My afternoon walk.

 Yesterday, was a very nice, very busy day. In the afternoon, I took a walk, crossing the Pont Marie and cutting through Ile St. Louis to Ile de la Cité, and Notre Dame.  Besides wanting a walk, my secondary goal was to check that my iPod Touch could pick up the free WiFi in the park behind Notre Dame. It could & I sent a test message.  Here's the view of the dark, cloudy sky with the Pantheon in the background. I like the way the sillouette skyline looks.

 Notre Dame looks a bit tilting! Oh, dear, don't worry, it was me tilting in the wind.

 This is a pretty dramatic view of the little park. I love the way the trees are cut flat along the top. People were sitting on the benches underneach, which are set in a grid, in spite of the gray, windy, drizzly weather.

 Here's boat pushing a barge of rusty metal. All of the tourists, and me, too, took photos of it. I can hear my French teacher saying "Mim, with all the sites in Paris, you're taking a photo of junk?" (in French, of course.)

 As I stood along the wall looking at the Seine, I heard a loudish continual sound coming from the right. Several other people came to the wall to look over. This is what appeared as a surprise. What a change from the big tourist boats and the working boats.

 Crossing back to the Cité Internationale des Arts, via the Pont Louis Philipe. See the Cité behind those trees?

 This is the commerative little monument in front of the Cité, which I've written about for years. We call it The Bunny, but it's the map of Korea. Really, doesn't it look like a rabbit getting ready to sit down? Across the road, you can see the book sellers, one of which was open, even with the not so nice weather.

 A flower shop on Ile St. Louis gave a bright spot to all of us passing by.

I was taking a photo of the Velib' bicycles in from of the building and heard lots of chirping birds. I turned and saw this little bush full of them, a someone had hung a tiny net bag of seeds from it. A nice end to my walk.

Another sunny day!

 The sun is extremely bright today and it's quite chilly outdoors. It looks much warmer than it is. We took a walk today, noticing the sharp shadows on the buildings, glad we had enough layers of clothing and hadn't forgotten our gloves.

 I crossed the Pont Marie to go to La Poste but there was no one to wait on people at the stamp desk, so I went to La Poste in the Marais. There are so many of them within walking distance, it's such a pleasure for a Mail Artist.

 On the way to La Post on rue Pavée, we stopped in at Mona Lisait (bookstore) which is full of wonderful books at lowered prices. One must be very careful not to get too distracted by such fabulous items or one could break one's ankle. Notice the "floor" which is just the paving stones of the former passage way that is now the shop. We got a super book on collage that we'd not see before. This is also the best buy on Mona Lisa postcards - 12 for 2€, as I mentioned before. They do have other postcards, not just Mona.

 We stopped at the Orange telephone and photo developing store and chose some of my honey's photos to have enlarged. We've decided to have an Open Studio before we depart.  After that, we went to the market for and got some Poilâine bread for lunch. It's nice for us that they carry it at the market and we don't have to make the trek to the shop, though we will do that one day, also.

 Last night, I wasn't sure what I'd make for dinner as the cupboard was pretty bare. The previous resident had left some of these packets. I wasn't sure what they were but Alsacienne's are maybe a pancake? The ingredients: pyrophosphate de sodium, bicarbonate de sodium, et farine de blé. Okay, I know it's baking soda, some flour, and ? maybe baking powder?
So I beat up a couple eggs, some milk, some flour (left by the previous person) and some of the packet. Voila, I had a sort of thicker crèpe. I folded them in half with some chevre inside. Sorry no photo as we dug right into them and they were delicious. We garnished with apricot preserve. My honey says that I'm such a creative cook. Nice to be appreciated.



I made a double landscape for some mail art to send to a friend who is a landscape artist par excellence.
She can cut each of them out to frame, should she wish to do so, or leave as they are. I was thinking that next time, I can leave them sans color, like a coloring book, for her to complete. Hmmm, an idea!

End of our trip, France

 A pain aux raisins, my favorite, at the airport (CDG) awaiting our flight back to the U.S. of A.

 View from the train as we sped along between Grenoble and Paris.

 The old water spigot in the courtyard of our friends' abode in Paris.

 Lots and lots of flowers in Paris, lots and lots of tulips especially.

 This is a municipal pigoen coop! The city put it up outside of a small park. It provides food, water, and nesting boxes. The idea is that the pigeons will go to the coop and not the window ledges of adjacent buildings, plus the city sterilizes the eggs or the birds. Can't remember which. It was interesting to see this.

 An angel in the corner of the Ethiopian restaurant we went to on Chemin verte. The food was delicious!

 This is a municipal water station. You can fill up your small water bottle OR large ones. There is a hanging sculpture (see Chuck taking a photo of it?) using plastic bottles. The French appear to be trying to get people to use tap water. Too many plastic bottles in the environment, there and everywhere. The water was excellent, by the way.

 Passing along the street next to the Promenade Plantee, this view, very surprising, a bit of old Paris.

 We stood on the Pont Marie, eating a Berthillon (I had pistache and banane) watching the Seine. Isle St. Louis is to the right.

We spent a couple of afternoons sitting in Place de Vosges. The weather was lovely, people were stretched out on benches and the grass. I was taking advantage of the free WiFi (weefee) and a place to just relax. It was a moment to say au revoir to Paris once more, and quietly saying "I hope I'll be back."

Au revoir, Paris

On Monday morning, we left the Cite des Arts after being there for a little over 3 weeks. We had a terrific time and C's photo show was well received. Here's a view of the Cite International des Arts from across the Seine on Ile St. Louis.
My suitcase had more books (more tucked under the ones you can see) in it than clothing, and I worried about it's weight, but we were still under the max. The book with the windmill is my new French/Spanish dictionary. I'm hoping that'll help me retain my French language skills as I continue to learn Spanish. The box with the ribbon is a treat that C got for himself. A cheese knife and fork set by Laguiole (which I learned is pronounced like this: lie-yohl) The big flat black box behind our luggage is all of C's photos. They made it back to the U.S. just fine. Whew! Our flight from Paris to Washington, D.C. was over 7 hours. Why I thought it was less, I don't know, other than wishful thinking, but aside from some bumpy up and down activity, the flight was uneventful. We're home, feeling like being gone was a dream, glad we went, glad to be home. Mail awaited us and aside from junk mail and bills, I had some lovely mail from Andrea in England, Johanna in Finland and my sister in Los Angeles, CA. Life is good!

Juedi (thursday) evening

Last night, we went to the restaurant at the Mosquee de Paris with a couple we'd met at the Cite last fall. None of us had been to this place, though I'd heard about how good the food was from others. We walked over there, chatting the whole way, so that it seemed like a short distance. We had cous cous, which was excellent, and some sweet mint tea, and got to choose our dessert from this big tray of pastries. Hard to decide. We each chose a different one and shared. They were all good. We walked back by going all the way around the Jardin des Plantes. As we were passing the final length of fence, C said, "It smells like horses!" Ah, we were passing the menagerie area of the park. We pressed our faces to the bars of the fence and saw a pen with some dark shapes, that we couldn't identify. Animals? Holes in the ground? We looked very closely. Then our friend said, "It moved!" Oh my, it was a long neck attached to the shape, not a pipe sticking out of the ground. A long neck with a head attached. Then we could see that it was two ostriches (or in that family) lying on the ground with their heads up. One was turned a bit to look at us, maybe. It was such a surprise and a treat. We then crossed the street and continued our walk through the Plein Aire Sculpture garden along the Seine. There were lots of sculptures, some nice trees, and lots of young people enjoying themselves in groups, with food, bevereages, and a guitar. The tourist dinner boat passed by, stopping to show the passengers a beautifully lit up weeping willow tree. The Pont de Tournelle looked beautiful with nice lighting above and below. When we crossed over the Pont Marie towards the Cite, C pointed out the hundreds of people on roller blades going past on the Quai des Celestins. The sound was very interesting, a low level roar. What a night for all our senses: sights, tastes, smell and sound.

While sharing some views out the window of a studio at the end of the building, and a view looking left from the front entrance to the Cite, I also have to share this man walking down rue de Rivoli next to L'Hôtel de Ville. It's very chilly out, he's wearing a nice suit, gloves, scarf and hat. If only I'd taken a movie so you could see how confidently he was walking. It was very classy.

In the views from the window, you can see the little playground at the end, the Hotel de Sens (which is NOT a hotel) across the street and Hotel "something or other" (a state administrative building) which is to the left of the entry to the parking area. It have a nicely managed garden but it's a no-no to go up there to that space. We love going into other studios to see the different views. Everyone loves out view, however, since we have the Seine, Ile St. Louis, and Notre Dame. We love it, too.

City and Cité

Red and blue are the colors! Here's a display for Christmas, red artificial flowers in a beautiful display. These trees were set up in a courtyard, the lights blinked blue and white along the bottom. The red seating is in the Grande Salle of Centre Pompidou, where we saw a dance concert on Wednesday night by the Bruno Beltrao group. A fast paced choreography with roots in street dancing, hip-hop. Very athletic and satisfying. Here I am, on the Pont de Tournelle, Notre Dame in the background, in a photo by Agnese Zeltina (our Latvian photographer friend.) And finally, a photo of C's socks drying on his bed, and the college (high school) students outside waiting for their bus to take them on some excursion.

Studio Light Show

Every night, there is a light show in the studio. Sightseeing boats go by on the Seine with BIG lights on them, lighting up both sides of the river as they do their talk about the history of the city. We turn out the lights in the studio and watch the show on our walls. Agnese took these photos one evening. Happily, she got as excited as we did the first time she saw these. The second time, she brought her camera and tripod to capture images. You can see out the windows how bright it is when the boats go by. The curtains on the windows are dense and let no light in, so that if you are annoyed by the lights, you can totally block them out. We love them!

Wine degustation

Yesterday, we went off in the rain and chill, me with TWO wool sweaters on, to a wine tasting on a boat on the Seine, by the Eiffel tower. We rode 3 different metro lines and on the third, we ended up on the same train as our friends, whom we were meeting. How fun is that? Quel surprise!! The boat was docked a little ways from the Metro Bir Hakeim, with a view of the Tower looming over us, we walked in the rain down the Quai Suffren and up the gangplank. The boat was lovely inside, a dinner boat actually. It was very crowded with the wine sellers booths lining each side, as well as sellers of chocolate, honey products, foie gras, escargots, all in a narrow space. The views were nice and the gentle rocking reminded us that we WERE on a boat. We are such novices with wine, (or debutantes, don't you love that word?) but we tried wines suggested by our friends and are beginning to discover what we like and why. We bought three bottles of wine from Château Eugénie, a 2003 Cahors. Very tasty. They have three importers in the U.S. so the wines are available there, as well as in Europe (and Japan.) They're located near Toulouse, which we visited in 2006. Maybe someday, we'll take a trip back to that area, stay in a Gite (B & B) and tour the vineyard. Could happen! Meanwhile, we'll enjoy some nice wine. (sorry the one photo with the sign has a person blocking the view, but I wanted to show you how
one stands at the counter to taste and has a view of the river.)

Early Morning, Paris

This morning, when the alarm went off at 7h30, I actually woke up. It was dark out. Cars were streaming by into the city. The darkest images were taken at 7h45. At 8h15, I took more as it grew lighter. The lightest images were taken at 8h55. I love the way the water catches the light. It reminds me of impressionist paintings, of course. How fortunate for us that we have this amazing view of the Seine. Are we grateful? You better believe it!