Rodin at the d'Orsay—that light makes me want to gaff a movie! Gorgeous and it made all the difference
Vincent Van Gogh's The Church at Auvers, sometimes called the church with no doors. This is a beautiful, heartbreaking piece about Vincent's relationship with religion. He wanted to be a priest (like his father) but found the church inaccessible despite attempting that path. Eventually he was able to find a relationship with God via painting and nature.
Henri Matisse
Unfinished Rodin
Still not processing how massive Versailles is—it was important to me to come here because Sofia Coppola's film Marie Antoinette was one of the first movies I ever remember having a deeply profound effect on me as an audience member. Sofia's portrayal of Marie has stayed with me because it was so humanizing, unlike so many other accounts and opinions I'd heard previously.
I can't believe that I'm wrapping up my last weekend in the UK today. It feels like I've been here forever and yet like I just got here yesterday. All at the same time. I'm sad to be leaving but I'm also incredibly excited to go home—it turns out that frolicking around London is fun (and I'm so lucky to be able to have the opportunity to do it!) but I also like working, cooking, and driving (if you told me I'd being saying this a month ago I would've responded "famous last words"). The thing (make it things) I have missed the most while being in London? Going to the movies by myself and peanut butter toast. Peanut butter is not the same here and you better believe that as soon as I walk in the door I will be bee-lining it for my jar of skippy. I've missed some of my simple routines at home, like grocery shopping and driving and making sodalicious runs just because.
The things I will miss about London? I will miss the passive aggressive print and TV adverts. I will miss people calling me love all the time. I will miss riding the bus and people watching. I will miss walking to embankment at dusk, most of all. That is my favorite thing and fondest memory of London. Nothing is more beautiful than walking across the Jubilee bridge when the sun hasn't quite disappeared but it's dark enough for the street-lamps to be on. I will miss the BFI muffins but I will miss the Pret muffins even more. I will miss the diversity, of people, of beliefs, of lifestyles, of opinions. I will miss strawberry laces.
Thank you, London. Thank you for being challenging and wonderful. Thank you for being home, even if it was just for a month or so. Thank you for being witty and alive. Thank you for being intellectual and enjoyable and massive. Thank you for all the babies that sat next to me on the tube. Thank you for the 49 bus. Thank goodness for the 49 to Clapham Junction, the only reason I'm alive right now. Thank you for the memories, and the theatre, and thank you for the masters of ceremonies that always cracked very English jokes at Royal Albert Hall. Thank you for the beautiful gardens and cathedrals. Thank you for everything.
