>Royale With Cheese (aka Sur le Pont D’Avignon)

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it’s finally here! remember the new design i promised you way back in april for my 3 year blogiversary? it’s finally done, thanks to web designer and creative guru extraordinaire stefan lorimer. mad props to you stefan, i owe you a drink.

by the way, that handwriting up there in the header is actually mine! how cool is that!

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heard from my old Chart Mag editor again last night – now i am not only to interview the killers in early september, but also razorlight, the kaiser chiefs, and keane. it looks like it’s gonna be an international junket for brit bands here in london. the more research and preparation i put into these interviews, the more i can’t wait to get back to being a music critic again. that was a pretty exciting time in my life, and i like revisiting it now and again.

seriously though, should i flash my titties or not?

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4 weeks until my show airs and two more articles have been printed about it in the british media.

here’s one from heat magazine. they were down in the dominican with us for a few days when shooting first began, and they are gonna be all over this show. scroll down to the bottom for the albeit brief paragraph about the show, it begins with “this new show sounds amazing!”.

and here’s an article from The Sun. again, it’s brief, but it sums it up nicely.

the premiere party is fast approaching, and i have finally secured myself a stunning dress. it kinda looks like sjp here:

sometimes i love doing girlie things.

but now it’s back to scratching my ass, burping loudly, and hammering up drywall.

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so the reason for my long silence was that i was down in Avignon in the south of France with Jeannine this week. it was incredible! we swam at Pont Du Gard, this ancient roman aquaduct with a beautiful blue river running underneath it. we took the train it over to neighbouring village Fontaine de Vaucluse for a bit of quiet wandering, we frollicked in the Lavender fields that are native only to france (the rest of the world grows Lavendine, whereas real Lavender only grows in the south of france), we abosrobed the ochre and clay colours of Roussillon, and ran through the hilltop village of Gordes that looks like it’s been chipped out of the stone. we lay down in gardens overlooking La Rhône, quacked witht he ducks next to Pont D’Avignon, sang the ancient nursery rhyme, and pretended we were nature reporters from the bbc….(‘ello, weer from the bbc. weer heer in the bloody cuds, looking for snuff….snuff anyone?)

washed our fruit in a 200 year old fountain, sucked down milkshakes on the steps of mcdonalds, flirted with ice cream vendors, and trudged back and forth over the same bridge too many times in the sweltering heat.

loved it.

the video sums up most of it:

we arrived the last night of the Festival D’Avignon, where First Nations groups were performing on the streets. this video i took is mostly about the douchebags next to them dancing along. loved ’em:

the quiet town of Gordes, with every turn chipped out of light stone.

le mew. le meow. le pussy.

this is how i see the south of france in my dreams.

J and her pink cigarette. tellement chic.

this is Pont Du Gard, the ancient roman aquaduct.

yes, we swam in that water. 36 degrees outside. 0 degrees underwater. glorious. lovely. painful body shocks.

take one.

take two.

along the bridge under the aquaduct, where shops used to sit, the old shopowners engraved their spots along the wall.

this guy from 1775 must have been a shoemaker.

and this guy was probably a blacksmith.

here are the money shots.

snuff anyone?

the haunted corners and crevices of avignon

i love how this girl is frozen by the sight of the painted windows ahead?

le quack.

here, the famous Pont D’Avignon mysteriously just stops in the middle of Le Rhône as you can see at the far left. war damage? flooding? laziness?

le petit quack.

the painted walls of Fontaine de Vaucluse.

because of the metric system…..

this guy with the hat was so cool.

pont d’avignon and le rhône at dusk….

see how the bridge just disappears into the blue?

lost in hot dusky thought.

this video was taken at dusk that evening:

the village of Roussillon, which thrived from the production of ochre and clay from the surrounding hills, giving the village it’s distinctive colours.

poser.

self-explanatory.

i think this is one of the best photos i have ever taken. i really am becoming a little travel photographer. i mean, LOOK AT IT!!

me and colours. that bottle of water in my hands had come to a boil from the heat outside.

again, self-explanatory. ain’t we a pair of stinkers?

the ochre and clay mountains.

the view of Gordes from the hills.

posers.

i love this video of J and I philosophizing about the beauty of Gordes:

the lavender fields in front of L’Abbeye de Senaque.

what you can’t see in this photo is how many fucking bees there were!

but the rich scent was intoxicating.

peekaboo.

one more time for the cheap seats in the back!

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coming back from Avignon, i had to switch trains in paris. not just trains, but train stations as well. i had 2 hours to do this, so i figured, “why take the metro when i can walk it?” i know paris like the back of my hand now. 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, i’ve made annual trips there. so i walked it. under the blazing french sun and with swift breeze pushing along my feet, i stepped out of gare de lyon and headed for gare du nord.

past cafés with tables and wine spilling onto the sidewalk. past peugot car dealerships. around place de la bastille and over la seine. through the narrow streets where victor hugo once lived. past the picasso museum, umbrella shops. scarves, neck ties, and hat shops. up rue faubourg st martin where a glorious city gate not unlike l’arc de triomphe crowns a roundabout. jewellery shops and lavanderies. chaotic parisian traffic and their lorry drivers. mistaking gare de l’est for my destination. running through the gates of gare du nord just over an hour later, sweating and out of breathe, thrown back by the beauty of the station. overjoyed with the sunshiney walk. uplifting and weightless, i became a beacon. a smile like a lighthouse. so glad i didn’t bother with the metro.

i remembered then, as i boarded my eurostar train back to london, the last time i was at gare du nord, i was crying into a guy’s shoulder. i went to the spot where i cried, looked at the empty space there, and wished i could go back 2 years, tap my former self on the shoulder, and say, “but he’s not that good looking, and bad in bed, and emotionally bereft, like a 12 year old! why why why?”

haha, chrissy loves her fun.