along the Côte d'Azur :-)

Will the real Jusco please step forward?

This is going to be an embarrassing post, but here goes... 

This is what I looked like 7 years ago, shortly after T and I started dating.

Yes, unfortunately, that is – no, was – me.

And this is what I looked like 2 years ago.  I'm making it small because I don't want you to look at it too closely... but you can click on it if you must.

I got fat.

For the past two years, I've been trying to lose weight.  You can see me blog about it here and here.  For the first 9 months, I'd lose a few pounds here or there, but I had a hard time staying motivated enough to keep losing it.  By the time I went to France at the beginning of last year, I'd lost 17 lbs.  Not bad, but still far from my goal.

Even though I ate a TON of sweets in Paris, I also did A LOT of walking.

By the time I got back, I'd lost an additional 13 lbs, bringing the total lost to 30 lbs in one year.  That's a lot, but I still had a ways to go.

I didn't really try too hard until last Fall.  It seems to come in spurts for me.  I'm either lazy and maintain my weight, or I suddenly get some motivation and manage to lose a bunch for a while.  I finally got motivated, though.

Here's what I look like now.

It's been 2 years since I said enough was enough, and I've now managed to lose a grand total of 55 lbs! I still have about 8 lbs to go before I get back to where I was 7 years ago, but I feel so good about myself now.  I can't believe how easy it was to gradually get fatter and fatter, and how much of a pain in the ass it was to lose it.

I'm never going to put it back on.

For me, the biggest thing for losing weight was controlling my diet.  As T had told me over and over, I needed to reduce my portion sizes.  Soda pop was another biggie.  After it had been a while since I'd given it up, I noticed that it was much easier to control my eating habits and that I had more energy.  Exercise also played a role, but it didn't seem to make much difference in losing weight; it just made me feel more healthy, which is good, of course.  In fact, I actually found walking to be best thing for losing weight - it burned calories without making me feel more hungry afterwards.

Anyway, here are some fun facts about my before and after:

Waist size

Before: 38     After: 33

Shirt size

Before: L-XL    After: M (fitted)

Chin

Before: N/A    After: Yes

Head size

Before: Enormous    After: Enormous

Can't win 'em all, I suppose ;-)

Côte d'Azur - Nice

La Côte d'Azur, or French Riviera as Americans know it, is gorgeous.  Obviously.  I mean, holy merde, look at that frickin' water!  No photoshop here, folks, that's its real color.

I can't believe it's been nearly a year since I got back from France.  I miss it horribly.  Save for meeting and marrying my wife, it was probably the single most life-changing experience in, well, ma vie.  So, I figure it's about time I get to blogging about it.  What better place to start at than the end!

T flew on over after the end of my program and we immediately flew down to Nice for a few days.  After a cold âne winter in Paris, la Côte d'Azur was a wonderful change.  It was a bit windy, but it was still pleasantly warm.  It's like San Diego (or is it the other way around?).

The architecture and general vibe of the place was completely different from Paris.  Lots of bright colored buildings, little shops, gelato, and tourists (okay, that part's the same in Paris).  Like la Ville Lumière, it was a blast just walking around and seeing what we could find.

Stairs up the side of a hill to an ancient castle? Check.

Waterfall on top of hill? Check check.

Panoramic view of Nice harbor from castle grounds?  Check check check. 

Actual castle?  No check.

The old Nice Castle is long gone save for its foundations, but there was a nice park in its place that afforded amazing views, as you can see.

T liked Nice a lot :-)

There was this really cool looking Russian cathedral, but they close early and we got there a few minutes late.  This is as close as we got, unfortunately.  Still cool, though!

We weren't in Nice long, but we sure had a great time.  Good food, great views, and fabulous company – can't possibly as for anything more on a vacation.

Free Will

Can we remake ourselves?  That is a question that often enters my mind.  Perhaps I should be asking "can I remake myself?," but it feels like this more a question of human nature.

I want to believe that we are capable of becoming anything we want to become within the sphere of our own consciousness, but I'm not sure if that's possible.  Can a bigot recognize his discriminative nature and will himself to change?  Is a christian christian because he consciously chooses to be one, or have his experiences and his nature predisposed him to be one?  How much free will do we really have?

These are, most likely, unanswerable questions.  The conflict present in an indeterminate amount of free will makes life what it is.

Perhaps the more important question is whether or not we have the desire to remake ourselves - to leave ourselves open to change.  I want to be a person who's willing to have his most fundamental beliefs challenged and, potentially, destroyed.  Does this open me to damnation or salvation?

San Diego Cherry Blossom Festival

T and I went to the San Diego Cherry Blossom Festival, or Hanami, at Balboa Park last Saturday.  They'd been renovating and expanding the Japanese gardens for some time now and I'd read that this was to be the grand opening, but it turns out that they'd just run out of money and were hoping to use the festival to get some more dough.  They didn't even beat around the bush or anything, they were like "we're out of money.  Donate so we can finish the gardens!"  It was a little sad.

Nonetheless, the cherry blossoms were in bloom and were quite pretty (though, we think they were a little damaged from the storm the day prior).  They would have been prettier, however, had there not been tools lying around and a muddy pit (future pond, by the looks of it) in the middle of the place.  It's all good, I suppose...

This was actually my first time seeing cherry blossoms in bloom.  I always seem to go to Japan in the winter.

We both had a good time :-) There were a bunch of food vendors, an Aikido demonstration with some cute kids trying their darndest, some slightly geeky high school kids dancing to J-Pop music, a Taiko demonstration, and a very sad Sapporo beer garden that resembled a dog pen.  Here's to hoping they raised lots of money!

Halls cough drops were there for me

"Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: Hi-five yourself." Surely the coming of a cough drop pep talk could be nothing but a sign of the End of Days. Heaven help us all.