Paris Snow 01-02 Janvier 2010

01 Janvier (Vendredi) - We celebrated the advent of 2010, by spending the day doing laundry. It took longer than usual because Robb forgot to reset the machine to dry, and washed everything twice. Well, at least, we're sure it's clean. Dinner at Fontaine Sully. We both had Escalope de Veau avec tagliatelle. I can't get used to the number of people who will brave this weather to sit outside and drink cold beer, just because they can smoke. Yes, it's true, most of the restaurants with outside seating have heaters, and they work very good. But, when that wind decides to crank it up a notch, there's no heater in the world that will keep you warm. Just because I felt the need to insert some pictures; here's one of the inside door lock of the apartment. Here are a couple as the bus passed a carnival for kids in Place de la Bastille the other day when we went to Italie2. And just because I have it, a picture of Hôtel de Sully that I took by accident one night while walking back to the apartment. Hôtel de Sully, built in 1625, is the structure for which this section of town is named. It is now the home of the Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques et des Sites, which in 2000 became the Centre des Monuments Nationaux. This public body, under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture and Communication, is responsible for the management of historic buildings and monuments in state care, of which there are a bunch. 02 Janvier (Samedi) This is my "man" bag. It really becomes quite handy at times. For instance, in mine I carry an umbrella, a couple of scarves, my copy of Paris Practique, a métro map, métro tickets, a pen, a small notepad, my keys and my camera When we were getting our boarding passes in Miami, Robb left his bag at the counter. He didn't realize it until we got to Paris. Unfortunately, along with his umbrella, he also had several items he needs, including his glasses. He tried calling Air France Lost and Found but got no real answer. We plan to stop and check it once we return to Miami on Friday. For those who didn't get to Paris, or didn't get to la Tour Eiffel (like us), you can see what the frozen people saw here: http://31decembreaparis.com/ Robb wanted to buy some more shirts because he didn't bring any with him, so we braved the freezing weather and began the long walk to BHV. One of the first things we encountered was this ad for Vivaldi concerts. If you've ever been in Paris, you must have seen one, they're everywhere. We attended a Vivaldi concert at Saint-Chapelle many years ago, and another at la Madeleine. When we got to rue Bourg Tibourg, we walked up to the Franprix, passing Chocolat Mussy, a confectionnerie, on the way. We had almost rented a place on rue Bourg Tibourg just across the street from the Franprix, but at the last minute, decided we didn't want to stay in a studio-alcove apartment, even though it was very nice and pretty big for a studio, about 35m2 as I recall. After the Franprix, we walked down rue Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie to check a restaurant, but it appears to be gone, as are several other things we remember from the area. Then, we walked to the store where we had bought our leather jackets a couple years ago. This time, they had a bunch of the kind I like and they had my size. I didn't buy one because they don't have inside pockets, but I'm rethinking that. We walked back down to BHV, noticing that if you can find a place out of the wind and in the sun, it's almost comfortable. Robb bought three shirts and and a beautiful sweater. If they had had it in my size, I would have bought one also. We left BHV and walked back to rue Bourg Tibourg. I wanted to stop and have cup of coffee, so we stopped at a restaurant but every seat was filled. We tried another, and there were a few seats left inside La Feria. Again, instead of just coffee, Robb had a large chicken salad and I had a Croque Monsieur. We both accompanied our lunch with wine. After the restaurant, we went back to Franprix to buy a Bûche de Noël. Yeah, I know, who buys a Christmas cake at Franprix, but it looked so good and was on sale. Unfortunately, Robb cut it before I had a chance to take the picture. I stepped into the traffic on rue de Rivoli, risking my life to get you this picture of la Tour St-Jacques. The tower is all that's left of the church that used to be there, Saint-Jacques la Boucherie. On the walk back to the apartment, we stopped at a mobile phone store, basically just to get warm, but I was interested in how the phone companies work and what they offer. They practically give the phones away; an Apple iPhone 3G would cost only €1. But they sock it to you for the monthly service. We continued to the apartment, passing Saint-Paul, the church for which the area gets its name. Around nine-ish, we started thinking about dinner. I wanted to go to Fontaine Sully, but Robb wanted to go to L'Angela, a restaurant we frequented on rue de la Roquette in the 11éme. He called, made a reservation and we got ourselves ready to leave. Luckily, we only have to walk to the bus stop just down the street, where we can catch the 69, which practically drops us at the door. We were surprised to find that the people we were expecting to see were no longer there, and had left just two months ago. No one was offering any information about the circumstances, so it's left to our imaginations what might have happened. We each ordered the Penne Alla Puttanesca and a 50ml pichet of red wine. For dessert, we both had the Panna Cotta Caramel, finishing with a café. All in all, it was a pretty good meal. We asked the waiter to call a taxi for us, but for whatever the reason, he wouldn't do, I'm not really sure why. We had no choice, we would have to walk to the bus stop or to Place Léon Blum to the taxi stand. When we got to the bus stop, we learned the 69 was no longer in service (you may remember that was a huge complaint when we stayed in that area), so it was off to Place Léon Blum. But we had only walked a block or so when an "available" taxi came down the street. I hailed him, and to our surprise, he actually stopped and picked us up. À la prochaine, mes amis

Paris 2008 - 28 Juin

Samedi - Paris Pride - If your only gay pride experience has been in the United States, you haven't really experienced gay pride. I've been to several pride events in the US and I finally stopped going because I became disenchanted with all the commercialism connected with them. Everyone was simply out to get as much money from you as they could. Insurance companies, security companies, real estate companies, banks. They were all represented and all of them were there just for the money. Also, adding to my disenchantment, was the fact that most of the participants were not truly representative of the gay community.

Today, we went to the Paris Gay Pride event. It was so refreshingly different. Not one vendor selling anything but pride objects (flags, dolls, balloons) or food. Thousands of people, mostly young, turned out to enjoy the spectacle. The crowd was estimated at between 400,000 and 700,000. At least fifty precent of them were straight. And when was the last time you saw the openly gay mayor of a world class city attend the pride events?

We got there around 15h30 after walking for miles because bus service was discontinued because of the parade route from Place Denfert-Rochereau to Place de la Bastille. Even so, when we arrived there, the place was jammed with people and music was blasting throughout the Place. We heard it for about four blocks before we got to it. They had set up a giant stage with all the DJ paraphernalia, including the ever-present flashing lights. The parade had started at 14h00 and since they were walking all the way across the city, I assumed they wouldn't get to Place de la Bastille until about 16h00. I was wrong. The first float didn't show up until almost 17h00.

While we were waiting for the parade, we walked to the edge of the Place which overlooks the Bastille métro station and the Port de l’Arsenal, where a lot of lucky barge owners get to moor their barges for the summer in the middle of Paris. As you can well imagine, competition for the relatively few moorings is quite spirited.

We didn't get to really "see" much of the parade because the closest we could get to the street was about ten bodies back. We could see most of the "floats" though, because they were mostly large tractor-trailers and high enough above the crowd for a decent view.

While we were watching the parade, I saw two guys, one of whom looked very much like a guy I have seen in the bars in Fort Lauderdale. I got brave and went up and asked if they were from there. One guy (the one I think I recognized) said nothing and the other guy said he lives in Paris. He did recommend a gay restaurant named Aux Trois Petits Cochons (The Three Little Pigs). We'll check it out one of these days.

We watched until there were no more floats coming down the street and started wandering around a bit. I was somewhat tired and Robb suggested we try to go to a café. I laughed at the idea because with all these people in this place, there was no way we were going to find a table at any of the cafés. Well, don't ask me how, but we walked to the closest café and there waiting, as though someone had known we were coming, was one table with two chairs. You've never seen two guys move so fast. Comfortably seated on the café terrasse, we ordered deux bières and sat back to enjoy the multi-faceted crowd parading before us.

Among the people we saw were a group of guys wearing kilts, except one guy didn't have a regular "skirt", he had a mini-skirt. I kept waiting to see if it was true that they wear nothing under their skirts, but he never did bend far enough to give me a glance. There was a group of about six drag queens, who were kind of sad, because most of them were way beyond the age when they would have looked lady-like. Now they just looked like tired, badly-dressed old men pretending to be women. There was a small group of three or four leather guys, one of whom was wearing something like you might see in one of the old Roman gladiator films. A lot of girls were after them to have pictures taken with them, and I must say, they were very accomodating.

That was the prevailing attitude of the day, I think. There was a lot of drinking, of course, but I didn't see anyone who could have been called drunk. Everyone just seemed very laid-back and okay with whatever went on around them.

Of course, there were a lot of gay flags of various sizes. Some were carried aloft while others were worn like superhero capes.

The last of the parade didn't show up until after 20h00. After we had thought it was over, they just sort of kept straggling into the Place. When the last of them did arrive, Robb and I gave up our table and mingled with the crowd. Somehow, over a throng of people, I saw a guy selling small gay flags and we each purchased one. Then we wandered around just watching people and enjoying the really loud music. When we had been sitting at the café terrasse, it was sometimes so loud, it actually rattled the windows of the café. There were people dancing almost everywhere you looked; in the street, on top of taxi stands, on top of bus stop stands and on the steps of the Opéra Bastille.

After I had taken most of my pictures, I remembered that my Canon A530 is supposed to be able to take videos, so I had a look to see if I could figure out how to do that. There is a movie camera like symbol and I guessed that was the thing to use, so I moved it to the on position and pushed the start button. I couldn't tell if it was doing anything or not, but when I got home and downloaded the pictures, sure enough one of them turned out to be a short video. Now that I know how to do that, look for more. I still don't know how long they can be, but I'll experiment wih it till I find out.

Here is a video of the local news coverage. All my pictures can be seen at Flickr under Paris Pride.

The festivities were announced as "over" around 21h00 and we started the long hike back to the apartment. We walked all the way to Place Léon Blum, where we stopped at Le Rey for dinner. While we were there, a goup of about seven or eight Japanese people came in. They ordered and after a tiny taste, got up and left. Just across from us were two British guys and a girl, who were still there when we left.

Plus à venir, mes amis.

Paris 2008 - 15 Mai

15 Mai - This is our NEW favorite French song by our NEW favorite French star:


We didn't really plan to do anything today except go to the store because we had run out of a few essentials (wine). We walked to Franprix, and the local pharmacie, got the things we wanted, plus a few that caught our fancy while we were there, and returned to the apartment. We are definitely thinking of buying one of those little carts with wheeels that people here use when they go shopping. I did think you might be interested in the parking situation in Paris. It is a major hassle and you can pay as much for a garage as for an apartment. Most people just take their chances finding a place on the street, and that's especially true in our working class neighborhood. There are some free spaces, but mostly they are areas in which you have to pay a parking fee. They don't have parking meters like you find in the US, they have one or two machines per block at which you make your payment. I think that's a much more viable method. Of course, that's just for those who own a car. Motorcyclists usually use this method.

We came back to the apartment, sat around for a while, had lunch which was a sandwich with ham, tomato and cheese we had just bought, then sat around some more. We were both getting a case of "cabin fever" after a while, so I suggested we go for a walk. Robb was more than ready for that also.

Before we really got started, we stopped at a shoe repair shop so Robb could check on the shoelaces because the ones he bought were a bit too short. The lady who waited on him was so very nice. She even put the laces in his shoes after he bought them.

My original idea was to walk down to Place Léon Blum, and then follow the bus route down rue Chemin Vert for a few blocks. Everytime we've taken the bus, I've seen a store on that rue that had nice leather jackets in the window, and I wanted to check it out. Of course, we ended up on the wrong street, but at the time I wasn't sure that it wouldn't turn into the street for which I was looking, so we just kept walking. It finally dawned on me that it was the wrong street, and I suggested we try one more street over. Sure enough, that was rue Chemin Vert. So we walked all the way down to Boulevard Richard Lenoir.

I couldn't believe we had walked so far, but then with the Colonne de Juillet staring me in the face, I couldn't deny the length of our journey. As we traversed Blvd Lenoir, we came across an office supply store. It was the famous Office Depot with which we're all familiar. There are several in the city. I have been looking for a refill for my pen in every place that sold pens that we've come across, but to no avail, so I figured why not try Office Depot, and sure enough, they had the one I needed. I bought a package of ten for about €3.

We continued down the boulevard to Place de la Bastille, where we came upon a flea-market-like thing that has been there since we first got here. We checked it out, stopping at an oriental booth, where I bought a couple of oriental jackets for €15. I tried to bargain them down to €10 and thought I had been successful until the guy handed me back €5 change for a €20 note. It was still a bargain. We passed one booth where they were selling incense. It smelled so good and I was hoping Robb would buy one, but he didn't.

Then, we made our way through the crowd to rue de la Roquette where we got the bus back to our area. I've told you before about the cool offer they have here for getting ADSL-TV-Téléphone and today I was lucky enough to come across an advert for it. If you're pc gives you a large enough picture (or if your eyes are good) you can see that the offer is €19.90 for the first three months, then €29.90 per month with a €3 a month fee for the box. But even with the box, that's only about $51 bucks a month. I pay more than that for basic cable. And by the way, their ADSL is faster than our cable internet.

Plus à venir, mes amis.