Montmartre by Night

Montmartre by night.  went on a night photo walk with my classmate Martin from Argentina.  it was winter and f'ing cold.  This all happens in the course of one day.  it's a good example of what you can accomplish if you work half a day, if by accomplish you mean enjoy different facets of Parisian life.



everyone won't have 9 lives to test your cooking



oh awesome a bunch of chinois fighting each other with kung fu nunchakus and karate!  nunchaku challenge awesome?  and of course bruce lee has to be on there.  is it still 1975?  interesting that cartoon nextwork is a sponsor



i went to mc donalds for the 2nd time since i moved to paris to try the comte burger but it wasn't released until the next week so i had to settle for this raclette burger.  still better than anything from american mcdonalds even if it still looks like it wasn't made with a single milligram of love.  its on a mini quasi baguette.



i tried david lebovitz's white bean dip recipe.  he is a famous food blogger and former pastery chef and has lived in paris since 2002.  i try not to look at his blog to much or any food blog for that matter because it's basically like looking at porn and will make me go blind.  this dip was not so good but i will still give david another chance.  fresh mint, dill and other stuff



we need more illustration!  paris metro ads by none other than Tadahiro Usuegi.  looks like an ongoing series because i remember seeing other ads by him earlier in the year



i stopped by my old class because it was someone's birthday.  there are some new students.  everyone was drinking wine and liquor and smoking out the window.  Lisa said it got crazier last time with someone falling through the projection screen and everyone stomping on plastic cups as part of some traditional dance from one of the eastern european student's countries.  and there's our teacher right there in the middle.  oh France



at le select a cafe on boulevard montparnasse near our school.  F scott fizgerald, hemmingway, picasso and others were regulars here.



i feel like how the one guy in the HBO series "Band of Brothers" that was the lead actor in the movie office space felt when he was about to loot this german woman's house after the american's had liberated the village during WWII and she just stood there unmoving staring him down with eyes of fire for 10 seconds and then her tiny dog started barking at him and he sheepisly exited the house.  At times like this i just pretend i'm testing my camera.



the cat at le select.  imagine if you were a japanese female age 18-40 (fufilling the aforementioned criteria guarantees that you love paris, cafes, and cats) in this place.  you would be freaking out and throwing out sugois at 300 km/h and taking pics on your awesome japanese phone at 600 km/h.



view from Martin's window very close to metro Pigalle on montmartre.  i love looking into peoples apartments.  its one of my secret pleasures, but doesn't everyone love doing that?  especially in paris?







sacre coeur



paris to the south



took a photo of that super skinny building on the left during that snow day.  love the curtains in the building next to it and the red car.



sacre coeur from the back.  there were some french weirdos twirling sticks around back here and they were wearing t-shirts.  it was f-ing freezing.  i guess being a french stick twirling weirdo makes you immune to the cold.



also photographed this cul de sac on that snow day.  how awesome is that apartment there.  you can see their library through their huge window and they live right next to a cute little park and they can see the back of sacre coeur from their window which is behind me.



and how awesome would it be to live on this corner in one of those places with the huge windows.



we had been out for hours and were freezing but we were still going to press on when i saw this curious place with fogged up windows and a japanese lantern in the window.  it was tiny and on further inspection it looked like a spanish tapas place.  just as we were about to hobble on freezing this guy came down the street and said come in, its an izakaya.  i was like but isn't it a spanish place and he said no and opened the door and we were like ok why not.  inside it was tiny like some tokyo tachinomi (standing bar, aka a normal ass bar in the rest of the world)  half the menu was spanish stuff and the other half was japanese stuff.  there was a mix of a few groups of friends and everyone was super friendly.  what a find on this cold night!  we actually needed to get out of the cold so this was like a tiny oasis that appeared before us just at the right time.



this guy takemoto plays flamenco guitar and speaks spanish, english, and japanese.  he never lived in spain but says he goes there a lot.  he runs the place by himself. 



la cave 27 on 27 rue lamarck 75018 is open everyday from 5 to midnight.  i recommend it if you are looking for a friendly unique experience eating and drinking spanish and japanese stuff.  its also off the beaten tourist path.