Some notes on the Cote D'Azur

South of France is one of the loveliest places in the world! Just to recap some of the highlights on my trip:

Woke up 3 in the morning to head to Luton airport via the First Capital Connect to Luton, then a bus to get to the airport. I know there are horror stories associated with EasyJet, but for our trip, it has been easy. Simply passed out on the plane for 2 hours, and woke up in Nice Airport. Checked in at Hotel Meyerbeer, and the name is definitely misleading as it is a hostel. But for €15 a night, who can complain right?



Went to the main sites at Nice.. Le Chateau, Vuiex Nice, and had the most awesome cream of mushroom sauce on my veal. Nice is so beautiful! Especially Vuiex (Old) Nice. The streets are really cute and has it's own flavor. My friend was mostly excited about the palm trees.







Took a 30 minute bus at ended up in Monaco, which is a small city, but it's own separate jurisdiction while surrounded by France. Knew nothing about it before I got there, just that it's a place where rich people live and have offshore assets and businesses. Did all the touristy stuff there, went to the panorama, the castle, and saw where all the rich people lived. There was this giant picture frame thing, and we had wayy too much fun taking pictures inside the frame. Monaco seemed like they had way too much money and didn't know what to do with it. For example, a simple museum looked grander than the Buckingham palace! We also saw the Prince of Monaco! It was funny, because the police stopped us from crossing the street, and 2 police motorcycle came down the hill, followed by a Mercedes. Knew it was someone important so I looked inside, and saw a guy that I recognize from the post cards. Turned out to be the Prince of Monaco. Pretty sure he smiled at us too.






Headed back to Nice, since that's where our hostel is. Went out for dinner, went back to our hostel. Met this one guy from Hawaii who was really cute, and he had a friend as well. I think he wanted to hang out with us, but didn't explicitly say so we went to hookah. There were a good amount of Lebanese and Middle Eastern people in Nice... I guess so hence the hookah place. It definitely wasn't a touristy place, as I guess tourists aren't too keen on hookah except New Yorkers from Astoria.






Next morning, headed to Cannes (which I had no idea was pronounced "k-Ah-n" until I told my boss I was going to "cannes" and hes like yeah definitely check out "kahn"). Found out the bus takes 2 hours, and almost decided not to go, but ended up going. The bus was so frustratingly slow! It was a local bus, stops every 100 meters, but it went long distance. When we finally got there, we stopped complaining. Cannes is so beautiful! The beach was beautiful, and the place was beautiful! The celebrities go for the Cannes Film Festival, but it wasn't going on when we went. Went on the panorama, obviously.. lol. Also headed beach, which was beautiful Mediterranean water. The water was so cold, and I was afraid to fully immerse myself in the water. The food was also really awesome and of course we got crepes and gelato.







Went back to Nice via the train that took only 30 minutes instead of the 2 hours on the bus. Headed to the airport and returned to London via EasyJet. Couldn't believe we spent 2 days in 3 cities.




Overall the Cote D'Azur is definitely a really great vacation spot. Really satisfied with the trip. The beach wasn't as awesome as the Caribbean, but the towns were so lovely. The food was 10x better than the food in London. People there are all so nice! They mostly speak English, although I did end up saying "Bonjour" and "Merci" out of respect to the country and language. I don't understand where people get the stereotype that French people are mean and arrogant. They were actually really nice! I also realized on the trip that British tourists are the most obnoxious people ever! They are way louder than the American tourists, and they expect everyone to speak English. Don't understand why Americans have such a bad rep as well.

Bliss Shampoo and Conditioner

Over the summer on my vacation to the Bahamas, I found the best shampoo/conditioner at the Sheraton Cable Beach Resort I stayed it. It was definitely surprising for a hotel to have quality shampoo, but I saw on the bottle that it actually said "Bliss."

Bliss products are so expensive in London! I completely forgot to buy it my weekend home in NY and my best friend got it for me. I absolutely love it. I've tried various shampoo and conditioner combo, but found myself to like the new Panteen the best. I only like the ones that are in the new packaging, that are colored blue.

But Bliss Bliss Lemon & Sage Shampoo and Bliss Lemon + Sage Conditioner is way better. It makes my hair silky soft. And the trick to conditioning is that you need to squeeze out all the excess water out of your hair before you put on the conditioner. The only drawback is that it doesn't make your hair smell fantastic and it's really expensive!

My best friend uses Fekkai Shampoo and Fekkai Conditioner. Not sure how it works, but she has colored hair and she swears by it, saying that it keeps her blonde hair color. I don't know... since my highlights have never turned green or anything before. I just want my hair to be soft. But her shampoo is so pretty!

Basketball in London

I was going to write a well researched piece on how Obama's answer to Joe the Plumber and plans to redistribute the wealth will turn us into a socialist state, effectively killing the American Dream. BUT don't want to piss off the entire world, so....... new topic. Basketball.

How about the Atlantic Division. Unanimously, people know that the Boston Celtics are going to win the Division champion. That's pretty annoying if you ask me. What's the point of even watching the games when we know the Celtics are going to win... again. Basically put together some superstars and just watch they win all the games. It reminds me of using the cheat code "Power Overwhelming" in Starcraft when I used to play. Essentially, you can't be stopped but your competitors, but what is the point of the game?

Too bad people in England aren't into basketball. They hardly know what it is and call it netball. And they have the nerve to make fun of me when I don't know what cricket and polo is. I found some guys who play at work every Wednesday, but unfortunately, I forgot to bring my Jordans to work so that means I need to trek on the lovely underground taking the DLR at Canary Wharf, transfer at Bank for Northern to King's Cross for an hour. Go home, get my basketball gear, take the Northern, transfer at Bank, and get off at Island Gardens. I don't know.... I really miss basketball but not sure if it's worth it for all that.

I miss Chelsea Piers Sports Center... I miss everything about New York.

I joked with my roommate that London is like a third-world country because of the lack of dry cleaners. I'm just not sure how people get by here. There's a lack of certain luxuries that are so available and amble in New York, that I thought should be present in all metropolitan cities. London and England in general just seems so vulgar, lacking in civilization?

Ok this is a totally rant / boring blog entry. Not very proud of it, no provocative thought or things that people might actually care about. I guess it is better than getting shitted on for bashing Obama tho.....

Beware cult of personality....

I don't know guys, but the Messiah-like figure related with Obama fucking creeps the shit out of me. I couldn't go as far as to say he's anti-Christ or anything. But simply, BEWARE THE CULT OF PERSONALITY.

New Yorker in England...

(I don't think anyone understood the Sting reference there...)

So I know I'm close to a native when tourists annoy me here, including American tourists and valley girls from California. I'm list some random tidbits about London that I've noticed whilst here, the not so obvious stuff... I'm going to continue adding to this list for the duration of my stay.

• The occasional use of the word "whilst."
• The fascination with personalities. As my professor Clive Bloom mentioned, British people understand things in terms of personalities. For example, if there is a story about the credit crunch, the story would start off about Victoria Beckham and how the credit crunch is effecting her, and then explaining the credit crunch.
• Bugbear
• Holding the door open for the person behind you; not in a way that New Yorkers do it out of politeness, but they really take it seriously. They will wait and hold the door for a maximum of 3 seconds, and make eye contact with you. (Trust me, 3 seconds is a long time when they are staring into your eyes).
  
• People don't pay for the bus, since it's a swipe yourself, or buy a ticket, honesty system.
  
• Many biracial people, harder to be racist to people in which you don't know their race.
• Drivers have no regard for human life, and find pleasure in scaring the shit out of pedestrians.
• British guys are shy in checking out girls, almost kinda creepy-ish. They don't make it known that they are doing it, atleast make eye contact so I can smile at you if I'm interested. They just look away when I notice, or make eye contact when getting off the train. They they write about it in thelondonpaper in the lovestruck section, James Blunt style.
  
• It takes 10 minutes to cross one intersection and there are 7 lights you must wait for.
  
• The tube goes so far down undeground (think 63 & Lex on the F train times 10). If there are two escalators next to each other, the one on the right will be slightly faster than the one on the left, which makes a huge difference when you are ascending 84957498 levels.
• Lamborghini is nothing too special. Try Aston Martins or Lotuses...
• Free newspapers (i.e. Metro, thelondonpaper, the London Lite) are shared amongst the public. When people are finished with them, the papers are left on the seats of the tube or the bus, on counters, on the floor, and other public places. People will pick up old newspapers and read them, and leave them for someone else. A newspaper on average will pass through 3.5 people before being cleaned up at the end of the day. Note that this is not considered littering, but sharing.
  

Relativity in Perception

So I think that our perception is all relative. The only way we can perceive something or understand how it makes us feel is comparing the something to something else. Take happiness for example, we can only understand happiness, after experiencing what happiness isn't. Or take the cliche, "you don't know what you have until it's gone." The only way for one to truly experience missing something or the pang of regret, is because there is a before and after. The only reason why there is an experience of emotion is because there is a change of having something to the lack of it.

Edit 10/21/2008:

Thanks to google analytics, many people have been directed to my site from google when searching about "an example of an experience of the relativity of perception". Therefore, I feel the necessity to elaborate to keep my readers happy. I'm going to write this simplistically in terms of how I understand this theory works (an example of relativism in itself?), not the philosophical mumbo jumbo.

So my first and very simple example is when I was in Chipotle with a coworker, she pointed out a few guys in the front of the line to be cute... I begged to differ. Now we have different taste in men, but usually we have similar standards of what is generally attractive. It was simply because out of the 40 people waiting on line for Chipotle, there were no better looking men there, and they were the best looking there.

I think this is the reason why some women are unfriendly towards attractive women. Let's say a woman, who is by general standards to be a 8 is in a room. If there is someone else who is a 10, she is perceived to be less attractive, since she will be compared to the 10. If the 8 were in a room full of 6s, then she'll be perceived as the best looking. (Forgive my shallowness and my use of a rating system to access people's appearance, but I'm friends with shallow guys and I guess I've adapted to their way of thinking...)

So onto another example of relativism that's not as shallow.... When I first got here in London, the directors of the program told us not to compare London to New York. It's not better, it's not worse, it's just different. I've tried hard not to, but my only understand of what a city should be like is based around NYC. Therefore, a way to combat relativism and be more objective is through knowledge and looking outside the box. For example, instead of complaining about how London is subpar to New York, I should be trying to experience and understand other places around the world so my perception isn't based on just New York.

And instead of complaining about how "my life sucks", I should think about the less fortunate people around the world who are living in constant fear and hopelessness. My roommate will also be happier if I complain less to her about my life. So relativism is simply a phenomenon that will make us happier, more educated, pragmatic, and objective if we can defeat it.

Rihanna's Jacket

I really want to buy a leather jacket, but I'll probably hold off until I get to Milan or Paris to buy it. Topshop has a few, but I don't especially like them too much. But Rihanna has this really awesome jacket that she wore to a T.I. concert. I've been trying to ID the jacket for the longest time, but can't seem to find who makes it..

Edit:
So thanks to "Anonymous"... I found that this jacket is by Mike & Chris retailing for close to $880.. So my £70 leather jacket from 80 Oxford Street doesn't seem all that expensive right now...

http://www.revolveclothing.com/DisplayProduct.jsp?product=MIKE-WO216&c=Sweatshirts+%26+Hoodies&s=C&d=l

Artistic Pics?

Stonehenge & Bath Pics

Some pics from Stonehenge & Bath...

Annie Pulling a Kobe..

No, I don't mean the white girl thing. I mean jumping over an Aston Martin..

Crazy Traveling

My crazy schedule next couple of weeks...

10/17 - 10/18 Back in New York (YAY OMG I MISS NY)
10/24 - 10/26 On the beautiful beaches of Nice, France
10/31 - 11/1 Barcelona, Spain
11/2 - 11/4 Madrid, Spain
11/4 - 11/6 Lisbon, Portugal
11/6 - 11/9 Milan, Italy
11/14 - 11/15 Paris, France

Gonna have so much fun...

Coordinated Cuts

You can tell I'm not really doing much at work today, 3 blog entries in one day...

I think the coordination amongst the central banks is really cute.
Fed cuts 50bp to 1.50%
ECB cuts 50bp to 3.75%
SNB cuts 50bp to 2.50%
BoE cuts 50bp to 4.50%
BoC cuts 50 bp to 2.50%
Riksbank cut 50bp to 4.25%

Vouyerism

So with the current state of the financial markets, economy, and the world, I should really revise my worldview. There was no way, that as a 20-year old student in a middle class background should be buying $1600 bags and $500 shoes. American economy is built on excess, and I think we are starting to see that excess to an extreme is not sustainable in the long run. Everything kind of just comes crashing down. So, therefore, I will restrain myself from buying expensive things that I shouldn't be able to afford, and participate in vouyerism. With that in mind, here are a few things that I really want get buy, but is practicing self-control. Maybe if I look at it enough, I wouldn't want to buy it anymore.... :(

Gucci D Gold Leather Handbag

http://www.gucci.com/us/us-english/us/fall-winter-08/handbags/#0-762184-189835AA61G2019

Mui Mui Slouchy Patent Bag

http://www.net-a-porter.com/product/33714