twee pop

nutella crepes are the apex of our culinary exploits. there are no photos because they are ugly but theyre definitely good enough to give me no more excuse to barter 3euros for a pretty flattened cone-shaped from outside anymore.

anyhow i found a new cool word !:

FEY
1. British Dialect. doomed; fated to die.
2. Chiefly Scot. appearing to be under a spell; marked by an apprehension of death, calamity or evil.
3. supernatural; unreal; enchanted: elves, fairies, and other fey creatures.
4. being in unnaturally high spirits, as were formerly thought to precede death.
5. whimsical; strange; otherworldly: a strange child with a mysterious smile and a fey manner.

i love that it is morbid but still very pretty, diaphanous even in definition. it reminds me of flowy dresses and art history and fairies(/faeries?) and awesome castles with beautiful dead people and their beautiful (love) stories. or maybe secretly im being vain and just liking the way it sounds. oh i dont know really, but HELLO MY NEW FAVOURITE WORD all the same !(:

my sweet old etcetera

today was awesome because

1. we started out lunch not really knowing what we’re cooking but i guess one cant go wrong with linguine and mushrooms and onions and butter and garlic (i would say omelette but we kinda went wrong there hahaha sooo) and in the end we were eating the oddly stirfried pasta right off the stove yumm

2. we started out later than we intended to cos we were cleaning up the apartment all, and yea i guess i was abit callous with my wallet and ended up spending a bomb BUT i got my retail therapy fix ! h&m and bershka ftw♥

3. the falafel place su found yesterday did not disappoint. finally, some warm food in the chillyness ! the aubergine slices are soo to-die-for and even though the queue was too long for us to get a seat in the end i guess it was still kinda nice sitting by the sidewalks digging into the piping-hot pockets of goodness/es !

4. sitting under a big tree, amidst noisy crowds guzzling beer and making merry and talking, facing the seine, streetlights starlights dancing off the river surface, listening to jaychou on the pod, a can of coke for each of us (light for me, original for the purist), chilly up my cardigan- these bits which my ixus cannot capture but which i would love to remember because i know i would miss them

5.  A SCOOP OF BERTHILLON CARAMEL ET BUERRE SALE((:

oh my

these days had been spent fighting against eating one more bite of baguette, getting just one eclair when we walk past boulanger patisseries, trying that sable at pretty window displays. and then this fighting-off doesnt help most of the time cos HOW TO NOT TRY BERTHILLON CARAMEL ET BUERRE SALE ICE-CREAM. so eat then come home and weep lo.

omg its a bitch trying to not over-indulge when youre in the Land of Pretty Confections AND living with someone who believes in three kinds of cereal at any one time, and that kinderbuenos and kitkats and nutella by the spoonful are Life Essentials. if im anything less than 677kg when im back in Singapore it will be something to be thankful about.

DIETING IS NOT COOL AND I WISH I HAVE LIGHTNING METABOLISM, OR THAT I DONT GIVE A SHIT)):

magique

3 weeks and 3 phonecalls back home (i try to do a one call per week thing, hopefully im dialling the right way and its $1.50/min and not the exorbitant $3.50) later i finally laid awake on the bed after switching off the notebook and decided okay time to write, time to remember:

i was sleepy in belgium; sightseeing with four complete strangers in a storybooktown/legoland couldve been better. there were the expected pangs of homesickness and lugging around a dumbass duffle (backpacks are so clever i tell you, SO CLEVER) did not help at alll. half the time it felt like an orientation group in a parallel universe (a parallel, very pretty and erratically chilly universe)- i was trying not to say stupid things and like, finding my own space amongst the other five. you know how these things work, you try to be yourself while being someone else cos youre trying to fit in. i think i slept alot cos sleeping allows for time alone, its the best excuse for not socialising when you dont want to socialise. the last time i slept so much was during the co genting trip i think, the whole ride back from genting like 4 hours ?, i was exempted from awkward smalltalk. oh sleepyness is a hoax, we dont need to be sleepy to sleep. in all belg couldve been better but THEIR AWESOME FRITES SO SAVED ITS ASS. their counterparts in mos come close in the Frites Hall of Fame but i think, theres something about downing those potato babies in the cold air which made them so amazing. mayo, mustard and ketchup are now crowned Si’s Lifesavers and im telling you EVERY MEAL TASTES BETTER WITH MAYO, MUSTARD AND KETCHUP((:

italy was betterrrr, the sun helped alot. it also had so much more personality than belgium, so i actually felt wow im somewhere different im seeing new things new places new people. plus that two fellow stranger-travellers left and it was down to a cosier group of four. so it was gelato everyday (we really try to do that, THE SUN HELPED ALOT) and it was fun fun fun when we were drunk. italy and its glorious dusty roads and lack of trees and olive-skinned people, its coexisting touristyness and ingenuousness, the blue blue sky and blazing sun, the 24/7 gelaterias (there were ALWAYS people roaming the streets and licking boules of icy goodness), OH SO GOOD.

in paris i love traipsing down les rues holding a dusty floury baguette in one hand. thats really the single thing i think i will miss most when i leave, the baguette in my hand. not cos its awesome-tasting (it beats delifrance’s handsdown of course, but most of the time its just a chewy crusty baked thing- oh okay hahaa that sounds pretty darn good doesnt it((: ) nevermind baguette ancienne or complet or traditionelle, nevermind that it sounds so very random, almost poseur, but really that feeling owns. in singapore you cant really do that- at least i cant really do that without thinking im going home to make curry. ey not that thats anything bad (curry is amongst the list of foods im craving) but its just an essentially different thing. i love that in paris everyone is him/herself so true, they would wear draperies out if theyd be comfortable, and no one looks them oddly. and i love that people greet one another, that random people would talk to you, that there is genuine interest in conversations. i also love the little cornershops and oldschool-scripted signboards and bold bright colours on narrow streets and creperies and Turkish Food Galore and cheap fresh fruits and having one boulangerie patisserie every 4 metres and the sticky/floury paper around the cold confections (damn the cold food, they really should try eating warm things). and then there would be the fact that everything seems to be in walking distance with everything else, paris makes for such walkability; you get to walk past the tour eiffel and lourve and gardens and river seine to get home, so who hates walking now !

i was just thinking on the metro, this is easier than i thought. sharing a studio apartment wasnt as big a bitch i sometimes thought it might be, i do like home/selfcooked meals and groceryshopping and thankGod im here with someone im so comfortable with, i adore sleeping in till noon and waking up to paris and knowing i still have time for montmartre or le marais later in the day (read: NO MAD RUSH TO COMPLETE 56 SIGHTS IN A DAY), and i dig going to sleep at night knowing i can still do this for a good few months or so.

its time away from home to figure myself out and maybe finally, to grow up. i am psyched and very comfortable. paris is a happy place.