Another Summer in Paris - Part 4

the moutarde pickles tasted artificial but they're not so bad.  the Biscroks are decent with some salt and truffle oil.

Canal St Martin with the crew

Canal St Martin

dinner with the illustration crew.  Nicolas Delort lives here, Lily Padula and Natalie Andrewson are visiting.  #youcankeepicon8illtakeparis  only illustrators would get this, there was a big illustration conference called Icon 8 this week and we were all in paris instead of in Portland 

the Louvre the biggest and most famous museum in the world and there are tons of picnickers  

that there is a giant couch surfers party, yea like the website

and late into the night the lawns in front of the Louvre are still packed, now with lots of drunks and people p!ssing in the hedges.

These two brothers from Canada, Mario and Matei have this sweet deal where they live in the courtyard that houses the two windmills on Montmartre and the guy that owns their apartment keeps all his paintings there so its like a mini museum

sunshower

the bathroom at Le Caroubier, a Moroccan restaurant at the bottom of the 14th

Le Select, on of Hemmingway's hangouts.  They also have a big cat that hangs out

just making deliveries

found in our mailbox:  "I'm a landscaping student and I offer my services to maintain your garden"

baguettes are my favorite thing and dog poo is my least favorite thing about Paris.  This was a cut down tree stump thing for years and a hotbed for dog poo.  They just put this thing in and the next day there was a dog poo in it!!!!!  Now it is just a bigger uglier stomping ground for dog poo.  Sham on your Paris, really shame on you.  Sh!ts in front of my door, Sh!ts everywhere.

Another Summer in Paris - Part 3

Inside one of the new speakeasies in Paris, Moonshiner.  

Gotta see this! Jacques Tati's Playtime

France has a whole world of sauces and tastes and foods that we don't really know about in America because, feelings aside, France had colonies in North Africa like in Algeria and Morocco so a lot of that gets thrown in the spread.

All of this from the tuesday/sunday market by my house for 18 euros.  5 kinds of cheese, merguez and chipolata sausages and bonus terrine from the lady, farm fresh eggs, 2 poignée (handfuls, new word I learned from the lady) of mesclun salad, girolle mushrooms (they don't call them chanterelles here), tomatoes and a baguette.  why leave?

Polish babababushka

every year before Bastille day (not called that here, called July 14th) the firemen have huge parties at the fire stations across paris.  Here we are waiting to get into one in the Marais.

after spending some time in one huge courtyard we tried to leave only to discover on the way out there was another even bigger courtyard going on.

I guess people just embrace this tradition if they live within one of the courtyards of the fire station and boogie down.

the firemen in Paris are known for being hot stuff, I know they are in the US too but here they definitely live up to that promise more.  They were all tending the bar.

this guy was diva'ing out

Square de la Place Dauphine is a someone hidden place.  I have only seen French people hanging out here even though its across the street from that awesome corner of Ile de La Cite.  The street you have to cross makes you not want to cross it though so maybe it is naturally protected.  It's always a lively atmosphere of different parties drinking and playing petanque or that wooden sticks game 

gargoyles of Notre Dame

it's wednesday

Notre Dame in the back

shortly after a swing dance party broke out.  There were jugglers, and various other hippie activities going on in the background.  My initial reaction is to be disparaging because it's a wednesday and its like every day is saturday here but then again they've been making it work for so many years why not let them have at it?  Granted their economy isn't doing so well but neither is ours and we work like dogs.

Another Summer in Paris - Part

star wars invader

that corner of Ile de la Cite I love by night.

later in the night someone had a big boombox and a dance party broke out.

Dominika from Poland and Ellie from England

I went to a vide greniers (emtpy the attic sale, yard sale) in the 14th arrondissement where lots of people sell stuff

oh just taking my mental illness out for a walk/ride.  He was def crazy.  He was smiling like crazy and yelling "Allez!!" (let's go) and he was going much faster than me on my bike.  I guess the dog was really pulling him?

 I got a nice used opinel folding knife and this cool French movie reel tin for 3 euros

I got it home and took a look at it.  I thought it was gonna be some cool old French film but......

I started looking at the film and I was like, is that F'ing Nicolas Cage??  I rolled down further and I saw old documents and had suspicions that it was "National Treasure" starring mother loving Nicolas Cage.  I looked up "Benjamin Gates" and found out that is the name of National Treasure in France (it's the name of his character in the movie.  Of all the movies that I get.  I now have meters and meters of Nicolas Cage's face.  Again, why do the French have to change the english names of movies to different english names!!!???

Domi and Lily, an NY illlustrator visiting Paris.

My cousine is somewhere in this line along with hundreds of other teenagers for the French premiere of Nos étoiles contraires tombez amoureux (The Fault in our stars).  Birdy sang some songs too she said

my bedfellow

July