adios argentina

i am writing very very fast because sasha’s computer is about to die and david is using the hostel computer to read conservative blogs, so this shall be brief.

since my last post, we’ve spent 1 more day in BA and 3 in mendoza, argentina. we’ve visited an evita museum, watch mothers walk around in a circle, rode an overnight bus, visited 5.5 vineyards, been disappointed by an olive oil factory, rode through the foothills of the andes on horseback, and learned that ham comes unexpectedly on almost every dish.

alison left us today to return home and we leave for chile tomorrow morning!

here is another video from joe and some photos (totally unedited and selected at random from thumbnails on my camera):

mothers protesting their children's disappearance in the "dirty war" have been marching every thursday since the 70s.

this is mate, a traditional south american tea, not some sketchy drink

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Don’t Cry for Me, Amanda

PREFACE: I know, I know. You’re disappointed its me, Fanny, again. I’ve tried to convince Fred to blog, but she seems to be having a bit of bloggers block. We do owe all our fans a post about Bonnaroo (which we attended TOGETHER). Expect that in the coming weeks. Onward:

Well Fred, here I am again. In a hostel that smells like weed and urine listening to drunk Frenchies carry on upstairs, all I can think of is you. Once again, I have sailed over the high seas in search of adventure and buried treasure, but this time I am traveling not with my dear Fredrick but with Sasha Sadrai, Alison Murphy, Joe Kozlowski and the one and only David Colquitt.

Smiles in the Cemetery

After a delightful flight were I tossed and turned to the sounds of David snoring, we arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina Tuesday morning. After meeting up with Sasha and Al at our hostel and grabbing a quick bite, we visited a beautiful old cemetery (whose name I have already forgotten) where Eva Peron (EVITA) is buried. We convinced Sasha to pose in pictures with every stray cat we found along the way and are considering creating a “Sasha and The Rabid Cats of the World” calendar. Expect it in every stocking come Christmas 2010.

meow

In the afternoon, we went to a public park where they are projecting all the World Cup matches on a giant screen to watch the Argentina/Greece game. This was shocking like the Which Stage at Bonnaroo… lots of folks standing even though you wish they were sitting, the occasional puff of suspicious smelling smoke wafting through the crowd, the strange hats, the facepaint, etc. We only stuck through the first half of the game, and it reminded me why I am sure soccer is the worst game in the world. I know, I know, its also the most loved, but when has the world ever had good taste? Its a sport where most good plays end up not really counting for anything and people cheer for missed goals. Although in the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that Sasha, Al, and I were actually cheering for the wrong team the first 20 minutes because we thought that Greece would be wearing the colors of the Greek flag. Nay nay. Argentina was wearing Greece’s colors and Greece was in white. Silly game.

That night we went to a tango show in a beautiful theatre with gilded, carved decor and nice boxes. The dancers were incredible and seemed to be on fast forward they were moving so fast. The tango seems to me to be the Mr. and Mrs. Smith of dances… Both people seem to be trying to trip each other and kick each other in the crotch but somehow end up looking in love. I want to learn.

Joe arrived this morning. In classic Joe fashion, he has already made this video and uploaded it to YouTube. Enjoy:

Tonight Sash, David and I went to a tango club and watched regular people (not professionals like the night before) tango to a live band. Tango music has convinced me that the accordion is way more hardcore of an instrument than I ever imagined. Cool kids play it here.

BA is a very European city. Parts of it feel like Paris, and I don’t mean the parts of Paris that feel like Athens (great sentence, I know, travelsnobtastic.) This would be an incredible place to study abroad. Too bad those days are behind us.

c'est paris, non?

Perhaps I shall blog again soon.

Until then, adios!

spring breaking point

WELL whadaya know. fred is back in america. that is why there’s been a tragic lack of blogging of late. we’ll be co-blogging soon, i hope. but i was thinking of giving this blog a little mouth to mouth, when i realized that this post somehow never got posted, even though i wrote it over a month ago. so here she is… better never than late, i always say. so here she goes:

“To Spring”

By William Blake

O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down

Through the clear windows of the morning, turn

Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,

Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!

The hills tell one another, and the listening

Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turn’d

Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth

And let thy holy feet visit our clime!

Come o’er the eastern hills, and let our winds

Kiss thy perfumèd garments; let us taste

Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls

Upon our lovesick land that mourns for thee.

O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour

Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put

Thy golden crown upon her languish’d head,

Whose modest tresses are bound up for thee.

now we all know that poetry is about as valuable to everyday life as a smashed souvenir penny from dolly’s splash country (no offense to fred or ed who paid for fred’s education, but i really do think that is the perfect metaphor. pause and reflect on it, please… you pay 25 times the worth of something to smash it into something mildly cute but useless that you lose in your purse within a week) but this poem has to be the largest crockpot of meatloaf i’ve ever read. william blake clearly did not live in knoxville.

sure, we all thought we wanted spring to come a few weeks back. after a long, cold, rainy winter, i was just as excited on that first warm day to put on shorts and try to get a farmer’s tan while walking the boulevard, but spring is like a stranger with candy. it tastes sweet at first and then you pass out and wake up locked in a trunk with a really bad headache.

a constant, warm, yellow snow rained down on market square for two weeks from the trees above shed their pollen to form drifts on the sidewalks. every morning pollen fell into my coffee as i walked to work. every night i combed the pollen strands out of my hair.

i didn’t even get over the winter sniffles before allergy season struck this year. my annual cold rolled right into allergy season in a cacophony of mucus that was the perfect storm of a sinus infection. i started to lose hope. i started to think that living in knoxville was worse than living in north dakota. i might’ve been quoting blake to Spring, but it was “did he smile his work to see? / did he who made the Lamb make thee?” i considered setting fire to the dogwood festival booths being set up in market square. my heart shrunk two sizes too small and i almost resorted to this:

things were getting desperate. but then i got some more drugs and the sidewalk chalk contest in the dogwood arts festival began.

and i saw this.

and i was glad to be living in knoxville.

p.s. at least us knoxvillians can brag about suffering the worst this year. the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America named Knoxville the #1 worst place to be for allergies this year and over 6,000 particles of pollen per cubic meter were measured earlier this spring. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/09/spring.allergies/index.html

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FREDDY!!!!

and by south of france, i mean paris

saw this on twitter the other day and thought of me thinking of you.

love, fannie

wedding bells

i’ve been staring at this screen for fifteen minutes trying to think of an useful “look who we got our Hanes on now” joke to work into this post. and i’ve got nothing. anyway, last weekend elisabeth nesbitt became mrs. william hanes in seaside, fl.

the happy couple

i have to admit, i was a little worried about this wedding after the bachelorette party. and then the bridesmaid dresses came in and i really started to panic. i mean, the whole point of a bridal party is to make the bride look extra gorgeous by comparison, but elisabeth picked 10 beautiful, fun girls and dresses that are more interesting than the average bridesmaid dress seemed to flatter everyone. this had potential for disaster. but fear not. on the day of the wedding, elisabeth looked perfect. i don’t think i’d ever seen such a stunning bride. none of the pictures i’ve seen really do it justice, but believe me. she made the rest of us look like drag queens or middle-aged librarians.

which one doesn't belong?

this was one of the most fun weddings i’ve been to in awhile. this was in large part due to the fact that both the hanes and the nesbitts are really fun families with really fun friends. it was like a friendly southerners convention. the nesbitts are like a second family to me, so it was great to get to meet some of their extended family and spend time with all the ones i know and love. the hanes are a crazy aunt short of being in a southern movie. william is one of five, and his three older siblings are married with kids. apparently, to be in their family you have to look like you belong in Garden & Gun. everyone is beautiful. everyone has mad swing/shag skills. everyone seemed like they’d be equally comfortable in a tux and a deer stand. one of his uncles told me that he almost didn’t come to the wedding because it was during the last weekend of turkey season.

it was wonderful to see how central both families’ faith is to the families and this wedding. it was clear that this wedding was more than a party, and even more than celebrating elisabeth and william’s love. from the hospitality the nesbitts showed all of the guests, to the toasts at the rehearsal dinner, to the homily william’s brother in law (an anglican priest) delivered during the ceremony, to elisabeth’s attitude about it raining in the rehearsal dinner and the reception, the wedding really was an outpouring and overflowing of Christ’s love.

loveLY.

this is the first destination wedding i’ve ever been to, and i must say, i really liked the idea of being in no one’s hometown. it made the wedding more of a weekend and less of a single event. i think (other than the wedding party) at most weddings, people really only come together for the wedding itself, but at this wedding, all the youngsters went to bud and alley’s every night and the guests spent time together on the day before and after the wedding on the beach. this also made the weekend a wonderful opportunity to kick start my spring tanning and to get sunburned in all those random parts of your body that you forget to put sunscreen on because they have no name: the space above my eyelids but below my eyebrows, the backs of my knees, the chubbyness between my arms and chest that forms armpit cleavage… all the usual suspects.

look how well my burn matches my dress

in other news, i am starting to think about thinking what sort of job i want next year. fredrick, do you have any ideas of jobs that i would like in charlottesville? a brief internet search yesterday turned up wonderful options like asbestos remover at UVA, fashion/swimwear/lingerie/nude model for a photographer who works out of his apartment, and pilot travel center Team Member/Restaurant Manager. so far, the best suggestion has come from jay slagle: “you could just get babysitting jobs off of craigs list until you get murdered.”

the end.

parthenon or pantheon?

BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!

So, if you follow Justin Bieber or Lil’ Wayne on twitter, you’ve probably heard rumors that I’ve been contemplating fleeing the sunsphere’s warm rays and seeking shelter under less majestic landmarks. Naturally, I considered all the great monuments, but there were problems with all the obvious front runners:

The Titanic in Pigeon Forge: Just opened this month... want to make sure it survives the maiden voyage before I move in.

The world's largest fish, muskie, and fiberglass structure at the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame: in Wisconsin.

Pedro's South of the Border: Pedro's Little Africa Shop is always closed.

Although I found many of the monuments that dear Freddy and I saw this summer quite suitable to my needs and taste, I ruled out everything on foreign soil because Jesus was an American. Only heathens and communists would ever consider a move away from Freedom and into the EU. Thankfully, we’ve stolen and perfected everything the Europeans did first (pizza, capitalism, The Beatles, etc), so I narrowed it down to two of our favorite blocks of marble: the Parthenon and the Pantheon.

The Parthenon in Nashville

The Perfected Pantheon in Charlottesville

Both of these structures far exceed their European counterparts. Nashville’s Parthenon has far fewer holes in the wall (much less rubbley), and Mr. Jefferson fixed all those pesky mathematical errors in the original Parthenon when he built The Rotunda at UVA.

The decision between these two cities and these two structures was intense indeed, but in the end, only one factor truly mattered. The criteria that I base all life-decisions on: which would make Amanda more jealous of me? It was clear. I should move to Charlottesville.

And so at 12:31 am this morning, I made a verbal commitment to move to Charlottesville in August of 2010.

Some will say I’m moving for love, which is partially true:

all you need is the love

Some will say that this decision was based on where David decided to go to law school and not the reasons stated above. Don’t believe the lies. Would Soleil Sphere lie to you? It was 100% all about the thought of texting Amanda from Mas, posting pictures of me picnicking on the lawn, and sending her bottles of local wine.

As a media partner in this event, Soleil Sphere was supposed to have the right to announce this first; however, a press release was sent out this morning from the office of Senator Jim DeMint, so we can’t claim to truly be breaking this news. I can, however, promise that I didn’t even tell my parents before now. From now on I plan on letting them read all of my life decisions on this blog rather than telling them myself. If they have anything to say to me, they can post it here: http://blog.billhaslam.com/

So, Friends of Fred who I don’t know but maybe you still live in Charlottesville and happen read this… wanna be friends??????

mes amis a paris

the reason I haven’t blogged in ages…

Lelan and I were too busy eating…

and going up the Eiffel Tower…

and then Cousin Carrie got to Paris and we bought me a little old mini cooper…

and drank coffee at least 8 times a day…

and then we became french (and i got glasses… )