Part 2 of my visit to Paris
This is Kaz, short for Kazam. He is a Labradoodle, a mix between a Labrador retriever and a Poodle. He is a mid sized dog.
My aunt and uncle bought this house in the 13th. It's a rare thing to own a house in Paris, especially one with a back yard. I'm happy to be staying in this house.
one last shot of the magnificent beast.
someone on our street got the boot.
I went off to meet my friend Betty from New York. she was at the top of Monte Marte, the highest point in paris (not that high). the area around Monte Marte is full of cool streets. I didn't have much time to look around that day but the next day i did.
what does it mean? and what is the meaning of this artwork?
a stones throw west of Sacre Coeur is this square with tons of portrait artists set up.
yes the Moulin Rouge is at the bottom of Monte Marte but this is not it. you will be disappointed to see what it looks like on the outside at least in the next post.
oh my lord french women. but then on further inspection i saw that it was Monica Bellucci, who is Italian. But back to french women, they are hot, beautiful, have some kind of dark-ish complextion thing going on (due to some mixing but i don't know my french history), and ooze sex appeal. they dress well and have this air about them that whispers "sexy", and not in a forceful way, it seems natural. I heard many comments about the merits of French men from all the foreign females I hung out with on this trip but who cares about them.
oh look it's Betty, who i last saw in Tokyo on new year's eve with Fumika when I lost my wallet. She came to Paris for 1 day and 1 night with her brother and their friend and I happened to be there at the same time. the power of facebook. naysayers should take into account the benefit it serves to us travellers at least.
the Seine. what a place.
Notre Dame. swarming with tourists.
service.
bob said come on a sunny day so you can see the stained glass well. i don't know if it even matters because of how the stained glass diffuses the light but i can't yet give that go ahead tip yet because when i went to Sagrada Familia in Barcelona it was also on a sunny day.
across the street at Subway (the american submarine sandwich chain) you have to pay 50 euro cents (75 cents) to use the toilet.
notre dame, the seine, and what i think are excessively large river boats. why can't be be smaller more charming boats? come on mayor of paris!
notre dame is to the left but then i wouldn't have been able to get the golden 6pm rays of light on these beautiful riverside Parisian houses.
this is for bob. probably too small to read the titles of most of these books but it looks like they're all in english. i think bob once mentioned that even in china the books are in english cuz that's just how the math world works or something.
Drinks with Betty's French friends that used to live in NYC. this was just a normal place and the coronas were $9!!! other beers were cheaper though. watch out if you order imported beer is the lesson.
Kaz gets day old baguettes and either eats it immediately or chews on it for hours. I found in barcelona that i couldn't buy baguettes everyday like you're supposed to but in paris everyone does it so i guess i will have to. it also helps that there is some law where there has to be a bakery every 300 meters or something crazy like that.
Paris - A Visit to the City of Light - Partie Deux
Paris - A Visit to the City of Light
My visit to Paris, the City of Light. My aunt, uncle, and cousins live in Paris so I went to visit them. I will move to Paris next year and stay with them. The french have a reputation for being rude and snobby, but i didn't see that.
I rode the Eurostar train through the "chunnel" from London to Paris. i think its called the chunnel cuz it goes under the english channel and its a tunnel? and i heard that no one calls it the chunnel and that is just a tourist marketing campaign for losers?
the metro in Paris is grimy like new york.
if you look really quick this looks like NYC. i don't remember any other cities i've been in with crap scratched into the doors besides NY and Paris.
that's me
first thing i saw was this cat chillin' next door.
this was taken the next day in the afternoon but i'm putting it here to show what i saw when i first came rolling down the street to see where my aunt lived, and ultimately where i would be living. I was pretty excited to see this street.
this is their house, pretty cool, and pretty exciting.
they even have a yard. like in NYC its rare to have a house in the city proper so they are really lucky to have this small back yard/garden.
who is that dude? he looks russian
Arc de triumph. This is the original and its 50x bigger than the one in washington square park in NYC. this is the biggest roundabout in Paris and it's at the top of Champs Elysees.
Champs Elysees, the most famous street in Paris. its lined with luxury stores, restaurants, cafes, and then a bunch of regular stores. it's the biggest and most beautiful shopping street i've seen thus far. that said, i don't love shopping so i don't know how much time i will spend on this street
why do tourist fall for these guys all over the world? don't they know their pockets are gettin' picked?
the architecture in france is pretty grandoise. its' like Barcelona on steroids. both cities have their charms though. Barcelona has smaller quainter streets and alleys while Paris has everything bigger and taller.
The Obelisk. these pharaoh guys are maybe the sh!ttiest living statue guys i've seen.
The Louvre. I took a taxi home one night and we drove through here, it was pretty cool.
the Seine is the river that runs through Paris. It's in countless movies and there are something like 30 bridges that go over it. I love canals/rivers in cities so I love the Seine.
sorry to ruin it for you but there is a photographer on the left that i cropped out. this couple is getting pre wedding photos taken, they aren't creating your romantic Paris dream fantasy moment. it would have been nice though.
oh hey look everyone is having fun and laughing!! but wait, they are gypsies and are bothering the sh!t out of everyone with their Deaf Mute signup sheets and they are not deaf or mute and are pick pocketing little sh!ts!!! they approach you motioning for you to sign their sheet and point to the english part that says something about deaf mutes. I was trying to take photos and they kept bothering me so i ripped one of their signup sheets out of their hand and we all saw things were getting hostile so we all went away. they are all over paris at the tourist spots so after the first time i saw them somewhere i started getting annoyed.
couples write their names on locks and lock them to this bridge.
i like how some of the boats have these smaller sub-boats on the back.
there are all these cool book seller stalls installed on the the walls above the river
St. Germain is such a cool area. its full of cool cafes, smaller streets, tons and tons of galleries with actually cool artwork, etc...
i had espresso at this place. i think coffee is weaker in Paris than in the US. If i drink 3 espressos in a day in NY i will be wired for hours and hours because i never drink coffee. but i drank a few a day in Paris and felt nothing.
i liked these frames.
M.Chat, also known as Monsieur Chat is the street artist responsible for this yellow cat. usually he has wings and is flying. he's been on the blog before when i saw one in Seoul. there was one above rosa's pizza on 27th and 7th ave in NYC across from FIT. He was caught in the act a while ago so now he's not anonymous anymore and everyone knows his real name.
Juarez Mercado is a Brazilian artist who has a french connection, the creators of the French movie "Amelie" credit Mercado as their color and style inspiration for the film. Amelie is loved by almost everyone including me. I dig Mercado's work too.
I bet they have to move something in through the window because the inner workings of the apartment are so small that its impossible to get it into the top floor any other way.
is this where Steve Zizzou used to hang out with Esteban?
you know what this is. One of my uncle's 3rd cousin's daughters and her friend were staying for 1 night so i went with them to dinner and the eiffel tower.
Tokyo tower is inspired by the Eiffel Tower, and is 8 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower but for some reason this feels bigger.
you would think i would make fun of her but I just want to applaud her effort in the pursuit of the best shot.
access to the top of the tower shut down an hour before we got there so we could only go so high.
every hour these lights sparkle for 5 minutes. of course it's best seen from somewhere that is not the Eiffel tower.
going up and down the elevators is weird cuz they go at odd angles and it looks like your going down into some secret government research lab. After this we walked around for an hour trying to find somewhere that sold wine this late at night. we couldn't find one until we got a taxi to go home and asked the driver and he knew a place.
