Lakes & Lights is Now Open on Etsy!

I just launched my first Etsy shop, Lakes & Lights, featuring the art I've made in the past few years. After being encouraged to sell my art, I finally put a few things up on Etsy.

I've loved making art ever since I was little. I was the kid who drew a bicycle in kindergarten while the other five-year-olds crowded around, and the fifth grader whose painting was mistaken for the teacher's. By the time I hit high school and college, I became less of a stand-out while other students got serious about their art, and I never really pursued it as more than a hobby, taking an art class here and there when I had time for electives. I've always made paintings and drawings for friends and family, but  I've certainly never been serious about it. I'm still very much an amateur.

I learned plein air sketching and watercolor painting from my fantastic Augsburg College professor Tara Sweeney in Italy in 2011 and ever since, I've always carried a sketchbook with me. She taught me that painting and sketching help you see and experience traveling in a way that cameras can't. Basically everything I know about watercolor and sketching, I learned from Tara.

Lakes & Lights is inspired by my two homes, the City of Lakes (Minneapolis) and the City of Light (Paris), and anywhere in between.

New Videos

There & Back

Created for a final presentation in my Cultural Translation Workshop, this is a video translation of the last academic year of my life between Paris and Minneapolis. With over an hour of footage to narrow down, I chose clips depicting the constant movement and restlessness of living in two places, which can result simultaneously in both excitement and loneliness. No matter where I live, in Paris or in Minneapolis, my heart is always missing the other.

April

My regular monthly video for April, including visiting Fontainebleau, running the The Color Run 5K, visiting Annecy and Geneva with my sister, hiking on my birthday in the Alps and, of course, regular life in Paris.

A Room With A View

   

    Even though my rent could get me an apartment one hundred times bigger in Minneapolis, I've grown to love my little (emphasis on the 'little') spot above the gardens adjacent to the Luxembourg Gardens on the avenue de l'Observatoire. I know I'll never love my seven flights of stairs, but all of a sudden, I have all this gratitude for my view and my balcony, which are both rare. While enjoying the sun and a glass of wine out on my balcony, I can see the Montparnasse Tower, the Eiffel Tower, Saint-Sulpice, the Grand Palais, the Palais Garnier, the Sacré-Coeur, La Défense, the Louvre and the Palais du Luxembourg.

      

     I'm proud of my barely double-digit square meter-age- it's my first real apartment on my own! I'm a lucky girl, even if I don't have my own toilet or shower. Some of us get dishwashers and elevators, and some of us get glorified walk-in closets with gorgeous views. But hey, I can tolerate anything, especially in Paris. 

And a nice glass of wine always helps, too.

Love,

Rachel

My new forget-me-nots

 

My building

You Are Just A Little Speck

"Americans always think Europe is perfect. But such beauty and history can be really oppressive. It reduces the individual to nothing. It just reminds you all the time you are just a little speck in a long history."

-Before Sunrise, 1995

--------------

     If I was stupid enough to have a swear jar in Paris, I'd probably have enough funds to get a bigger apartment. So much of my time during this weird, getting-back-into-the-swing-of-Paris-life period consists of me muttering not very quietly under my breath and making Jim Halpert faces to no one in particular. The Paris you see in movies is from an imaginary, sunny world when little fairies move the crowds out and the sun in. The real Paris, the other ninety-eight percent of the time, kind of makes you feel a little more violent inside than is probably socially acceptable.

     But no, I don't hate Paris. Obviously. I'm just confused and have a lot of burning questions.

1. How sanitary are baguettes? Am I just a huge American germophobe who wouldn't dream of buying food that isn't vacuum-sealed, or is it actually just a little bit questionable how, when you buy bread in France, half the baguette is out of the bag and they usually chuck it right on the counter while you're paying? People walk around everywhere with unwrapped baguettes just poking out of their bags. Call me crazy, but that has always unsettled me. Food poisoning isn't a route I'd like to travel down for a second time, merci.

2. Why does Monoprix sell nail polish and nail files, but no nail clippers? I didn't pack any because the airport would probably confiscate them just because I'm Rachel and always get stopped, so my nails were starting to turn into talons before I just went into a tourist shop and bought a pair with a big purple Eiffel Tower on it (It also doubles as a beer opener). Monoprix, the closest thing France has to Target, also sells adult-sized towels for thirty euros. I instead bought one for half the price and thus half the size. Again, maybe I'm just a huge person. The mirrors certainly seem to think so, since I have to bend down in front of every single one.

3. Why are business hours so limited? I'm down with stores being closed on Sundays. I get it. I truly do. But how are you supposed to get anything accomplished during the other six days when many businesses are closed from 1 to 2 P.M. and close at 5 or 6? This isn't small town America, I don't think. If you work full-time, how do you ever get to the bank? Thinking it was open until 5:30, I walked confidently into my bank on avenue Bosquet and said to the teller, Bonjour, je voudrais retirer de l'argent, s'il vous plaît. I had been repeating that phrase in my head all the way down the street from the métro. He looked blankly at me and said they closed at 5. It was 5:02. Why in the hell didn't they lock the door then? And here's a concept, how about not being a douchebag and just quickly getting my money?

4. Why does the RER suck so much? Now that I have to take it every day, I kind of want to start beating my head on the seat in front of me. That is, if I even get a seat (I usually don't).

5. Why do I feel ashamed eating while walking around but French people pick their noses? Almost every time I've bought a croissant (I'm keeping a tally for the year- I'm at thirteen so far), I feel every single Parisian turn their eyes in disgust towards me. Like I'm the one picking my nose. Or I'm the one sneezing without covering my face. I usually hit up a boulangerie and head for a side street where I can devour my bread away from their judgment.

6. Why do people in Paris think it's cold outside? Last time I checked, it was about sixty degrees Fahrenheit. Please stop judging me for not wearing a parka and scarf. I really don't want my Minnesota body to heat-stroke out in order to pretend this is really cold and wear what you all are wearing.

     I think a lot of my frustration is coming from the readjustment into really-big city life. Sure, I lived in Minneapolis for my four years of college, but Paris has twelve million people. That's four times the population of my metro area at home. So no, my Minneapolitan friends, you do not live in a big city despite all the bike lanes and hipsters and moderate traffic flow. In Paris, we are all crammed into these Haussmann buildings like sardines, so once people get out onto the boulevards, I guess they don't really give a shit about each other. For all the times I've been bumped into, coughed on, Oh, bonjour mademoiselle!-ed by homeless men and desperate waiters looking to fill tables in the Latin Quarter or nearly getting sliced in the eye by a passerby's umbrella, I need to remember that no one is trying to inconvenience me on purpose; it's just a side effect of survival in Paris. There are far too many people in this town to be overly considerate to any specific person. This city has had a long history before me, and will have a long history after me; my time here is less than a blink on its timeline. I just need to shut up, accept the culture and probably eat my damn bread in private.

Rachel

P.S. Check out my two-week video at https://vimeo.com/74541100. Not a lot happens, but I don't know, maybe you're into that.

Girl From the North Country

 

     "I've spent this morning looking up jobs, internships and graduate schools that could lead me back to Paris sooner rather than later, but I know I won't be able to return until this time next year at the earliest. It's exciting to throw around ideas and not know what career I'll have or where I'll live and it's especially exciting to imagine I could be back in France in the future. I know for a fact that I need to go back one day as a resident again, and not just as a tourist. I think four months gets to you deeper than a Paris Visite pass. Even though I already miss France, I know that it will always be there waiting for me, and above all else, I will miss the people I met there who really account for the bulk of what made this experience so special to me. This semester was absolutely the best time of my entire life and I'm grateful I was lucky and privileged enough to make my dreams come true." - I Left My Heart in Paris, France, June 6, 2012


    Well, I'm leaving (again) for Paris. I've been here before, at this point where the excitement of moving away takes a backseat to the shock and sadness of leaving my life in Minnesota. I wish I could have bypassed the whole moment at the airport in which I had to say goodbye and just be asleep in my temporary bed at the FIAP Jean Monnet in Paris. I wish I didn't have to care so much about leaving everyone and everything, but I do. I think it's been just enough time since my last Paris adventure for me to become reattached to my life here. Thinking back to last summer, I would've done anything to be in my shoes at this moment, but now that the moment is here, I'm not really sure how I feel about it. Confused, maybe.

     I know I owe this new adventure to myself because I made a promise last May that I would come back to Paris again as a resident. The thought of never again owning a Navigo card and schlepping through the métro or counting croissants as a key part of my daily diet was too depressing. I've spent too much time on fulfilling this promise to myself to not follow through on it. I studied for and took the GRE, worked with an advisor at Augsburg on writing a really good essay, somehow got all the application materials together, got accepted (miraculously), graduated from college with two degrees, went through the harrowing, soul-crushing experience of CampusFrance for the second time in my life and put myself through the Megabus shitshow to get my visa in Chicago. I spent my time at my summer job--which allowed a lot of time for reading-- putting together my Paris bucket list, which includes restaurants, museums, parks, churches and monuments, complete with their address and nearest métro stop. I was even dorky enough to, honest-to-God, put it all into a Moleskine journal with tabs by arrondissement. I am on another level when it comes to Paris. And those are only the things I can immediately remember that I did to make this whole Paris business happen.

     So off I go, leaving Minnesota once again for a period of time three times longer than I did before. I'm currently sitting at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport and I just said goodbye to my sister and my parents. The goodbye happened almost exactly the same as it did last time (awful) and I think I'm even at the same gate as before. I'm wearing a Twins baseball cap because I know that'll look stupid once I'm in Paris, so I'm getting my Minnesota pride out of my system now. It's hard seeing traces of home that I know will be gone once I land at Charles de Gaulle (But at this rate, after two delays, that might be in quite a while), like all the awful Minnesota t-shirts, a restaurant called 'Hot Dish' on the way to my gate and picking a cat hair or two off of my clothes. It's hard because, unlike last time, I know what's going to happen. This is going to be very hard for a while and and it takes a lot of energy, but somehow I did it last time. I think back on the girl I was last spring and I'm just hoping I can be her again and make this work.

Au revoir et on se verra très bientôt à Paris !

(Here's me in Paris. But not. I just really like this video.)

Rachel

Liberté, Égalité, Difficulté

   

     My dad seems to believe that I think everything about France is perfect or superior to America. Every time we get into a conversation about cultural differences between the two countries, I seemingly show preference towards France. France is better at making bread. French waiters don't try to hustle you out the door to make room for new customers. The French only work thirty-five hours a week and get much more paid time off per year. But one thing I can't stand about France is applying for a visa to live there.

     The process of acquiring a visa started back in mid-May with my CampusFrance application, as you're supposed to start at least three months before arrival in France. CampusFrance, without a doubt, is the most complicated, nonsensical, stress-inducing, backwards process I have ever experienced--because if you don't do it correctly (a difficult feat), you don't get to live in France. And I've now gone through it twice, miraculously. According to their website, CampusFrance is "the French national agency for the promotion of higher education, international student services, and international mobility" (Not sure what that means? Me neither.) and all students coming into France to study need to register with them to basically explain why you are going. First, I needed to navigate the poorly organized website to create an account and choose the application that best fit my situation. The English online application is worded in such a way that I'm pretty sure whoever designed it used a translation website, because when it's not busy being just plain confusing, they put various parts in French for the hell of it (Maybe it was too hard to translate properly into English?). It took all of ten seconds before I ran into problems. I watched their step-by-step video, emailed back and forth with my admissions counselor, sought advice from my parents and sent CampusFrance three or four direct messages to which I later found out they don't respond. After completing the application as best as I could, I sent in my supporting documents along with my money order of $100, from which point it's supposed to be three weeks until you receive your approval message that needs to be printed and brought to the visa appointment at the Consulate.
     I spent June trying to contact CampusFrance because I hadn't received my message and it had been well over three weeks. Did I mention they don't answer their messages and also have no contact phone number listed? After some crafty Googling, I found a phone number and it turned into a couple of weeks of trying to reach the French Consulates (I called every one in the country) and CampusFrance during their extremely restricted hours. It turns out I was missing documents I never knew were needed and I was eventually approved the first week of July after speaking on the phone with an actual human being.
     On July 8th, I hastily made the trip to my regional French Consulate in Chicago and got in touch with my midwesterner Paris friends for a spontaneous reunion. By 'hastily,' I mean the Megabus was scheduled to leave St. Paul at midnight and I was still making copies of my visa documents and throwing clothes into a backpack at eleven. As an alternative to what is a forty-five minute flight, I rode the bus for eight hours through pitch-black Wisconsin and repeatedly thinking I could have flown past Paris in that amount of time.
     I met Haley at Union Station and we walked to our hotel near the Hancock Tower in the rain before heading to my visa appointment, again in the rain. Twenty minutes later, I came out of the visa building and we were ready to boire. It's kind of incredible that I had to go to Chicago for a ten-minute meeting on the thirtysomething floor of an office building, which is something that's only recently become required. Just a few years back, no one had to do it. And all for a little sticker that goes in my passport, which I got back in the mail five days later.

The sticker that caused all the stress. I look tired from the Megabus.

     Haley and I met Stephanie at Millennium Park's Cloud Gate, better known as "The Bean" and it felt like no time had passed since we last saw each other over a year ago. We spent our afternoon eating chocolate at Ghirardelli and catching up over beers at Pippin's Tavern on Rush Street. We later met Lauren when she came in from Valparaiso, Indiana and the four of us got some deep dish at Giordano's, and later pints at Kitty O'Shea's on South Michigan Avenue. We filled each other in on where our lives are at and, as Lauren said, it felt normal for all of us to be together like it was just another day in Paris. I felt a little bittersweet that I'm going back to our city without all the people that made it the experience that it was, but I'm also excited for everyone's post-graduate lives.

Pippin's Tavern

Ghirardelli

Meeting Lauren

Goodbye!

     Our trip being spontaneous, Haley and I had come to Chicago with one-way Megabus tickets, hoping to just figure out our plans when we needed to since neither of us work full-time like real adults. Stephanie offered to house us for the night at her house in Oak Lawn so we could go to the Taste of Chicago with her the following day, leaving us with another full day to fill before heading to her place. With mimosas as our only requirement, Haley and I found a place to grab brunch, Rosebud on Rush, which put us across the street from The Peninsula, where Justin Bieber fangirls were waiting for him to step out (He didn't). Per tradition, we followed up with my favorite Chicago must-do--drinks at the Signature Lounge on the ninety-sixth floor of the Hancock. For less than the price of admission to the observatory deck, we had fantastic drinks--the Godiva Chocolate Martini is straight-up happiness--and, in my opinion, the best view of the city. We spent the rest of Tuesday shopping on Michigan Avenue and walking and drinking around Navy Pier. On the Pier, I insisted we speak only in French just like old times after class at the Catho in Paris. At one point, I realized we were about to get on the famous ferris wheel and that I am, in fact, moderately scared of heights. I spent our ride, palms sweating, shouting at Haley to stop moving so we wouldn't rock back and forth. I fared much better on the swings where we zipped through the sunset sky and had a beautiful view of the skyline.

Godiva Chocolate Martini at the Signature Lounge

Navy Pier

"Just don't look down!"

Navy Pier ferris wheel and swings

     We took the L out to Midway Airport, where Jim, Stephanie's friend whom we had met in Paris, picked us up for a late dinner. After dinner, we checked for tickets home and realized that our spontaneity made for poor planning because we ended up not being able to stay for the fun. concert at the Taste of Chicago. Due to the different bus schedules on Wednesday, I had four hours to kill in downtown after saying goodbye at Union Station, of which I spent the bulk walking. I hauled myself and my backpack to Millennium Park again to hear an orchestra warm up in the Jay Pritzker Pavilion. While sitting there in the grass, my inner shopping addict realized that, if timed correctly, I had time to make it to Topshop to buy a dress that, according to Haley, I could "buy at Target." But as Topshop has only a few U.S. locations, none of which are near Minnesota, the importance of such a dress was lost on Haley. It was 1 PM, my bus was scheduled to leave Union Station at 3 PM, the store was right next to the Chicago Water Tower-- there was time. I paced myself according to my Google Maps app and ended up walking, which turned into desperate hobbling about four miles for my detour. Hands tucked in my backpack straps, I booked it southbound, nearly hitting cars along Wacker Drive as I thought to myself how fitting The English Beat's "March of the Swivel Heads" would've been as I started elbowing my way to Union Station. My feet still haven't recovered a full week later.

     During the nine hours of staring out at rural Illinois and Wisconsin during my ride back to Minnesota--a whole lot of time for thinking-- I realized how much I really love where I'm from. I've always loved Chicago, but I'm also always very aware how not-from-there I am. I belong in Minneapolis. And Paris.

Rachel

Shout out to my good friend and favorite temporary Bostonian, Ashley! 

The Graduate

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;	5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,	10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.	15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

     I graduated from Augsburg College yesterday. Throughout the school year, it never registered that this was all ending until the last day of classes when I realized it was the last time I'd take a French class in my favorite building, Old Main, and have a piano lesson, which I've been doing since I was six. It put me on the brink of tears. A week later during the graduation ceremony, I sat down, turned towards Kara (my friend I met while studying in Italy) and she had started crying, "I can't do this, Ray-Ray." I joined her in on-and-off crying and laughing hysterically through the whole thing. I don't remember the speakers or what they told us, but I know the words "Augsburg College" really affected me. And so the last twenty-four hours have been a literal blur through crying eyes, farewells and see-you-laters. It's looking a lot like last May, when I said goodbye to Paris. And I am the queen of not dealing well with goodbyes.
     Let's go back in time to the fall of 2008 when I started looking at colleges. I really didn't know what I was looking for and I was actually pretty indifferent about the whole thing. All I knew was that I wanted to be near home because the thought of moving far away was unfathomable (Look at me now!) and my decision mainly came down to somewhere that had French and music and wanting to experience life in the heart of a city. There was something that I loved about Augsburg's campus that didn't try to impress with acres of perfect new sod or state-of-the-art facilities. I loved that it felt real, homey and really, really different from any other school I'd visited. I sat in on a French class during scholarship weekend and I remember thinking I'd never be able to speak French like that, but I wanted to try. I hastily signed my papers, that yes, I was attending Augsburg and I threw away those from other schools. This was it.
     At orientation the following July, I was placed into a group with whom I spent two days playing games while getting to know each other and the campus. As with everything that's new, I hated it. I hated that I  already had friends at home and that we were forced to start over again. My mom called and asked if I had made any friends and I said, "I don't think so." I skipped out on the night's activities and sat in my temporary window in Urness and stared at the red-and-white streams of light from the traffic on 94 until I was tired enough to sleep. I wanted to go home.

At the 2009 MN State Fair during orientation and meeting two of my best friends.
We still laugh at how awkward we are in this photo.

Graduating with my best friend/roommate Amanda

     Fast forward four years and I was completely wrong. I don't want to go home and I did make friends at orientation and they actually turned out to be two of my best friends. Now I can't believe that I have to move away from these people, this place, this city that I never realized I loved so much. Graduating from college is so different from high school because I chose this all on my own and it was the first time I was able to start truly making decisions on my own and begin to shape where my life is going. I've learned so much about what I want and who I am through so many different classes, assignments, volunteering, clubs, jobs, friends, mistakes, successes, good times and bad times (My senior seminar professors would be beaming). I came at 18 and now I'm leaving at 22 as a better, more confident, more well-informed person. It's hard to put a price on that (Though I do know there is a literal one with a dollar sign).
     We're all dispersing now- getting jobs, getting married (Ashley and Rick!), moving to different states, different countries, but as excited as I am about my next life chapter in Paris, I doubt I'll ever be anything but an Auggie at heart.

ONCE AN AUGGIE, ALWAYS AN AUGGIE
CLASS OF 2013

The City of Lakes

 "You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place, like you’ll not only miss the people you love, but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again." -Azar Nafisi
 
     Joyeux Poisson d'Avril !  I feel like the joke's on me when I really look at what date it is, which I usually avoid as much as possible. How can it already be April? I've never felt a year go by so fast. Sometimes I even catch myself saying to people that I just got back to the U.S.
     I also can't believe that my time at Augsburg is almost up. I've spent the last few days running errands downtown and it made me a little melancholy that I won't be living in Minneapolis for at least the next few years. I read the above quote by Azar Nafisi around the time I was leaving Paris in June and reading it now, just a few weeks before leaving Augsburg, it makes a lot of sense again. I'm a pretty sentimental person when it comes to places (and especially people), so I'm sure leaving Minneapolis for the next foreseeable few years will be rough, especially considering I've called this city "home" for the last four. The video below, "Why We're Here" from Seven and Sixty Productions, really gets me going, too. I'm proud of our little hidden gem community that we have, despite our godawful winters that I will never get used to (I say it's because I was born in Texas). I'll be thinking about our friendly Minnesotan smiles at places like the grocery store when I'm standing in line at Franprix and customers are getting increasingly pissed when I don't have exact change or, God forbid, I have to use une carte.

Late March downtown sights

     Lately I've also been watching a lot of creative Paris videos, which makes me more excited about this fall. My aunt sent me the above video, "A Day in Paris" by Darren Fisher and I found this other one on Vimeo by House of Nod. Both of them remind me so much of my life there last spring that I might as well make an appearance. But I suppose anyone who has spent any time in Paris would feel like that, too. And I never thought I'd be missing the métro quite like I do!

Rachel