Paris Parks

If it weren't totally obvious how much we love the Paris park system, I have to tell you we just spent most of a week dragging a friend from one park to another, plopping him down on our pique-nique blanket with wine and cheese, and exclaiming "Isn't this fantastic!" And truly, it is a good time.

Place des Vosges

Jardin de Reuilly

More of our pictures of sundrunk Parisians here and there

Paris parks are not only places where you can huff flowers or promenade yourself. If there's sunshine, there is essentially a big, happy, relaxed party on every lawn in every park, where you can read, nap, have a meal or an apéro, people-watch, dodge flying toddlers, and otherwise just enjoy the life.

This may be a common experience in large cities, where people tend to live in tiny apartments without any green space to call their own. But as far as we know, it is not very common in Minneapolis, where many people have their little patch of land and stay within their fences. At home, we don't hang out among strangers nearly as much; so we were really surprised to find that we liked being two of a hundred or so people sitting around together. Not necessarily paying any attention to each other, but relaxing in proximity. At least for us, the Parisian habit of really using and enjoying public spaces, with the rest of the public, is new and different and enormously pleasant.

We have repeatedly vowed to each other to start a pique-nique ritual when we get home. Frankly I'm not sure it'll be quite the same if we can't be in a giant field with a ton of other people, but we'll try. Expect to see us spreading out the big yellow blanket somewhere in Minnehaha Park later this summer.

Last Weekend

We had a pretty spectacular weekend. 

On Saturday, while pursuing nice, reasonably priced shoes on Rue du Faubourg St-Antoine, we stopped by Le Lieu du Design, which is hosting a food-related design show. There were a lot of fun, quirky and sometimes even useful entries.

Chocolat Chaud-on-a-Stick and Pot-au-Feu Animals

 edible finger puppets and extra-virginal white chocolate Marys

the exhibition space, with Lia and wall of Alessi

tattooed and spiked crabs and clams

 a different view to highlight the Wu Tang detail

savory aperitif cakes to be cooked and served in shells

compound butter gems

chocolate record

As you can tell by the photos below, Saturday night we partied. A couple of Lia's coworkers hosted a cocktail party, fueled by gracious donations of Canadian rye, Italian meatballs, guacamole and champagne, among other things. 

Sunday we attended a performance by Paris native Eliane Radigue at Centquatre (104), a remarkable arts space housed in what was once the municipal funerary services complex. Eliane Radigue is an electronic music artist whose very austere, minimal works use long, slowly transforming, overlapping, modulating waves of sound, sometimes embellished with samples of voice or instruments. It's an exercise in intense listening or intense boredom, depending on your taste. In this interview she explains her creative process and technique: http://vimeo.com/8983993

 Most of her career was spent in front of one of these:

That's not a switchboard operator, it's an avant garde musician.

Unfortunately, she no longer performs on the giant ARP, just a large mixing board.

Here she is after the performance.

art faces

Centquatre is currently home to La Manège Carré Sénart, an amazing carousel made up of mechanical bugs and animals. Some parts can be operated by levers and hand-cranks. It's really cool.

in action:

 We found this gem of a room divider just down the block from Centquatre.

We walked home along Canal St-Martin, which on Sundays is closed to car traffic, making it a lovely spot for a waterside stroll.

Chinese New Year

I know pretty much nothing about Chinese New Year, but there was a parade yesterday and it was nice out, so we went. We live close to Belleville, which is the second largest "Chinatown" in Paris, after the Tolbiac/Choisy area of the 13th. I assume the party was even bigger over there but Belleville was amazingly crowded. Even so, the streets were still open to traffic. Maybe the honking chaos and rage of car/bike/human interaction is part of the celebration. As for the parade, from what I understand, there are some dragons who we are trying to lull to sleep with speeches by local public officials. Suddenly, someone lights a bunch of firecrackers, the dragons wake up and go dancing down the street.

Dead People Particles

Our friend Danielle dropped by Paris for a visit last weekend. It was great fun to tromp around Paris with someone who had never been here before. We are very happy she made time to visit us before heading to meet up with her husband Hideo in Dublin. Hideo has been touring Europe with his band Birthday Suits. You can check out his beautiful and hilarious blog here: Stupid Tour Diary. Saturday was themed Dead Things Day as we visited the Catacombs and Deyrolle Taxidermy, which doesn't allow photography but is a magical place. Père Lachaise cemetery was on the itinerary but shockingly cold weather forced us to put it off until Sunday.

The Catacombs are eerie and damp and full of the bones of about six million people.

The welcome sign:

"Stop! This is the empire of the dead."

That sign on the left warns you to not use your flash.

 Assessment: Creepy.

We also did some less morbid things.

Lia and Danielle at the Louvre

A photograph of a photographing of a tattoo of Winged Victory, 

with stunt Danielle to make it look like I'm not taking a photo of the tattoo girl.

 

I like Lia's smile better.

contemplative

In the Louvre, Danielle pretends to enjoy The Worst Beer Ever: Panaché. 

We didn't know when ordering that panaché means: 

"a shandy-like beer and limonade concoction that tastes horrible."

The first ever party in our apartment. It was a rager.

At Père Lachaise cemetery, a fitting exclamation for the deceased.

"Hélas!" / "Alas!"

Bonne Année!

Happy New Year!

Le Rugby!

Yesterday we took a bus from San Sebastian, Spain to Bayonne, France. We'll write about San Sebastian in a couple days - too many photos and awesomeness to process right now. After getting settled in the hotel we decided to go for a quick walk around before sunset.

We found hordes of drunken, light-blue clad rugby fans roving the streets and spilling out of the bars. Rugby is a huge deal in southwestern France so we decided to see if we could get tickets to the match. We followed the masses to the stadium and found tickets for the "Pelouse" (lawn) section were only €10. How can you pass that up? The pelouse sections are standing areas located at the four corners of the field. We got there early enough to score spots up front on the rail. Neither of us know anything about how to play rugby. We didn't really learn anything by watching, but it was great fun. Here is a video of the 12,000 seated and untold standing Aviron Bayonnais fans singing their rouser.

Below is the guy who was standing to Lia's right. He's so stereotypically Basque-French it makes you want to weep. Or sing along with him, cause he's got a great voice.

"Allez! Allez! Les bleus et blancs de l'Aviron Bayonnais..."

Here's a too-dark photo of us.

Aviron Bayonnais beat Toulon 20-9.

Wine Show

This weekend is the Salon des Vins des Vignerons Indépendants at the Porte de Versailles convention center. Vignerons Indépendants is a trade organization that promotes small, independent winemakers.

This is their logo:

To use the V.I. label, winemakers have to do it the old fashioned way- growing, vinifying, bottling and selling their wines with respect, tradition, blah, blah, blah. Aside from a worthwhile commercial mission, Vigneron Indépendant throws a hell of a trade show. Admission, a wine glass and tasting pours are all free. You can buy whatever you like directly from the person who made it. Endless wine for free, from several hundred winemakers from all over France. That's a party. As you can see below, it's popular.

This is about 1/10th of the whole scene. It was a crush of people, many drunk or at least slowed by a decent buzz. We fought through the crowds for a while, tasting whatever looked interesting, before the chaos became too much and we fled.

Beaujolais Nouveau

It's the third Thursday of November, so we figured we ought to grab a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau. Sure, it's a marketing ploy and lots of wine people won't touch the stuff, but I think it's fun to play along with the yearly tradition. For this bottle, we walked down to Spring Boutique and Le Garde-Robe Restaurant on Rue de l'Arbre Sec. The two shops, across the street from each other, teamed up to bring Jean-Claude Lapalu in from Beaujolais along with a giant oak barrel of his wine. For €8 Jean-Claude personally funneled his wine into a bottle, corked it, stuck a label on it and handed it to us, all while sitting on the sidewalk enjoying a few glasses himself. The wine in the photo lived about an hour in the bottle before being opened. It's good - light and young and full of red currant and cherry loveliness.

We picked up a rotisserie chicken and potatoes on the way home.

Lia approved.

Happy Halloween!

Just a brief post to say Happy Halloween! We have carved a potimarron in honor of the occasion. Here is me carving, and here is the result.

From this angle he looks scornful and sarcastic...

...but from this one, he looks like he's giving you the once-over and offering to make you breakfast.

 Très parisien, non?

Tous ensemble! Tous ensemble! Grève générale!

Boulevard Voltaire today. That's the door to our building.

There are just as many people two blocks away on Boulevard Beaumarchais.
The groups will meet at Place de la Bastille and then head to Place de la Nation as one giant mass.


Around the corner from our place:
"General Strike"


Earlier today we tried to visit the new Basquiat exhibit at the City of Paris Museum of Modern Art. The line was down the block so we detoured to Musée des Beaux-Arts at Le Petit Palais. We checked out the 19th century paintings. The building is super cool. Here's the central courtyard:


On our way to find lunch we were passed on Avenue Champs Élysées by a very old, very dirty car that had a "Peking to Paris" sign on it. Twenty minutes later as we walked through Place Vendome, we found where it was headed. We had stumbled on the finish line of the 4th Peking to Paris Motor Challenge. It has been run in 1907, 1997, 2007 and 2010.

After lunch we bought expensive cookies from Pierre Hermé. Next time we'll hit Ladurée so we can weigh in on the eternal Pierre Hermé vs Ladurée Macarons Debate.
We got six flavors: rose, peach & saffron, salted caramel, green tea, creme brulée and hazelnut.