New Year's Eve: Let's go streaking in the Balkans!

KIDDING. And by the way, I've never "streaked the quad," which is something I've heard they do at co-ed colleges. (Alumni from co-ed institutions, please confirm.) Anyways, I think the wig is taking a little rest this new year's eve. We're staying at home in Sofia and having a quiet dinner with some friends. Hopefully, the fireworks will be as spectacular as last year, when several separate mutri (gangsta) parties arranged fireworks to go off at midnight at their different private parties in the city, and all of Sofia lit up in fireworks and smoke. We can see it all from our apartment. Oh, what the hell, I'll put on my wig for fun anyway. Hope everyone has a fantastic time ringing in 2009! (And check out my new Sofia city Starbucks mug! I swear it's the cheapest Starbucks in the world, if that doesn't entice you to come visit.)

Fifi at Versailles and other firsts

More photos to come of the Hubs' first visit to the Louvre and my first trip to Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon, but very first, a question: Would you rather spend a year at Versailles, living (partying) like a king, or would you rather take a weeklong trip to outer space (and walk on the moon)?

Joyeux Noel, from the Karl Lagerfeld Bear

You guys know how I feel about bears. We saw this at a department store where things are decidedly not as on sale as in America. You (Betsy) can purchase the Karl Lagerfeld bear for 1100 Euros. Even the Hubs had to note, "He's really into the high collar."

Paris: Who knew? It's butter. REAL BUTTER.

Am I drunk or did Parisians get friendlier? Is it Obama? ("Le Figaro" listed Obama winning the election as the 2nd biggest event of 2008, outranking the marriage of Sarkozy and Bruni.) One thing's for sure: my jacked-up French skills are charming no one. So, I'm probably just drunk.

Today, we visited the museum Les Arts Decoratifs, which has a retrospective exhibit on the fashion designer Sonia Rykiel's work. The exhibit included not only the following design gems (paillettes, sweats, and my favorite "Lady Marabou" stork look), but also footage from a Rykiel show which Andy Warhol shot and which featured Mrs. William Randolf Hearst announcing a raffle ticket winner in a transatlantic accent before the start of the show. Here are some pieces from the exhibit (before I got busted for taking photos):

It was the first time I'd ever been to the Decorative Arts Museum in Paris, but it was well worth the visit, since the interior of the building itself (a wing of the Louvre) is impressive:

...and includes a toy collection as well as an amazingly presented jewelry collection (think, jewelry pieces floating before you in outer space). I guess it's also one of the few places where you can see an exhibit based entirely on "red stuff:"

I'm just going to include this Art Nouveau lamp because it's cool.

Happy Fatty Holidays!

The Hubs and I skipped town again because we decided the best way to combat the upcoming financial depression is to hunt for Madoff's buried treasure. He should have hidden his stash in a treehouse guarded by stray dogs in Bulgaria, but hey, he didn't come to me for advice. So here we are, looking elsewhere. Judging from the below dishes, can you guess where we are? 

British Museum: Things that really made an impression on me.

Here are some sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens. The sticky thing is, they're the actual sculptures that were in the pediment of the Parthenon, which is still standing but without its pediment sculptures. The Brits took them for safe keeping and preservation, of course. The art historian in the audio guide was real defensive about the whole thing. Anyhow, isn't it cool how the sculptor still sculpted the backs of the figures even though he knew no one from below would ever see the backs of the sculptures when they were finally placed in the pediment? And here's the front side (check out all draping action!):

Just a couple of gods, never meaning no harm... And below, we have a very large sculpture of a horse. The sculptor or whoever cared enough to make a harness and bit for it, too. I guess this made an impression on me because it's such a beautiful and big piece, but the museum has so much of this stuff that it was placed in a corner near the stairwell. 

And these little guys below. They're pretty ancient, if not prehistoric. And yet, they capture the essence of what we're all about (or should be, at least):

It's difficult to read the small, blurry text so allow me: 

Three human figurines. These are of unfired clay. Although very crude, two certainly represent males. The third might either be female or has lost a small piece of clay.

"Dark Stuff": Other highlights from the British Museum

These "heads" on metal stakes are actually made of mummified animals, and the silhouettes are those of the artists' faces. Here's a closer look:

The artists, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, said the following about their work:

Tim's mum bought some kittens three years ago. The cats started bringing in their prey almost every day. We collected their remains in a box marked with a skull and crossbones, which we called 'Dead Things.' Soon we had a few hundred rotting creatures - mice, rats, voles, even a squirrel and a toad. Walking through the British Museum, we were struck by the Egyptians' use of mummification, their obsession with animals and animal parts, and how good at sculpture they were. And suddenly we knew what to do with our mummified animals!

It was especially cool to find this piece nestled in among the ancient Egyptian statues.

British Museum: Nereid, Column, Siren...Woah

I was about to exit the room which exhibited the 4th century BC Nereid Monument (a temple-like tomb) from Xanthos in Western Turkey, when something shiny caught my eye. I had to back up:

It's Marc Quinn's solid gold sculpture of Kate Moss, called "Siren." And, yay! She's wearing underwear.

Here's a quote from the artist about his sculpture: 

The mask of Tutankhamun is one of the first artworks I remember seeing...and that was one of the inspirations of this work as well. Like that mask, Siren is an image that glows and gives out love and light but remains completely implacable and silent. I think of both of them as sculptures of a cultural superego.

It always comes down to beauty being super-dangerous and stuff.

It's the largest gold statue built since ancient Egypt. I searched the gift shop for chocolate gold Kate Mosses for you guys, but no luck. 

After we left the room, the Hubs said, "She looked familiar."

On the hunt for cats in London

Actually, I wasn't really hunting for cats, but this chalkboard outside a pub in the Holborn neighborhood got me curious. Alas, no stray kitties. The only ones I saw were Hodge, Samuel Johnson's beloved cat who sits atop a dictionary with an open oyster:

...with his plaque:
...and this old pussy from the British museum (I'm sorry; I had to):

Turkish cats put the smackdown on "very fine" ole Hodge

I went crazy photographing cats in Turkey because they sort of run the place. I haven't seen this many strays since Baltimore. (Dan, you need to get yourself to Turkey.) Umm, I named them, too. Introducing:

"Girlfriend in a Coma" (from Ephesus)

"Mani Pedi" (Ephesus)

"White Diamonds" (Ephesus)

"Stripy Shakira" (Ephesus: it's a big place)

"Harem Gong" (from Topkapi Palace, Istanbul)

"Saffron Shag" (from Seljuk)

"Funky Troy Medina" (a real Trojan cat!)

Troy, here, crawled right into my lap, where I was able to enjoy him for a few minutes before my face blew up from allergies. He was my favorite because he was a little busted around the eyes, which were half-green, half-blue down the middle. And he didn't seem to mind that I hadn't showered. 

Segue back to London: Here's to a job well done on that road trip quiz!

Let's celebrate our return from Western Anatolia by diving right back into our London trip. (Can you tell how desperate I am to show off my photos of the gold Kate Moss statue?) As I told my pal Ces yesterday, London is for p - i - m - p - s. I overheard the following in our hotel: "So, how much longer will the sheik be staying?" I'm assuming sheik is not in his hotel room furiously pricelining and trying to lowball the machine by fifty bucks and screaming, "They get you with the taxes!" That said, while I'm not a pimp (yet), I got to enjoy a pimptastic outing when we visited the restaurant St. John, where Chef Fergus Henderson believes in eating all sorts of animal parts. See?:
Using the above menu, can you guess the two entrees below?
Hubs (above) and mine (below):
But, the very best part had to be the dessert: 
Gingerbread loaf and butterscotch sauce.
Chocolate mousse cake and creme fraiche.
Mad props have to go to Professor Takats, who first posted about his experience at St. John on his blog. The Hubs and I thoroughly enjoyed our meat parts and desserts so much that we fell asleep in Samuel Johnson's house in front of the historical reennactment video. We woke up to two old Spanish tourists giving us sideways glances. So now you know I troll the Internet looking for people who like offal as much as I do (Asians and southerners, in particular, should beware. I will follow.). Church's fried chitlins and dim sum every Sunday for fifteen years will do that to you.

Road Trip Question 5: Where we stayed overnight to save some money.

KIDDING. But this is where the wildly popular road trip quiz comes to an end (for now). Not because I've run out of photos of ancient-but-still-sexy places, but because my obsession with stumping commenter Spooty was becoming a problem and exceeding the healthy amount of time anyone should be spending on the Internet at work — but then, who doesn't find it sometimes appropriate to google verses from Revelations at work? And I know what you're thinking: You work?

I want to continue with our adventures in London (don't tell me you aren't curious about the gold Kate Moss statue), but our trip to Western Anatolia was also wild (and I'm not just talking about the number of feral felines). What to do!

Road Trip Question 4: Oh, it's about to get Biblical up in here!

In case you're just tuning in, what started out as a friendly little "What are those rocks?" quiz has turned into (for me) an all-consuming need to crush the mind grapes* of a certain commenter who not only seems to know the answers, but who answers in anagrams so that it takes me some time to unscramble the anagram and then some more time to recall what the actual answer is. (*Thank you, Sarah S., for teaching me about the mechanics of mind grapes.) I don't know if the commenter's unhealthy amount of knowledge is some kind of trick, but I think it's only fair to serve up this beauty:
And from the inside:

So where is this picture from? Winner gets a cut from all the earnings from the musical.

Road Trip Question 3: Where we penned that much needed musical about our friend's annoying brother-in-law.

This particular destination is an amphitheater built into the side of a mountain, and also where it became apparent that the only place to write a musical is at the site of ruins. I can't explain this surge in creativity except that it seems to hit me when I'm supposed to be paying attention to what actually went on in these places. Also, our friend's unbelievable stories about his annoying brother-in-law practically wrote the musical itself. I can already see the seats below packed on opening night.
So, tell me, where is this amphitheater located? Winner gets SuperPoked sumthin' special.

Road Trip Question 2: Where we found inspiration for that runaway-concubine-buddy-flick screenplay.

The Hubs thinks this one is too easy, but I'm like, "Aren't there tons of harems? How will people know this one?" He's all, "This is the Harem, but put it anyway because it's a harem." So my question is, where is this harem? (Winner gets my respect but not so much the Hubs'. Also, more to come on the concubine-buddy-flick screenplay. I'm surprised no one thought of this before.)

We interrupt regular posting for a road trip quiz!

Hope everyone had a fattening Thanksgiving, full of gravy and friends. I haven't been posting these past few days because we've been on a road trip. Can you guess where the above photo is from? (Winner gets tons of respect.)