too sexy for milan, new york, and japan.

[please note how hilarious this picture is. not only do i love jeff as a monkey, but pei ya with my hair is just too much to handle. also, carly, aren't those your bed sheets up above? pretty sure they are. even though they don't have targets over here.]

hi, my name's michelle.

don't worry, if you forgot who i am, it's because i haven't blogged in about a week.

all because my computer cord decided to self-destruct last week, start on fire, and cause me mental trauma for the rest of my life night.

also, right now i'm listening to "too sexy for my shirt".

it's amazing how this song can just put me in the best of moods. don't ask me why.

anyways, i'm going to do my best to catch up with myself in this thing we call blogging, whilst still being elaborate in details, which is typical of michelle dastrup. and if you're confused right now, then i've succeeded.

so not last friday, but the friday before that [oh my gosh, i can't do it. it's too ridiculous. gahhh fine, i will.], i woke up. mentally went running [i tried, i really did, but my bed was all warm and melty and who can say no to that? i'm not ashamed.

just so you guys know, today was the day [or the night] that we had dinner with the asians. who are the asians, you ask? the asians in our ward that we've made friends with, and they insisted on having a couple of us over for dinner at their apartment in la defense. there's the twins named pei ya and pei wen [not to be confused with pei wei....not that i called her that....], jeff, and some more friends. to say that i was super psyched would be an understatement.

anyways, so me and tiff were gonna try and go up the eiffel tower again with some friends, but then some other friends invited us out to this really cool craft store/shopping. and since we have the decision making of a the dog on "up". and by that, i mean we're all over the place.

so, a hop, skip, and a metro, and we're there. i got some string at the craft store to put in my hair like a jamaican and some thread and needles to sew on my patches on my army jacket. we'll see how well that goes...last time i sewed, i had to ask youtube what to do. sad times. we also met some friends at the monoprix and were gonna get some lunch, but all the restaurants were closed [they all close in between lunch and dinner, it's the most annoying thing. hello, ever heard of second lunch people??], so we ended up going to the monoprix cafe. yes, it's basically like going to the food court at target. i was ashamed. but i couldn't deny my starvation any longer. plus, they had toast!

 [yep, i literally ate buttered toast, pain au chocolat, orange juice, and chocolat chaud for lunch. i am french now.]

[the hot chocolate that thoroughly disappointed. seriously, it looks amazing..and tastes like toilet water. because i drink toilet water.]

[us girls doin' what we do best. CARBO LOAD. my life=bread.]

it was pretty awesome. i laughed thinking that only in france could you go to a place at 3 in the afternoon and order toast and hot chocolate and orange juice. i just love that that can be normal here. mmm, and the apricot jam was absolutely delicious.]

[annie, brynn, me, and tiff.]

we shopped around for a bit more, but it started to rain and it was getting close to time to meet for dinner with the asians, so me, tiff, and annie took off for la defense to meet the others. la defense was the place that i went to the really cool fireworks show a couple weeks ago. it's actually really interesting, because it's this area with tons of futuristic tron-looking [i'm told...i haven't actually seen tron yet. pause for gasps.] skyscrapers. it's way cool looking.

 [me and annie. we're always dying laughing when it comes to being next to each other.]

[the really amazing building that apparently has really good sound/amplifiers/i have no idea what i'm talking about. but it's really cool and there's lots of pigeons on the steps that you can stare at and laugh at while they hop up the stairs one by one.]

we met up with everyone [the asians, ally, amber, holly, morning] and headed back for dinner. and dinner was definitely interesting. first off, there was tons of food. TONS. bowls of rice and rice noodles and rice in shapes on top of seasonings/seaweed and tofu and oysters and shrimp alllll up in that place. 

 [the tofu. this one still makes me shudder. i just can't do tofu....it's like jello....with chicken...and broth....oh gosh.]

 [these just make me smile for some reason.]

 [oysters. pretty self-explanatory.]

[my plate. yes, i did try an oyster. yes, i chewed for like a milli-second and had to drink a liter of coca lite to get the taste out of my mouth. i just can't do seafood. at all. also, everything was way good, especially with that sweet chile sauce that i can't remember the name of, but my mom bought it all the time for us growing up.]

and second off, we all sat on the floor surrounding the table, which was super fun. let's just say, i felt super chinese. oh, and third off, we played justin bieber and sang to it all night. typical. we also took a ton of pictures with them, throwing up the peace signs every now and then. you understand why, i'm sure.

 [jeff, holly, me, and annie. this picture's a little blurry because i have a really cool camera and it likes to get crazy sometimes.]

[i don't really remember this picture and i think she's crossing her eyes, but i'm not really sure, but if she is, it's the funniest picture. ever.]

 [the whole dinner group! minus jeff.]

[tiff, me, and ummm one of the twins. don't laugh.]

my favorite thing was that every time we would take a picture with them on my camera, i'd get my camera back, and my camera has that feature on it that when someone blinks, it'll say "did someone blink?" with a square around their face, and it would always do it to their faces. use your imagination as to why it did that. and then they would try to look at my camera to see the picture and i'd frantically try to exit out of the screen. it was a pretty funny time.

and of course, i have an obnoxiously taken/edited video for you.

seriously, i can't watch this without dying laughing! i know the filming on my part was terrible, and the editing was even better, but that's because i had to a) sneak film this, and b) i don't really know how to use imovie as much as i thought i did, and c) it's about 2 in the morning and i don't really give a dang anymore. so if you can't figure out what's going on in the video, i'll tell you. jeff, amber, and ally go to take a picture and jeff takes his glasses off. ally asks him why after and he laughs and says "oh, it's cool." and we all die laughing. also, i apologize for laughing like a hyena, but some people have that affect on me. like asians. maybe it was the star-shaped rice with seaweed that did it. anyways, we were all laughing so sooo hard for the longest time.

it was just so much fun. they were the sweetest things and made us so much food and we're just so cute. i just love how welcoming they are and how they don't even know you, but they'll just come up to you and hold your hand or hug you. i'm so glad we made friends with them.

also, later on when we were coming home, we happened to run across this little treat in the metro:

he is, how you say, one sexy sax man. some would even say he is....too sexy for his shirt? oh yes, i went there. it was a stretch, and i went there.

and i'm gonna leave it at that.

merry christmas to all, and to all a goooood night!