Zhu Ru in Paris - Part 1

Zhu Ru came to visit

this is a good example of how its often sunny on one side of paris and raining on the other side.  seriously, here is your proof.  hemming way used to live a few doors down from here.  I'm reading a movable feast now and its cool to know the streets he's talking about, especially when he talks very specifically about places.

notre dame 

is this part of a wedding?

just as we came upon them they were playing the sidney bechet song from the opening scene of "midnight in paris" which is an awesome clarinet song.  a magical little pocket of time.  this old grandma was even shuffle steppin' and hoppin'

sea gulls? 

to the left of Sacre Coeur on Mont Martre.

Ile St Louis, one of the two "islands" in the siene.  

rainy day batobus ride.  the huge windows were all closed and covered with rain water making the view inside the boat not very nice.  i read somewhere that this was a good rainy day thing to do but i have to object.  

somewhere around the 10th

Derrière is a cool place in the 3rd

they have a pingpong table inside

Marche aux puces st ouen.  it's at clignancourt the last stop on line 4 in the north.  it's the biggest flea market in the world.  this is where owen wilson buys a record and meets the girl in "midnight in paris".  It's huge and cool, although the stuff we saw was very expensive.  maybe if you go to other areas within this area it will be cheaper, you could come back here every weekend for a month and not see everything.  you could easily spend an hour in many shops.  i would not want to hang out in this area after dark though.  paris seems more dangerous than NYC a lot of times.

tons and tons of this.  and if you're a grandma like me then this is awesome.

i have an arrow fetish 

oh awesome i was hoping to come across a sophisticated felt like but not felt artwork of a light skinned black woman with her best bits in the air in an elegant frame.  how did this shop even acquire such a beauté?

and how is it that this is not the only box, yes box full of nunchucks that i saw this day?

many markets within markets

a weird showcase like place

another weird showcase like place with tons of super expensive stuff including stuffed heads and even a full stuffed giraffe.  a giraffe neck and head was like 10,000 euros.

django like music

canal st. martin.  i finally found the place where amelie skips stones.  the north part of the canal is wide and the southern part is narrow.  it might be the coolest part of paris for me.  its quiet, cute, tons of cool store, restaurants, bars, and the locals were nice.

Ass Fromage.  sorry, juvénile humor on the bill.  it was saturday night, we went to 5 places recommended by friends and struck out 5 times.  it seems like if you want to eat anywhere decent in paris on a saturday night you better have had made a reservation!  We ended up at this place.  

Le Comptoir General is a cool place.  it has a kind of west african theme

kostas and Umar came.  Umar is from Mali and was just telling us about this drink "bissap" that he made for some Malian society and we were like oh cool we want to try it sometime.  how serendipitous that the next place we went to (le comptoir general) actually had it.  its made from hibiscus

we ordered a bottle of wine and went into the other big room and sat on the floor like a bunch of other people were.

its a pretty cool space.

says something like when he fills glasses he breaks hearts

Umar says this looks just like a shop would in Mali.  all of this stuff is for sale

the entrance of le comptoir general.  oh by the way we had to wait inline for like 15 minutes in the rain (it rains off and on again all the time and we were lucky to have umbrellas because a bunch of people dropped out of line after getting rained on).  

zhu ru and kostas spotted this place when we were trying to find a dinner spot so we went here next cuz it looked like a cool little bar and it said they had live music.  we went in and as i was ordering beers i heard "where are you guys from".  I turned and at the end of the bar was this french guy and i reluctantly said NY and ended up talking to him but he ended up being really cool and the drummer of the band that was playing only they were done but we got them to play one more set.  while this was happening zhu ru met the owner of this sweet restaurant down the street from the bar and then we all ended up meeting everyone including the guitar player who was actually one of the bar tenders and his wife the singer and the bass player.  we met the orthodontist from down the street and a bunch of other characters.  it was a tiny bar and most people were local and it was super good times all over the place.  zhu ru even lost her jacket and shirt and everyone was bummed and couldn't believe that someone would steal it from their bar and after a while it turned out that some drunk guy had it over his legs cuz they were cold and he did'nt even know what was going on.  

this guy was super cool, mr local celebrity (the french black thought from the roots?), it turns out he used to work here.  Mous, the guy in the middle owns the restaurant down the street that we went to the next day which you'll see in the next post.  and to top it all off Jeremy the drummer happened to be from Pau, a tiny town in the south of france where we were actually going because i was picking up a vintage petanque set from this woman down there.  He hooked us up with one of his friends in Pau and we stayed at his house.  Serendipitous good times and new friends make this the best night in Paris so far.