Department store displays at Xmas

Today Sarah and I made it over to the two big department stores that do incredible displays for Christmas in their windows. They were both amazing. I think Printemps gets style points, they had a theme of Morroco for all their displays, and some very stylish windows. Galleries Lafayette was the winner though, their displays really appealed to the child inside me. They seemed to appeal to all the kids as well.

Each display has a raised platform in front of it on the sidewalk. The platform is for small kids only, so they can get up close and get a good view. Most things in the displays are animated: teapots walk around offering cake, dogs stage a small "bullfight", pigs scuba dive, and bears grill skish-kabobs or jackhammer huge chocolate bars. The attention to detail is amazing, everywhere you look something is going on. And you are surrounded by 5 year old kids who are bouncing around looking at everything. In between the kids displays are some rather odd non-animated displays for us adults.

I've posted some pictures from the displays, and one video. This was also a trial of my new spy camera I got for Christmas, and I was very happy with it. It has built in image stabilization, which helped in the low light situation like these window shots.

Enjoy:
http://picasaweb.google.com/suzypics/ParisXmasLights

Big Bend National Park Texas

We arrived back in France after a 2 and a half week visit to Texas. It was really great to see all our friends, and eat real TexMex. It was kind of scary driving a car again, and being in the US "car culture". I hadn't driven since last March, and was overwhelmed by being plopped into the Christmas shopping rush in Austin.

We also spent a week in Big Bend hiking with my family, which was very nice. This picture is from our last day of hiking, taken from the Emory Peak trail. The Sierra del Carmen are in the distance, they are about 20 miles away in this photo.

I've posted some photos. I've moved to using Picasa web albums, it has more features than what I was doing hand patching my own site.

Here are the pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/suzypics/BigBendXmas2006 

Retirement receding in the distance

I sense that my retirement date crept out a bit last week. This was do to the large leak that my wallet seems to have sprung.

I mentioned in my last post that I was considering a new lens for my camera. Well, after much careful research and wringing of hands, I ended up getting ....*two* lenses. Ouch. I got a Sigma 10-20 mm for nice wide angle shots, and a Canon 28-135 mm zoom with image stabilization. They should be waiting for me when we arrive back in Texas for the holidays.

I'm also a tad worried about Sarah's new friend. She met the "really really nice guy who owns the cool wine shop around the corner". Translation: expect a steady stream of expensive bottles of wine into the apartment.

Last weekend was our last before heading to the US. We did some Xmas shopping, and I finally got to take Sarah to the good Japonaise place that makes its own Soba noodles. Sunday we had large salads with Sarah's cousin Elizabeth for lunch, and then demolished all the salad goodness by tucking into nice slices of Suzy's pear chocolate tarte. Then we took advantage of a last chance to hang out with our Aussie friends, they are definitely getting the "short timer" attitude as they look forward to their return to Sydney.

Friday we head for Austin and then hiking in Big Bend National Park. I probably won't be posting much until we return home to Paris in late December.

Gargoyles, a Ginko, and some Glass

Sunday I spent some time out with the camera. I spent some time with the telephoto lens catching gargoyles on Notre Dame. They really are amazing. I was disappointed with my lens performance, which might be unfortunate for my 401k if I decide to replace the lens when we return to the US for the holidays.

I then wound my way down the island to the tip, where a lone ginko tree was screaming "Jaune!!!" (yellow) at the top of its lungs. Ginko trees are one of my favorites, and they are really spectacular here in Fall.

I finished up by going inside Notre Dame on the way back. I took some photos of the rose windows, cranking the ISO up and opening the f-stop wide open. I really need to go back and do it properly with a tripod when it is less crowded.

Weekend of Food and Photos

We had some great food this weekend.

Saturday we went to a nearby seafood place for lunch. Sarah started with a creme of pumkin soup with shrimp that was amazing. Seriously, it was one of the best soups I've ever had. The French *really* know how to do pureed soups. I had shrimp ravioli in a very flavorful sauce. For our main courses we both had grilled fish, with a tasty butter sauce. The fish was very fresh, and the sauce went very well with it. Yum.

November is "Photography Month" in Paris, there are exhibits all over the city. We went to the Museum of European Photography, where they were having an exhibit on Vu magazine. Vu was a weekly french magazine from the late 1920s to 1939. It had stunning photography.

Saturday night we found a new drug dealer. Just kidding. One of the things we miss about Texas is mexican food. Sometimes I just really need a fix of mexican food. Saturday night we found a place that is run by people from Mexico, and has things on the menu that look and taste like mexican food in Texas. We have tried another place in Paris claiming to serve mexican food, and it was *aweful*. This place is really good, and requires reservations several days in advance for Saturday night. The trouble is the price. Mexican food and margaritas for 4 people just shouldn't cost over $200. But it does in Paris, and we'll be going back to this place again. Because it's still a lot cheaper than flying to Austin for dinner.

Sunday we went to a huge photography expo. Dozens of photography galleries from around the globe descend on Paris for a very trendy photography expo. A large portion of it was totally bizarre, some of it was people who get a little too carried away with Photoshop. It was all very expensive. I saw an Ansel Adams print for sale for 44,500 euros, and some Brassai prints up in the 40-50k price range as well. A boring picture of ugly office furniture (fits very nicely in the "bizarre" catagory) was 1,800 euros. One gallery specialized in photos from the 1800s, it was very interesting. People attending the event ranged from people in the photography industry to some college art students and some gaggles of self important jet setting trendy type.

After the expo we went to the new enclave of Japanese restaurants we discovered, and had lovely noodle soup and gyoza.

I also made my first tarte on Sunday afternoon. Since our neighborhood is packed with bakeries, there isn't much of an incentive to bake. But I wanted to see how hard it was. We made a poire-chocolate tarte, and it is really good. Damn, the dark chocolate here is just so good, it's hard to screw up any recipe that has dark chocolate in it.

A Few Extraneous Translations

I'm counting down to the big 180 million euro "EuroMillions" drawing in an hour (ok, we bought a ticket for fun). I thought I'd mention a few French translations that you might not have heard.

Instead of saying "When pigs fly", the French say "When chickens have teeth".

Instead of "Don't count your chickens before they hatch", the French say "Don't sell your bearskin before you kill the bear"

It doesn't rain cats and dogs here, it rains ropes.

And while the cat is away, the mice here dance instead of play.

Apartement Racket in Paris

No, don't worry. "Racket" doesn't refer to noisy neighbors. It refers to the rip off of the standard apartement lease in Paris. Let me explain.

At the beginning of October, our water heater in the kitchen went out. I phoned the company is assigned to 'help' us with things like this. I am informed that the standard lease for an apartement in Paris dictates that *we* have to pay for fixing the 8 year old water heater that came with the apartment. Exsqueeze me?

But wait, it gets better. We can't choose an honest plumber, we are required to have the plumber who works for the company owning the building fix it. He comes by for less than 10 minutes, waggles a screwdriver for a minute under it, and tells us if it doesn't work in two days he'll have to replace it. It breaks in 3 days. So basically we had to pay for the plumber of their choice dictate that we have to fork over more $$ for a new heater. It finally arrived yesterday, and we now have hot water.

The really special thing is that they will wire without our authorization as much $$ out of our bank account as they please for the heater, plus the 5 hours of labor it took to install it.

What a racket. It doesn't seem right to have the people renting the apartment pay for replacement of appliances that came with the apartement.

Oh, I wanted to adjust the thermostat on the new heater. The knob in the picture is the only visible control I can get to without unscrewing a large plate off the bottom of the heater. It looked vaguely like it might be a thermostat. Luckily I looked up Vidange.... It means Drain in English. So I'm glad I didn't turn that knob. 

Musée des Arts Décoratifs

This weekend we went to the newly opened Musée des Arts Décoratifs . It's been closed for remodeling since we've been here. Sarah and I enjoy decorative arts exhibits, and for us this museum is really fun. They had some really good Art Nouveau and Art Deco pieces, they would do entire rooms of different periods. It was easy to imagine the rooms were right out of a swanky Paris apartment building.

The museum is wedged into one of the wings of the Louvre, so the layout of it was a bit confusing.

Sunday we walked over to Jardin du Luxembourg. We had a nice stroll around the park. There are tiny ponies there that kids can ride that are really cute. We also enjoyed watching hotly contested boules games (you know they are serious when they break out the tape measure). And of course they rent out little sail boats that the kids sail in the large fountain. The only big disappointment was that the roasted chestnut stand was mobbed by a tour group, so Sarah had to do without her fix. 

Super Frenchie Bugs

One thing I'm discovering about living here, it seems like the cold viruses that go around in the winter are slightly different than the ones that my body is trained to defeat. I have caught one of the Super Frenchie bugs that is making the rounds in Paris right now. We're having the last few beautiful crisp clear Fall days before the temperature nosedives, and I'm spending them with my nose pressed up against the glass, coughing into the endless stream of tissues. ......sigh......

We're finished with travel and visitors for a while, and the tourist crowds are definitely dropping off. That means we can sneak into the Louvre or even (gasp!) go to Musee d'Orsay. Paris is really nice at this time of year. You can enjoy some clear (but cooler) weather, and enjoy some sights sans tourist mobs.

But first I've got to get rid of this cough.

Fill'er up!

Side note- I've taken the plunge and enabled comments on my blog, so now you can leave comments on entries. Enjoy.

So, sometimes you run across things in Europe that are a little different.

This picture is one of those things. First off, look at the tiny little car, it holds one adult, and a child seat behind it. It's the same size as mopeds, and is electric powered.

Also notice on the left, it's an electric recharging station. You swipe a card at the machine, and it tells you which plug to plug into. We ran into this on a back alley in Florence. The electric mopeds are a dream come true, they are very very quiet, which you really need in Florence. Moped noise pollution here is a problem. 

Italia pictures, finally...

Sarah and I took a great two week trip to Italy at the end of September. We went to Venice, Verona, and Florence.

Venice was beautiful, as long as you stayed away from the "Follow the Umbrella" tourist groups. The back waterways were great to explore and get lost in. There were endless interesting photos waiting to be taken, and it was generally quiet and relaxed. Around San Marco/Rialto was a different story. (insert rant on cruise ship tour groups here). It was interesting watching Venetians do things by boat that we typically see done by truck: Uhaul, mail boat, furniture delivery, laundry pickup. We really enjoyed Murano, where they let you wander into glass blowing workshops and watch the guys work. We will go back in a few years during low low low season, and try to see San Marco's interior, we just couldn't face the long long line this time.

We kicked back in Verona for a few days, it was a great place to just soak in Italy. We didn't do the "Romeo and Juliet" sites, we did tour the colosseum, linger in sidewalk cafes, and seek out a few interesting churches. We also took a break from Italian food, we had Japanese and pigged out at a Brazilian steakhouse.

In Florence we met my parents for a week. It was very nice to spend a week there, and devote larger time slots to visiting things. We were able to spend a lot more time in the Uffizi this time, the Bellini's were really great. And we also spent plenty of time roaming the Boboli gardens. Plus it was fun to hang out with my parents, we don't get to see them very often these days.

I've sorted through pictures, and posted them at

http://suzyinparis.free.fr

This is the second trip to Italy we've made this year, we just can't seem to get enough of the place.

Nuit Blanche 2006

Paris has a yearly Nuit Blanche ("Sleepless night"), a free city wide Modern art festival put on by the gay mayor. All over the city there are really bizarre art installations. We went to a few. Sarah was fighting a cold, so we didn't stay out all night.

The French seem to be much more willing to accept and promote bizarre modern art, and it it kind of interesting to try to be more open to it myself.

The picture here is an interactive exhibit. Hundreds of thousands of hard candies are wrapped in extremely reflective foil and spilled on the floor, and bright bright lights are overhead. My picture is showing about half the floor area. The "interactive" part is that viewers can take a piece of candy and thus the 'art' changes as it disappears. I just think it makes a mess for the street cleaners.

We also saw gargantuan mobiles of huge (12 feet diameter) balls rotating in the courtyard of City Hall, and Place de Concorde lit up in cool blue.


FYI, I'll be filling in some details of our Italy trip and post some pics from it in about a week. I took so many pictures of Venice, I'm having trouble weeding through them. 

Musings over a nice red

We enjoyed a bottle of Chateau Dassault this weekend with our friend Chris. She stopped by on her way to a conference, and we had a very nice weekend. Weather to die for, light breezy 75-80 F, and crisp blue skies. Yuuuummy. Lot's of Suzy's favorite Paris treat..... walking the streets.

We caught up with Chris on what's shakin in the U.S. (what kind of circus are you people running over there?), and decided that some reds (like this one) really are enhanced when drunk with food.

We pondered the wonders of the universe, and the history of the internet.

We had dinner at an old favorite over by the Louvre, and slurped up some nice crepes in front of the Stravinsky fountain. This made for a heavy few days of eating, since Sarah and I went out the night before Chris arrived for my birthday dinner. We did a long drawn out French meal (10 courses if you count the cleansing sorbet between the firsh course and the meat course).

My head is still spinning from the weekend a bit, and this weekend we're headed out for vacation again. Off to Italy for a while. Damn, I love my life. 

Zermatt Hiking

We just spent a lovely week in Zermatt. We timed it just right, it was at the end of August, the weather was brilliant, but the crowds were gone. The picture here is the Matterhorn (Mont Cervin to the French) from the walk to Tuferen.

Zermatt is a big ski resort, which means that there is a large array of lifts and specialized mountain cog trains to drag you up the hill to some amazing hikes. While the expensive "resort-i-ness" of Zermatt didn't appeal to us, the broad range of hiking you can do under the shadow of the Matterhorn definitely was.

There are also tiny little villages (count the houses with no need to remove your shoes) up in the hills that serve really decent food. In fact, there is one trail we were on called the Gourmet Weg. The food was expensive because they have to drag it all up the hill or get it airlifted in, but quite nice in the middle of a hike.

I could describe each hike, but I think I'd rather get together pictures and post them. The pictures really were nice on this trip.

Pictures are at http://suzyinparis.free.fr/Zermatt2006/index.html

Transforming Paris

At the end of our street, there has always been a grungy crusty dirty building that is currently a school. There is a law in Paris that you have to clean the outsides of buildings every 10 years, and this building has been in flagrant violation. The word in the neighborhood is that the school has wanted to build an underground parking structure, and the neighboring buildings had protested vigorously, and had been able to block or at least stall the parking.

The school, in protest, has been not getting its regular (and much needed) cleaning. A few months ago scaffolding went up on part of the building, and it was cleaned and restored. Last week the scaffolding came down, and the picture above shows clean vs. dirty.

Quite a transformation. The building looks incredible. I hope this doesn't mean the parking facility was approved. 

Vineyards for as far as the eye can see

This is a view (on a cloudy day) from Hautvilliers out over the vineyards of Champagne.

Sarah and I spent a delightful weekend in the Champagne region of France. Our neighbors who live next door invited us out for the weekend to their country home. We managed very well despite rainy weather both days. They have a very cozy house in the Marne river valley, with views of vineyards on the hills out the windows. I could feel my stress level go down as soon as we got there, it was just so relaxing and inviting.

Here's some of the things we did:

Went on a champagne cellar tour in Epernay. They have a gargantuan wine casket from 1880's, it holds 200,000 barrels, and was taken dragged by oxen to the Paris fair in 1889. The tour also included a train tour of their underground cellars where they ferment and store the champagne. I now know plenty about riddling bottles and disgorging sediment.

Drove through the vineyards, and walked around Hautvilliers (pronounced "ought vee yay"). In Hautvilliers, we saw the church where Dom Perignon is buried, and the understated headquarters of Moet et Chandon (makers of Dom Perignon label).

Visited Rheims cathedral, and saw it's Chagall stained glass window. Church was in rough shape, the stone used to make it is fairly soft, and has suffered over the centuries.

Visited WWI American memorial and graveyard. This area (Belleau Bois and Chateau Thierry) was where the front between French and German troops was stalled for several years during WWI. The battles in the area became much more real to me as I listened to our neighbors stories about what happened to their relatives during the war.

Ate fantastic food. I'm always amazed by the interest and depth of knowledge that some French people have for their food. "Here, try this honey on your croissant, it was harvested in an area where a lot of chestnuts are grown, and that gives it an interesting flavor", and also a long discussion on why biodiversity in types of apples being grown is important. We have a wonderful homemade egg-chevre-thyme tarte, mixed greens with sauteed chestnuts and smoked bacon, and an intoxicating homemade poire and dark chocolate tarte with almonds.

Had a roaring fire. It was rainy most of the weekend, so our neighbors built a wonderful roaring fire in the huge fireplace. Sipping Blanc de Blanc local Champagne while staring into a roaring fire. Yum. Hard to believe in the middle of August, but it worked for us.

Our neighbors are so delightful, and so kind. It was a very memorable weekend.

Berlin Photos are up

I posted some pics from Berlin. This wasn't an intensive photo trip, just had the small digital camera with us.

Enjoy:
http://suzyinparis.free.fr

Ich bin ein Berliner

Oh, Berlin. We got back Monday morning from our long weekend in Berlin. We had an absolute blast!

This photo is taken from the roof of the Reichstag, which is the German Parliament building. This building is where the European portion of WWII ended. After the war, it was substantially changed, and this dome was added a few years back. The dome serves as a reminder that government should be transparent.

It was a nice break away from Paris in the height of tourist season. We stayed in a nice quiet area of Berlin, Savigny Platz. Our hotel room overlooked the square, we were right over a few sidewalk cafes. I think we hit the timing just right. We waited until Berlin recovered from it's bout of WorldCup fever, and the city was deserted. We waited in 2 lines during our 4 days there, both of them under 10 minutes!

We did some major museum hopping, the 3 day Museum Pass made it really easy to hit a lot of them:

1. Museum of Arts and Materials - fun Art Nouveau glass
   
2. Pergamon Museum- fantastic Pergamon marbles, and Babylonian gate
   
3. Egyptian Museum - bust of Nefretiti is why its famous, but the rest of it was outstanding as well
   
4. Art Deco / Art Nouveau museum - fantastic Zsolnay ceramic collection and extensive metalworks collection
   
5. Picasso museum- too many plastic surgeon nightmares for me. Sarah loved it.
   
6. Musical Instruments museum- walking canes that turned into mini violins, pianos in every way, shape and form.
   
7. Gemaldegalerie - mind blowing Northern European painting collection
   

We also walked down Unter den Linden, formerly East Berlin gone totally Western capitalist (yes, you can see a Starbucks from the Brandenburg Gate). We visited Checkpoint Charlie, and the overpriced museum there, which shows you the different escape methods of escaping East Germany. And we went shopping on Ku'damm, we found German styles, sizes and prices to be much more to our liking than Paris!

We were totally emotionally drained after the new Holocaust memorial. Sometimes you happen on something unexpected, and it really blows your socks off. The top of the memorial is over 2000 cement blocks covering a city block . They are roughly coffin sized, but they are between 2-10 feet tall. You wander down in them and they tower over you. There was an exhibit you could tour which told the stories of victims, and really made you realize that they were individual humans. It also did a bit of shocking you with sheer numbers and scary photos. It made me afraid for the human race to think that people did that. I'm not Jewish, but I left crying. Don't worry, I did manage to recover.

We also managed to make some new friends in Berlin, one of them is a professor at UT, his German girlfriend who lives in Berlin, and also an art teacher from California. The Berliner took us to a biergarten in the neighborhood, which we enjoyed a lot. We also found a great asian fusion restaurant that had fantastic sushi rolls.

And as if this wasn't good enough, everything was *much* cheaper than Paris, which made it even easier to enjoy. Sarah's Birkenstocks were 18 euros, beer was half the price it is in Paris, and our hotel was 51 euros a night. sweeeeet.

We'll definitely come back to Berlin.

Heat Wave!

Usually our blog tends to reflect on fun, happier moments and memories that I want to remember 10 years from now. My intention is to do a big 'wget' on our url when we go back to the US, and have it to read over fondly when we want to go down Memory Lane. But today I'm writing about the heat, because someday I hope to look back on this and be amused.

#ifdef SOAPBOX

It is bloody hot here! Hello!? Would a ceiling fan kill you?

It got up to 96 here today. I know you Texans are scoffing, it's over 100 in Austin today. But guess what, bucko? We don't have air conditioning in the apartment (no one here does). After several days of over 90, the thick plaster walls are nicely warmed up. Last night at 11pm it was still 87 *inside* the apartement. Ugh. At 7pm, Parisiens are awefully fragrant on an unairconditioned, overcrowded bus. Sweat just pours off me wedged into the metro, and I peel off wet clothes when I get home. Oh, did I also mention that no one here *ever* wears shorts? That's just weird to me (and makes my workday even warmer). I won't mention my warm office because I don't talk about work on the blog, it's just not civilized.

#endif

On a lighter note, tonight our nicely formal neighbor brought over instructions for getting to their country house. They've invited us out for a weekend in August. The topic of the gay Paris mayor came up, and our neighbor said, " You know what we call the Mayor of Paris, don't you? Notre Dame de Paris." (translation: our lady of Paris). It was cute coming from our very polite neighbors.

Bon Quartorze Juillet !!!

Yesterday was the French equivalent of our July 4th. I must say, they really get it right here. By the end of the day, I was ready to trade in my passport for a French one.

I began the day waking up to the sound of the national guard's horse division practising their trumpet and drum routine that they would be playing in the parade. I stumbled out of bed and we had coffee and went to the park. Sarah and our friend Beth went running, and I sat on a park bench and tried to see just how low I could get my pulse. On the walk back along the river, we watched all the different French air force planes fly directly over us, including the jets that were rigged to disperse tricolore (red, white, blue) out their exhaust. A while later I was hanging out on our balcony, camera at the ready, to see if the planes were doing a second pass. They didn't, but several clusters of helicopters flew over, and monster tanks went hauling butt down rue Saint Antione. After a while I heard strains of the same music I heard waking up. I bolted down to the street in front of the Republican Guarde, and watched 250 horses with riders in full Frenchie dress gear. They were amazing. Because we weren't on the official parade route, there weren't many people around, and I was able to get 5-10 feet away. When I arrived, I had no idea how many of them were in the parade. I watched them file by 3 horses across, and they just kept going forever. Horses kept turning the corner, and streaming past. Everyone looked extremely gallant in their full dress uniform, shiny plumed metal helmet, and sword.

In the evening we were lucky enough to be invited over to our friends' (Jim and Stephanie) apartement in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. We did the appropriate toast to Bastille Day, and hung out in air conditioned comfort. We headed over to Champs de Mars with the masses. Jim went scouting for good places on his bike, now we know where to head next year. We ended up squished against the Ecole Militaire at the back of Champs de Mars. Since they moved the fireworks this year to this side of the Eiffel tower, lots of space was blocked off.

The 3 tons of fireworks were choreographed to Mozart, that was pumped out across the crowd by speakers. They were the most amazing fireworks I've ever seen, with a special French creative flare. The French are fairly quiet watching fireworks, in the US we are much less reserved. The lighting on Ecole Militare, and being squished in the crowds meant Suzy didn't get much in the way of pictures, so her memory will have to suffice. After the show we broke out another bottle of the bubbly while waiting for the crowd to thin out. We walked home, which took quite a while, we dragged into the apartment, happy and exhausted at 2am.

Note to prospective invaders of France: 10:30am on 14 Juillet 2007 would be a great time to sneak in and take over this place. All things military and all high ranking officials are consumed fussing with the big parade.

Woe is me, for I live in France

No, don't worry, I'm not homesick.

But I am upset that France lost the World Cup finals, it was a high stress game. Paris had a lot of long faces the next morning, the nation was definitely in mourning. Things are slowly easing back to normal, and I imagine everyone will let loose on Friday (Bastille Day).

Aunt Jemima, Lempicka, Pho, Dorian, and the Eiffel Tower

This morning we were craving a big Kerbey Lane breakfast. I guess after 11 months here, I'm allowed to crave a pancake. We actually found a place run by a guy from the US that serves typical diner food, including something roughly equivalent to Kerbey Lane breakfast. We tried it out for the first time this morning and had a nice big breakfast, including the first pancakes we've had in a year. It was pretty dang decent.

We also went to the Lempicka exhibit, it is closing in a week, so this was our last chance. It was at a museum out in the burbs, so we treked out to see it. Lempicka did sleek art deco style paintings, mainly of people, but also some still life. The exhibit was really good, it's always interesting to see something in person that you've only seen in art books. Her paintings really came alive in person.

After that we decided to do a run to Chinatown. We have a few things we like that we can only find there (wasabi peas, candied ginger, reasonably priced japonaise beer). We had lunch at a great Vietnamese dive. Really good Chicken Pho. In the asian grocery store they had a weird fruit I've never seen before. It's roughly the size of a football (american football), and very spikey on the outside. One of our friends had warned us about these, saying they have an overpowering stench. I was still curious, but didn't want to lug a football sized fruit back with us. We happened upon some cookies flavored with the fruit, so we got those. When we opened the cookies, a bad smell filled the air, but we were determined to try them. They were *hideous*. I had one bite and had to go brush my teeth, and rinse with listerine. The fruit is called dorian, if you ever see one, run the other direction...fast!

Tonight we went to the Eiffel Tower to try out Suzy's new tripod, and also scope out the turf for next Friday night, when they shoot fireworks off the Eiffel Tower for Bastille Day. It looks like we'll be celebrating Bastille Day with some friends that have an apartement a few blocks away, and wandering over to watch fireworks with the masses. 

Suzy's Football Fetish continues...

Apparently nothing else is happening on the face of the earth except WorldCup football. That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it. I guess I've got it pretty bad, I'm even joining the worldcup channel on my company's IRC server and hanging out with the real football junkies.

Wednesday's France-Portugal match was a lot of fun. We had our crazy riotous Aussie friends, Vivianne and Beth, over to watch the game. What is it with Australians and stressing their vocal chords? We had a great time watching the game. We didn't fit every sports fan stereotype though, we were sipping cosmopolitians, popped a bottle of champagne, and had fresh french strawberries dipped in dark chocolate. We also had a very nice chocolate mousse cake to celebrate Sarah's birthday.

After France won, we headed out to Bastille a few blocks away. The streets were erupting with happy French football fans, French flags were waving everywhere, fireworks were being set off in the street. It was great!

For you non football fans, don't worry, Sunday night is the final between France and Italy. Suzy will be giving up her football fetish after that.

Fend for yourselves! July sales hit France!

So, France is very organized about their sales at shops and department stores. They have them twice a year, January and July. The masses pour out and mob the stores. I went into BHV to shop for a Skype headset Saturday, and almost lost an arm. It seems that certain classes of things are on sale, and geeky stuff isn't on the list. Sarah and I are not big shoppers, and the mobs at the sales aren't really all that fun for us. Think of the day after Thanksgiving in the US, it's kind of like that.


We've been having some heat lately. It only gets up to 90 degrees, but nowhere (including our apartement) has air conditioning. I never realized how much heat a computer or a TV pumps out until we lived somewhere without AC. And you really can spend quite a lot of time pouring over the fine print on frozen foods standing around in the frozen section at the grocery store. Some people get little portable AC units, but they are $$, and add a chunk to the electric bill. 

Not so ugly duckling

So we have another batch of ducklings in Suresnes at Parc du Chateau. I've gotten into the habit of walking thru the park on the way to work (adds 5 minutes to the walk). This morning I was watching them, and a group of kindergarten aged kids came running up. They got really excited by the furry fuzzy little fellows.

We also have had quite a lot of World Cup fever here, and Suzy has finally gotten bitten by the bug. France played Brazil Saturday night. Brazil won the last World Cup 4 years ago, and they were the favorites to win this time. "The Blues" put a stop to that. The French played an amazing game, it was a really good game to watch. ....And the French won. We watched the game live. I hit *mute* when they got to the end of the game, and listened to Paris erupt around me. I've never heard several million people go completely bonkers in a close radius like that, it was quite a ruckus. Our apartement is a few blocks from Bastille, and the crowds swarmed into the streets after the game. Everywhere we heard fireworks going off and the modern equivalent of shooting your gun in the air ( laying down on the car horn ). We don't really have a unifying thing like this in the US, the closest thing we have is the Olympics. But it is different from the Olympics, even more intense from a national pride standpoint. 

All Fete-ed out

This week has been a busy but fun one. On Wednesday (June 21), we had the yearly Fete de la Musique. All sorts of musical performers are scheduled all over the city in open air free concerts. We saw all sorts of stuff. In the upper right of the pic was our favorite, a guy playing Spanish, Turkish, and Moroccan music in the courtyard of Hotel de Sens. We also saw a cuban band, a classical woodwinds concert, and the odd group in the upper left. Their instruments looked like a bunch of trumpets glued together. We also saw the Gay mens chorus (drowned out by two other choral goups), and a bit of Cesaria Evora. All of this was within a 10 minute walk of our apartement. There were other concerts happening all over France, the news said the next morning that there were over 20,000 concerts in France at Fete de la Musique. It was fun, you really felt like the city was out celebrating summer.

This weekend was also Gay Pride weekend in Paris. Wow. There was a march from Montparnasse to Bastille, and it went a block of our apartment up bd. Henri IV. At the end in Bastille, there was a huge party. They estimated 800,000 people showed up. The theme for the march seemed to be large trucks loaded up with huge speakers blaring out really cool dance music. It was a really fun crowd, a lot of straight people were there to have fun, it's nice to know us queers still throw the best party around. It did have one small problem, it must have been sponsored by a Hearing Aid company. The volume was dangerously high. While we were taking a Cosmo break in the apartment (a block away from the action), our windows were rattling from the noise. The Hearing Aid sponsor now has 800,000 new customers. It was an incredible gathering, I've never seen any GLBT gathering on this scale before.

Sunday we had planned to go to a food festival at Village St. Paul (2 blocks from the apartment, do we live in the right part of town or what?). We woke to a steady rain. We had a very wet trip to the Bastille Sunday morning market, and decided to blow off the food festival.

Balcony Pic

In IRC today, I realized that I had never posted a picture of our balcony. Here's one I took a month or two ago when Spring was just creeping out. The weather is still a little grey around the edges.

We're on the 5th floor (6th in US terms) . The tree top below has filled out nicely, and you can see the Pantheon way off in the distance. 

Tootie Fruitie

On Sunday morning we went to the outdoor market, the one in our neighborhood is held every Sunday morning at Bastille. Dozens and Dozens of vendors selling all sorts of food. We found a new vendor this week who sells nothing but strawberries. We bought the most amazing strawberries I've ever had in my life. They are deep dark red, and are sweeter than any I've ever had. Usually I'm not too fond of strawberries because they just aren't sweet enough. These are truly amazing. We're also getting fabulous bing cherries and mangos as well.


So begins our tootie fruitie summer fruit. 

POETS day

Friday I celebrated a weekly British holiday, POETS day (Piss Off Early, Tomorrow's Saturday). It was a hard week, I finally finished a looong work item, so I decided to blow out of work early. Don't tell the boss. :-)

I got home by4, and Sarah and I went out for a late lunch. It was a beautiful day out, 75 and sunny. We did a proper sidewalk cafe lunch at Bastille (Cafe des Phares for those keep score). I don't know, somehow food tastes better when you've skipped out of work early for it. Afterwards I grabbed a cassis sorbet cone, and we walked up a street that is packed with musical instrument stores and camera stores. At a guitar store, I notice that they are 50% classical guitar and the rest acoustic/electric. Nice. We must have seen a dozen camera stores, lots of used and collectors stuff. Paris does tend to cluster related stores together: all the papier stores are located together, there is a pet store district, an area with plant stores. Eventually we noticed that it was happy hour (how convenient!) so we had a drink at a Brasilian place. The search continues for a good margarita in Paris. This one was certainly better than Le Perla, but can't hold a candle to Manuel's frozen mango.

Saturday morning was chilly out, we sat out on the balcony and had coffee wearing politec jackets. We had oozing warm pain au chocolate for breakfast while walking around a quiet Place des Vosgues. It warmed up nicely in the afternoon, and we went to the Bagatelle gardens. In mid June, the famous rose gardens are in full bloom. A riot of color exploding, with sweet scent drifting by. The rose gardens I've seen before are ones that are working hard to live in Texas weather, this one was happy roses on steroids. We're also adding this spot to our list of places to picnic. There were a lot of nice open shady places that would be nice for a picnic. 

Room with a view in Assisi

There is just something about throwing open the shutters in your hotel room, and stepping out onto a balcony with a nice view. This photo was taken from our balcony in Assisi. We had a nice view out over the Umbrian countryside, and also a view (not in this pic) of bits of the Basilica St. Francis.

We had a great time here, the place is quite crowded by day with day trippers running around in clumps with their tour guides, but in the morning and evening it it just magical. Wandering around pedestrian streets, with beautiful views around every corner. We did a nice hike in the countryside up into the hills around Assisi, and I don't think I've ever climbed so many stairs in my life. The city is still rebuilding some from the 1997 earthquake, but it's basically finished, and looks great.

The food here was fantastic, a lot of grilled meats including grilled umbrian sausages and the best lamb chops I've had in my life. I had a fresh pasta with a black truffle sauce that was amazing. Pasta was cooked just perfectly, and the truffles added a nice grainy texture that was really good.

More pictures at:
http://suzyinparis.free.fr/Assisi2006/index.html 

Pompeii

We took one day out of our Sorrento stay to go to Pompeii (about 45 minutes away on the train).

It was really interesting. While most of the really cool artifacts are kept at a museum in downtown Naples, there was plenty to see here. Most of what we know about daily Roman life today is because of the sites uncovered by the Mount Vesuvius eruption.

We walked around, going through the bathhouse, by the bakers, and managed to find a brothel.

It's weird, but the photos just don't convey how interesting it was. There is just something really bizarre about wandering around in a city that was snuffed out in 79 AD by a volcano.

Photos at: http://suzyinparis.free.fr/Pompeii2006/index.html 

Amalfi coast Italy

We had a fantastic time in Italy. We spent 5 days in Sorrento, a town on the Amalfi coast. It's just south of Naples. There are several small towns clinging to the cliffs over the Mediterranean. This picture is of Positano. There is an amazing bus ride from Sorrento to Positano along the coast. The dramatic cliffs make for a scary road with cars squeezing by each other. We had Positano gelato (candied orange bits and nutella flavored) after lunch. With so much coastline, we of course had amazing seafood. Fresh grilled fish, fresh langostinos and shrimp. And we were right next to Naples, where they invented Pizza. We pigged out.

We splurged on a nice meal our last night, and had a truly amazing red italian wine served in monstrous red wine glasses. Sarah will have to tell you about the wine, she enjoyed it a lot.

We did some hiking close to Sorrento, and swimming off the coast to help work off all the good food.

We stayed in a villa converted into a hotel. It was a little run down, but we had a great view over the little port from our balcony.

It was a really relaxing vacation, just what we needed.

Photos at: http://suzyinparis.free.fr/AmalfiCoast2006/index.html 

Off into the wild bleu yonder

I was quite pleased leaving the office today. It's been a tough coupla months, and tomorrow (Thursday) is ....... another French holiday. And the French can't seem to get enough in the holiday category, so Friday is what they call a "bridge day" to bridge to the weekend.

Here's the kicker. I'm taking next week off, and we're headed to Italy. Whoohoo! I'm looking forward to pasta, sunshine, hiking, seasides, seafood, and of course gelato.

Grape Expectations

This weekend we visited the wine museum in Paris. We have fun seeking out offbeat museums, and this one certainly qualified as 'offbeat'.

It is located in cellars dug out by monks in the 15-16th century underneath the Passy area of Paris. Monks hug out, making their wine and storing it in these caverns for a few hundred years. Like a lot of religious sites, the monastery was destroyed in the French Revolution. The cellars survived, and now house the museum and a restaurant. It is a really atmospheric setting for the museum, wandering around in the cellars. It was a little freaky, they had maneqiuns set up depicting winemaking, and they kept freaking me out when I'd round a corner and see one (we were the only ones in the museum, so it was a little spooky exploring by ourselves anyway).

The museum contained various vineyard tools, grape harvesting and squishing implements, chemistry bits (for 'balancing the wine'), pichets, glasses for all types of wine, a bazillion different corkscrews, and a cognac distillery (distillery in upper left of picture).

The museum price includes a free glass of wine. Sante!

On Sunday we did a really fun walk. We started at Champs Elysees close to Grand Palais, walked down through the middle of Place de Concorde, thru Tuileries gardens (pausing to watch pony rides and have ice cream), up through the Louvre courtyard, over Pont Neuf, along Ile de la Cite (and the gardening shops), along Ile St. Louis, and cross back towards Bastille at blvd Henri IV. I could just walk forever here.