Nostalgia or Denial?

What I miss about Paris this very moment- 

1. The bis. I want to give everyone two little kisses when I greet them but instead of getting to little kisses back, all I get is weird looks and awkward moments.

2. The Seine: bike rides down it, bridges over it, picnics near it, sigh. 

3. My friends! Chloe, Christina, Alyssa, Sophie, Rachel. It feels so incredibly wonderfully to share a city like Paris with girls you love.

4. The 5euro pizza from Carrefour that I would [frequently] devour in a solo sitting while drinking a 3euro bottle of delicious Sauvignon from the Loire Valley (good times). 

5. Being able to say I live in Paris 

{whatever, I said it}

Land of 10,000 Lakes

{Games Lake}

 {Lake Calhoun}

{East Cedar}

Why Minnesota extra wonderful in the summertime.

Mount Tom

The only thought in my mind Sunday morning was

 "I want to go somewhere."

As I am trying not to miss the all the lovely things across the Atlantic, I have become more determined to appreciate the little treasures that are right under my nose. 

Sunshine and state parks are nothing to complain about.

Barbette Bastille Day Block Party

Nobody ever said a transatlantic transition would be easy. 

Thankfully, this last weekend Minneapolis offered the best sort of balm for its Francophile souls.

{Barbette's Bastille Day Block Party} 

--Vin blanc, s'il vous plaît.--

The local restaurant specializing in French dining and amusements (I like amusements!) threw a swinging block party - food, libations, live music. Scorching heat didn't stop lots of cool young things from coming out to celebrate France & prison-storming revolutions, and let's be honest, day drink.

Super French, huh? 

The food was good but I still got a little wistful dreaming of Parisian street food: kabobs, samari sauce, a nutella and banana crepe (drool).  

Also, lots of scantily-clad females, baseball caps and scary pronunciations of Bastille Day made good reminders of our middle America coordinates.  

Rouge, Bleu et Blanc. 

{{Red, White and Blue}}

\\\a tangible little piece of Paris/// 

 The music was awesome all day but when Astronautalis jumped on stage, he killed it. The crowd got into it and it was the perfect icing on the cake for a day that reminded me of why I love Minneapolis. It is full of creative people that aren't afraid to get excited about the things that they like, something the Parisienne self-aware cool doesn't aways permit. 

But hey, maybe this is our Midwest science. 

Sand, Sun and San Pellegrino

A pretty perfect way to spend a {scorching} Saturday afternoon. 

 Reuniting with friends East Cedar [Hidden Beach] in Minneapolis.

Poem of Wonder at Resurrection of Wheat

Poem of Wonder at the Resurrection of Wheat

{Walt Whitman}

Something startles me where I thought I

was safest,

I withdraw from the still woods I loved,

I will not go now on the pastures to walk,

I will not strip my cloths from my body to meet

my lover the sea,

I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other

flesh, to renew me

How can the ground not sicken of men?

How can you be alive, you growths of spring?

How can you furnish health, you blood of herbs,

roots, orchards and grain?

Are they continually putting distempered 

corpses in the earth?

Is not every continent worked over and over with

sour dead?

Where have you disposed of those carcasses of 

drunkards and gluttons of so many generations?

Now I am terrified at the earth! it is calm

and patient

It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions

It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with

such endless successions of diseased corpses

It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused

fetor,

It renews with such unwitting looks, it's prodigal,

annual sumptuous crops,

It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts

such leavings from them at last.

Moonrise Kingdom

Time has slowed down, so much time to contemplate the moonrise kingdom.

In My Sky At Twilight 

{Pablo Neruda}

In my sky at twilight you are like a cloud
and your form and colour are the way I love them.
You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lips
and in your life my infinite dreams live.

The lamp of my soul dyes your feet,
the sour wine is sweeter on your lips,
oh reaper of my evening song,
how solitary dreams believe you to be mine!

You are mine, mine, I go shouting it to the afternoon's
wind, and the wind hauls on my widowed voice.
Huntress of the depth of my eyes, your plunder
stills your nocturnal regard as though it were water.

You are taken in the net of my music, my love,
and my nets of music are wide as the sky.
My soul is born on the shore of your eyes of mourning.
In your eyes of mourning the land of dreams begin.

Pink Flowers & Champs Elysee Picnic

The great start

to a finally

{sunny} Sunday. 

Daniel Buren / Monumenta 2012 / Grand Palais

You can never be bored in Paris.

The days are {too} rapidly disappearing and I am desperate to drink in as much of the city's culture tonic as possible so that I fly back in a complete state of intoxication. 

Every year the Grand Palais invites an artist to create specially to fill the impressively enormous 13,500m² nave of the Grand Palais for Monumenta. 

This year it was Daniel Buren's 

[EXCENTRIQUE(S) TRAVAIL IN SITU]

(Eccentric Work  In Situ)

Incredible really. A big play on color, light and perspective. Under the carpet of colored disks with black and white stalks, one felt like a  small creature within technicolor forest.

A Good Reminder

On the wall at L'Inconnu

[a new, very hyped and seriously cool bar in the 10eme]

Expect lots of cool young Parisians, 10euro cocktails and a techno dance party in the basement.

17 Rue de Mazagran 7510

Frieder Burda / Granet Museum

The special exhibit at the Musee Granet was a particularly pleasant surprise. 

It was the first time Frieder Burda's exceptional collection of Expressionist and Neo-Expressionist pieces had shown in any other museum but his own. 

Burda is a German art collector with a particular interest in Expressionism. A greater emphasis on instinct, introspection and a certain mysticism was the characteristic of the artistic movement of this trend. Starting in the 1890s, certain artists abandoned the representation of an objective reality, following the example of Impressionism, in favor of a free expression of their individual subjectivity. As you can imagine, the resulting works are quite varied and  interesting. 

Among Picasso and Pollock, there was a lot of work by Gerhard Richter. 

Gerhard Richter / Le Chateau de Neuschwanstein / 1963

Considered by many to be on of the most famous living painter, Gerhard Richter defines himself as an artist without a style. As an eclectic artist, he practices all types of paintings and he has a great capacity for renewal and setting himself new challenges. 

Bouillon Chartier

Rachel is our default restaurant guru (literally, she never recommends a bad place), so when she suggested historic (since 1890!) Bouillon Chartier for Chloe's last dinner, we were all in agreement. It was perfect, very inexpensively priced and very French. 

You have to wait for a spot outside the restaurant (7 Rue de Faubourg Montmarte 75009) in a small courtyard but the ambiance alone is worth the wait.

It appropriately has been awarded for its inexpensive prices...

And it has all the classics - escargot, poulet roti, escalope de veaux, boeuf bourguignon...

We closed it down with a couple of bottles and of course, some mustaches.

Traveling Alone

I really enjoyed my weekend in Aix-en-Provence. 

And I was all on my lonesome. 

 Don't be afraid to go sit down in a cafe and drink some booze solo. I was sitting at this cafe admiring the atmosphere, reading and enjoying some wine when a very nice young French Brazilian engaged me in conversation. I learned a lot more about the city and made a foreign friend, score.

Farewells & Celebratory Sparklers

Chloe's departure is imminent. 

We had a close friends over for a little fete the other evening.

[how can I possibly say adieu to French wine and cheese?]

\\sparklers in the courtyard//