Jeudi (Thursday)

Chuck found this nice shop near Village St. Paul. The owner, Sylvie, has terrific rugs that are made in Turkey, jewelry, and gift items. She is very friendly and speaks English. She said: Stop by anytime and chat with me. And we will.

We went to the Maison Européenne de la Photographie and saw several excellent shows. One was a group of artists doing moving images. We really liked the one by Jutta Stromaier. She focused at a window wall in a room and shot it all day long. It was so beautiful and relaxing to look at it. I think you get the idea from these two images.
A fun thing happened. As I was cleaning out the storage closet, I came across a pair of flip-flops that I'd left at the studio last fall. The were under a box, a bit dusty, but otherwise the same. That made me happy, like they'd been waiting for me to return.
I attended the French class today for the first time. I'll go back. It was a lot of fun. 2 hours of conversation, all in French. 16 people from all over the world, all with different language skill levels. The teacher is lively, very animated, and opinionated. Even without a lot of French, one can understand that. The class meets twice a week so I'm sure that my French will improve.

Evening in Paris (#1)

We went to Le Tartine, a small cafe/bar in the neighborhood, which we like. We had, of course, tartines (open faced sandwiches) which we forgot to take photos of before we started to eat them. They were so good, but here's a noisette (small coffee with cream) and a bit of what the place looks like. We took a walk afterwards, checked out a little shop behind the restaurant (see us in the mirror,) and got some provisions at Monoprix, which was open late tonight because of the holiday. There were many, many people walking around. So very busy, even though there was a drizzle, then a downpour, then a drizzle, we loved it. "IT" being that there were so many people out and about. I had a very nice white wine tonight, Chateau des Correaux St. Veran. I'm going to see if I can buy a bottle of it tomorrow. Can we get it in the states? Probably not.

We saw these cute keychains in the window of a shop. "Dark Dudes" Funny, tiny dead pirates?? Je ne sais pas, mais, je le pense que ce ca."

Elflog update, from an Elf!

These images were received yesterday from one of the shelf Elves, who promised to keep me up on what was happening in the neighborhood. She took these images last week before the elections. I have no images from Paris to post yet as we slept for 15 hours!! I don't remember when that last happened to me. We missed morning cafe au lait, and lunch, but are hoping for a lovely tartine and noisette for a post lunch pre-dinner meal. It was very sunny when we awoke at 2 p.m. and now is gray and almost night time! oh my! Hopefully, we won't be so time challenged tomorrow.

On our way & we're here!

We left Richmond, VA, USA on Sunday afternoon for a connection flight in Detroit to the City of Lights. In the terminal, there was this cool tram. See the tram rail above us? See the speedy red tram going by? Very quiet and fast.
We are here again, see archives of fall 2006 and 2007 for details of the studio at the Cite International des Arts. I'll post some images of the studio space as we have it set up this time. Here is HiMonkey on studio table. I'll be taking pix of H.M. to send to his home & show on my blog occassionally. We are very tired, we are in fact quite sleep deprived, but happy to be back, and ready for new adventures. Tomorrow is a holiday, Armistice day, so many things will be closed, but we'll do some grocery shopping early while the shop is still open (the sign said open from 9 to 2 at the Franprix market.) So bon nuit from Paris!

Obama

Next to Ghostprint Gallery, the Obama canvasing site had it's doors open. People were welcomed in and invited to take any of the items from the table. Such variety of posters, it was great to see them in one place. Lots of people were walking the First Friday route with bags of Obama materials. Souvenirs for everyone. I snagged a few to take on our trip and to save for family members, who asked for them.

Chuck's opening

Chuck's show of photos opened last night at Ghostprint Gallery in Richmond, VA, USA. This was taken before the crowd arrived. The gallery dog looked great with the photos! To see more photos from the opening, go to my Flickr.

Salmon cakes

We had a family gathering last night. Everyone brought food and what a feast! I made salmon cakes, which is becoming my usual pot luck item (with apologies to the vegetarians in our group.) I "discovered" panko, the Japanese breadcrumbs and love the way they work in the salmon cakes. I use it inside of the cake and on the outside. It makes them crunchy, but then I like to add water and finish the cakes by steaming them. They get fluffy, which is the way my grandmother used to make her burgers. Very yummy~ if you want my recipe, such as it is, let me know.