Whereas I owe it to Photoshop...

I am following Nature without being able to grasp her, I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. -- Claude Monet

I went on a bike trip to Giverny yesterday. The gardens were beautiful, and it was fun trying to take pictures as Monet would have framed them. I will put up my pictures some time in the very near future, I promise, but in the meantime I decided to have a little fun with photo-enhancement software...

Here's the original photo:

In which Physicsgirl meets Pepé le Pew*

*without the smelly skunk part

At Pousse au Crime last night:

I'm dancing with some friends to French (and a few English) pop songs -- not swing dancing, but freestyle, as it were. In a circle, as one does. There are a lot of people in the bar. Suddenly, there is a guy in front of me. He has taken me by the hands and is dancing between me and the people I came with, effectively cutting me from the herd. It was very neatly done. Sheep dogs could learn something from him.

   So what do you do in Paris?

   Right now, I'm dancing.

   That's great!

(I look over at Darlene, who is watching this with a look of "Do you need help?" mixed with much amusement. I'm also pretty amused. He's trying to move me away now, but with the number of people in the bar, he doesn't get far.)

   Actually, I'm dancing with my friends. Over there.

   That's okay.

(I try to gently let go and turn back to my friends. He persists and I spend the next few minutes keeping his hands away from my hips. He says something I don't quite catch because it's loud and he's speaking rather quickly.)

   I'm sorry, my French is so-so. What did you say?

   You speak English? (in English)

   Yes, but I do speak French. I just didn't get what you said... (in French)

   Where are you from? (in English)

   Canada.

   I don't care. No, where are you from?**

Et c'est fini. I couldn't possibly continue dancing with someone who didn't believe I'm Canadian! (Maybe I should get that flag after all!) Plus, you know, effective as the hands-on approach was, I like a little conversation before. I'm funny that way.



**I'm pretty sure he just misunderstood me. But wow, not shy these Frenchmen.

Il me reste qu'une semaine...

... and I feel like there is so much more I want to do here. Two days are given over to not being in Paris, and one is needed for packing, so really there are only 4 Paris days left. One month wasn't enough. Must. Chill. Frantically.

Plus I'm out of Nutella and I don't think I can finish a whole jar in a week.

Yeah, who am I kidding?

Look! New posts!

I've put up posts and pictures of my trip to the Loire Valley and my trip to Mont St-Michel. The pictures from my week of the museum pass, including the rest of the Loire Valley pix, will take a bit longer to go through. I'll let you know when they are up.

There are a few other posts about daily life and the exciting thing that happened on top of l'Arc de Triomphe sprinkled in as well.

My Mont St-Michel pictures are here:

Mont St-Michel 2010

In which Physicsgirl finds heaven...

I had read about the magical macaron in my guidebooks and on the Girls' Guide to Paris website, and I confess I couldn't see what the big deal was. I knew it was nothing like the North American macaroon, a dense, chewy concoction of coconut and meringue (which I rather like, but YMMV). A Parisian macaron is basically two flavoured almond meringue cookies sandwiched together by a flavoured cream or jam -- kind of an upscale, lighter Oreo. Little did I know...

It turns out that last week was just a warm-up...

I knew that I wanted to see Mont St-Michel. It's a UNESCO world heritage site, and more importantly, it plays a role in the 1940's espionage novel Assignment in Brittany by Helen MacInnes. The scene where the hero is saved from discovery by the dangerous Nazi being sucked into the quicksand near the mount left quite an impression.

In which our intrepid heroine gets to see a bit more of Brittany than she expected...

It was supposed to be a very simple plan: train from Paris to Rennes at 2 pm, bus from Rennes to Mont St-Michel at 4:40 pm, check-in at 6ish, dinner at around 7, wander off to see the village at around 9 pm, take spectacular photos of the mount lit up at night around 10 - 11 or so, then back to the hotel to sleep the sleep of the just.

Something Robert Burns said springs to mind all of a sudden...

Statistics

In the last 10 days...

Number stairs climbed: About 2100*
Number of "great views of the city"**(Paris or otherwise): 10
Number of museums/churches/monuments visited: 20***
Number of times I thought I was going to fall to my death: 4****
Number of times I did fall to my death: 0
Holes worn through the sole of a boot: 1
Minutes spent waiting in line: 60 (40 of those at Notre Dame, 15 at Versailles)
Kilometres walked: Lots (sorry, lost my pedometer in Amsterdam)
Number of pictures taken: ~ 1290*****

*Chartres: 300, Notre Dame: 400, Arc de Triomphe: 284 (+60ish to get to and from the underground passage), Panthéon: 300 (aprox - can't find the exact number), Louvre: 150(est.), other museums/monuments: 350 (est.), Parc des Buttes-Chaumont & 19th: 250 (est.)
**"Great view" usually means from a very high place. That you must climb many stairs to see. Except at the Pompidou Centre, where there are escalators.
***Chartres Cathedral, Chenonceau, Cheverny, Chambord, Versailles, le Grand Trianon, le Petit Trianon & l'Hameau de la Reine, Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Notre Dame Bell Tower, Crypte Archéologique, Conciergerie, Sainte Chapelle, l'Arc de Triomphe, l'Orangerie, Hôtel des Invalides & Eglise du Dôme (Napoleon's Tomb), Musée Rodin, Panthéon, Musée des Arts et Métiers, Pampidou Centre.  I did pop briefly into Notre Dame itself, so that should be 21.
****Three of those times were at Chartres.
*****Yeah, it's going to take a little while to put those up.  Fortunately, there's a longish train ride on Monday and Tuesday.  Of course, there will be many more photos by Tuesday...

It's not the fall...

Spoiler (mostly for Aged P who will have completed that sentence in her head and begun, well, not quite panicking but panicking's slightly less anxious cousin): yes, somebody fell from l'Arc de Triomphe, no, it wasn't me, no, I didn't see it, although it must have happened right after I left, and happily (?), they got off with a concussion and broken ankles.

Once upon a time...

Note: I had decided not to try and catch up before posting recent ramblings...  And I had this post all written when some gremlin didn't save it.  I'll try to redo it, but it's a week later as I type this and I may not remember all the witty things I wrote before.

I have seen how the other half lived, and let's just say it's good to be king.  Until an unruly mob drags you from your bed...

Yesterday, I took a bus trip to the Loire Valley with Paris Vision. Well, a minivan trip: it turns out only six people registered.  Four of us were in the van when the guide said "We are just waiting for two more."  We looked at each other in some dismay; it would be kind of squishy with two more people in the van.  I said: "I hate to seem uncharitable, but I hope they don't show up on time."  Fortunately, they didn't and we were very comfortable.  So comfortable, in fact, that about 15 minutes after we left, almost everyone was asleep.  It was very early.

I don't think it translates to "boîte pour les nuls..."

I watch far too much TV, as a rule, but here I look at it as cultural research. Anthropology, if you will.  What I've noticed:

I'm getting there...

I'm posting my write-ups under the dates they happened, so you may not have noticed that I've put up two posts about my first day in Amsterdam, which are here and here.  The next day is coming, I swear.  There is a very amusing story involving clogs.  I bet you can't wait.

Edited: I have been making sure my photos are up-to-date as of yesterday.  I've been adding to my various albums.  Unfortunately, Picasa won't let me start an album in the middle, so here is what you have to do:  Click on the album title under the picture, then find that photo again in the album (you may have to scroll down a bit), click on the photo again.  Then you can navigate forward and backward through the album from the new point.  (Or you could just click on the first picture to go through all the pictures in the album.)  Either way, it's a pain.

You've already seen my first day walk, but I've been walking around a lot since I got here.  I explored Ile de la Cité a bit more:

From Paris 2010: Cityscapes and Walking Tours

the Latin Quarter:

From Paris 2010: Cityscapes and Walking Tours

and Montmartre:

From Paris 2010: Cityscapes and Walking Tours

  I've also been on a great bike tour:

From Paris 2010: Cityscapes and Walking Tours

  (These are all in the same album, so you could just click once to see the whole thing.)

I've also experienced some culture: I went to the Musée National du Moyen Age (dit Cluny):

Paris 2010: Look Ma, Culture!

and to Chartres Cathedral:

Chartres 2010

This coming week is museum week.  I've got me a pass and I'm gonna use it.  I have a feeling I'll be a little museumed out by next Sunday.

It says "breakfast" so it must be healthy...

The French don't really do cereal.  It's a North American import, I think, and what is in the cereal aisle heavily favours chocolate-flavoured sugar bombs.  Calvin would be pleased.

They also have these:


Cookies for breakfast.  Awesome.

(I do keep turning the packages around to see the English side.  Which isn't there. It's as bizarre as being in the States.)

It's just my size...

It's a bit ironic that a girl who isn't big on wine finds herself in grape country.  I usually can't drink a whole bottle before it turns from oxidation, so I was thinking I'd have to do all my wine-drinking in restaurants.  Never fear: French practicality to the rescue!

Ahem

As I expected, it's taking me a while to write up some of my rambles, but I've put up photos with pithy commentary for you to enjoy.

My Amsterdam pictures are here:

Amsterdam 2010

Pictures of my Paris apartment and other daily life are here:

Paris 2010: La Vie en Rose

I took a walk down to the Seine and to get chocolate the afternoon of my first full day in Paris:

Paris 2010: Cityscapes and Walking Tours

Some pix of funny things are here:

Paris 2010: Ça m'amuse beaucoup!

I'll be adding to these albums as the month goes on.

RIP Crazy

We interrupt the regular blog for a sad announcement.

I got to Paris this evening and checked my email.  There was one waiting from my cat-sitter saying that my pretty, sweet, furry, six-toed, elderly kitty Crazy had died.  She was 17, which is a very good age, and after the big scare last September, the vet said she probably only had two or three months left.  She managed a few more than that, and I hope they were good ones. 

It was not entirely unexpected, although I hoped it wouldn't happen while I was away. To tell the truth, it doesn't really feel real yet. It will be a bit of a sad homecoming in June.

I hope my other girl, Lucy, will be okay. She and Crazy never really hit it off, but I hope she won't be too lonely when the cat-sitter isn't there. And that she comes out of hiding to get some cuddles. Well, I doubt she'll allow cuddles. Quick pets on the head, then.

She was a fine cat, a very fine cat indeed. I hope her kitty-cat soul finds lots of tea to drink.