croque-choux

Where I spent my blog break:

I'm back from a wonderfully relaxing vacation in Denmark! The good news is that my leg is almost all better now (no more crutches!). The bad news is that I'm also back at work, so I'll just have to carry these images around in my head and chant "Happy place, happy place" for a few days until I'm used to it!

Street Art

Street Art, Copenhagen. July 2005.

I just love it when I stumble upon things like this while I'm out walking around. I wonder who did this little graf? I get a childish sort of thrill out of finding things like this :o) I especially like these Space Invader mosaics you see in the street sometimes. I've only seen a couple of these in Paris, but this French artist has left his mark in lots of other big cities including my hometown (Los Angeles). Fun! So are the nifty tennis shoes he designed. And speaking of art in the streets, don't forget to look down sometimes. Look at this fantastic manhole cover I photographed in Odense!

Postcards from Denmark

I'm finally feeling better, and finally started organizing my holiday photos and stuff. I promised to upload a few photos from my trip to Denmark, but I also promise this won't turn into one of those "What I did during my Summer vacation" yarns. I'll eventually just add my pictures to my sadly neglected Flickr account...

Anyway, I really thought that Denmark was picture-postcard cute and very picturesque! This will probably not show up in my photos, but I like them anyway. I imagined the Little Mermaid less lonely, but she's beautiful and here she is calming looking out over the sea. You can see how little she seems compared to the big cruise ship in the background. The boat was from Sweden I think. Someday I would love to go on a cruise on a ship like this and see all of Scandinavia. Imagine the fjords, the food, the scenery... the shopping! The first week we stayed near Copenhagen, and one of the first things we did was take a stroll around Nyhaven. It was like walking in a postcard :o) Only colder. Did I mention that we had bad luck with the weather?

Back from Denmark!

I'm back! We loved Denmark!! Great country, great people, great food, great sightseeing, great Danish design... and so-so weather. More about all that later- I got back late Saturday, and I'm still trying to get my head around being back and unpacking and cleaning house (bleah!). I missed my lil' bloggie and my iMac!!! Stay tuned...

An exotic weekend

Well, the weekend is almost over and turned out to be kind of busy. I've planned some time for sewing and crafting later on though!
Let's see... yesterday we went to this museum to see the Pharoah exhibit that people have been lining up for ever since it opened. The expo ends soon, so we decided to go and thankfully there were no long lines. I don't get it though... The expo was very nice, but not worth all the hype or waiting an hour in line. No picture taking allowed either, unless you ask for permission which explains why I'm not posting a photo or two. The only thing I did take a picture of was the inside of the huge shop across from the museum. I thought this piece of furniture was awesome, and the wall hanging next to it is actually a big appliqued quilt! From far away I thought it was woven or printed because it's so intricate.
On the way home we passed through my old neighborhood in the 13th quarter, also known as Chinatown here, to stock up on some goodies. My son is very fond of little banana cakes sold in many of the shops, but I think they're Vietnamese or Thai. Hey and look what I found near the almond cookies- these little green tea flavored marshamallows from Japan! I only hesitated for a nano-second ("2 and a half Euros...? oh well!"). They turned out to be yummy, but I'm totally intrigued by these instructions I found on the back of the package. Am I supposed to add water or something and put these in the microwave or what?? I wonder...
That was Saturday anyway, and half of Sunday was spent taking my son to see the latest Starwars movie. I hate waiting in lines, epecially movie lines, but it was worth it. Still this was nothing compared to the huge lines I remember seeing on Hollywood blvd. in the 70's when the 1st Starwars came out! That one is on TV tomorrow, so at least my son won't be confused now that he's seen all the prequels.

traffic jammin'

It is SO nice to unwind in front of my computer after a hectic day like today. I made the mistake of driving in to Paris today, which was a big-ass mistake (excuse my French) because it's Friday and the weather is nice so everybody and their mother was on the streets. I do this every time: I always swear that I will never ever take the car there again on a Friday and then I forget. People are so impatient at the wheel here too! In traffic I was all: "this is nerve-wracking... or is it nerve-wrecking? Oh no, I'm forgetting my English! Ohmygosh, I'm going to be late picking my kid up from school! Oh merde, I wasn't I supposed to turn left there?!" I really think I need a hot bath and a rice hotpack on my neck... (I think I'll make a new one) I'll add another post in a little while, after I unstress myself.

A rainy outing in Versailles

Went for a walk Monday in Versailles to air my head out a little and take some photos. (The Monday after Easter is a holiday in France by the way.) It was pretty rainy off and on, but a nice outing nonetheless. Marie Antoinette's oak tree died in February and had to be taken down, which I didn't remember until I was standing in front of the actual tree. It's sad to see a tree as large and as old as this one uprooted, lying on cobblestones. I'm not sure what will become of it, but for the moment the oak tree is in front of the Trianon where it seems to point an accusing finger at the entrance. Apparently this tree was planted in 1682 and suffered in that bad storm we had back in 1999, but the horrible heatwave we had in 2003 is what finished it off. It was known as Marie Antoinette's oak tree because they say that she enjoyed sitting in its shade in the Summer.
I've always preferred the park and gardens of Versailles to the actual chateau itself, so we didn't go in any buildings. And besides, I didn't have the strength to run after my 6 year old son in case he decided to swing on the chandeliers or something...

Happy Valentine's day!

Just wanted to send out Valentine's wishes and a little color at the same time. I'm not really a knitter, or rather I no longer knit on a regular basis like I did when I first arrived in France, but I couldn't resist buying a little of this chunky funky colorful yarn. I'm making a quickie scarf out of this.
These are colors that I would not normally buy or wear, but somehow this yarn jumped off the shelf at me. I think it's because at the moment I feel like doing something out of the ordinary. For example I've been toying with the idea of going here

Probably an oddball idea especially in Winter, but maybe not... Now this sounds irresistable to me: one of the tour packages for this place had this enticing title: On the Trace of the Elves