Things you might see on the street

Well, let's see now: a middle-aged Indian gentleman with his hair and beard bleached platinum blond, wearing bright purple clothing and bright yellow shoes, taking some beverages out for a walk.  Huh. There's something you don't see every day - unless of course you live in Paris, in which case you might just see it all the time...

Tell me more, tell me more

On Sunday night, I went with some friends to see a free, open-air screening of Grease (in English with French subtitles, which was a good thing, but imagine how amusing it would have been dubbed into French - hee!) at the Parc de la Villette.  It was, as you can imagine, quite a popular event and hugely entertaining for all, although there were certain, er, subtleties to some of the song lyrics that our French friends had difficulty understanding, even though they speak very good English.  For example, just give some thought to exactly how one explains the lyrics to Greased Lightnin'.  I'll just wait while you think about that for a moment...  

Anyway, a good time was had by all, helped along by a few of our picnic ingredients below.  Yep, it's Paris, that's just how we roll here.

Totally crap outfit of the week

So the real tragedy here is that I can see where this nice lady wanted to go with this look.  Really, I can.   I do read the fashion magazines and I hear that leather shorts are shortly (excuse the pun) to be very fashionable. Welllllll, maybe.  I could get on board with wearing them for the autumn/winter season with some tights and boots, and that might be quite adorable.  HOWEVER.  Wearing leather shorts in August when the temperature is over 30C??? Nooooooo.  I'm dreadfully sorry, but unless your name IS, in fact, Fritz, and you ARE, in fact, herding goats on some Tyrolean mountain, just step back - waaaaaaay back -  from the freakin' lederhosen, okay?  If it wouldn't be too much trouble????  Thanks.  Love, Miss K

Quote of the day

I was out with my friend Hippie Chick and she was telling me about her husband and how fantastic he is (awww!).  This is how she put it: "Yeah, he's great.  In fact, all my friends are lined up waiting for me to die so that they can get a shot at him."  Now that's romance, people. Hee!

Day with the dead

Okay, I have a confession to make - I like cemeteries.  They're peaceful and beautiful and full of stories, and I can spend hours just wandering around in one.  What?  I'm shallow, it doesn't mean I don't have layers (admittedly they're shallow layers, but nonetheless).  So imagine the delight I always take in visiting Pere Lachaise, one of the most interesting cemeteries in the world, final resting place for Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde and a host of other luminaries.  It's an amazing place and if you're ever in Paris, you should make time for a visit - you will find beauty, melancholy, weirdness, fascinating stories and downright creepiness.  Enjoy the photos...

Too many topics

I started wondering if anyone actually reads this thing, so I just didn't bother updating it for a week.  And yes, I know that's bad but I was feeling demotivated and I didn't have much material to talk about anyway.  However, after the email bollocking I have received over the past few days from loyal readers who basically told me to get off my lazy arse and get writing, I am back, baby!

It's probably good that I took this little break, actually, because my brain is now positively overflowing with material to write about...but which topic first?  The totally crap outfit of the week?  My day with the dead?  The quote of the week?  Paris as a ghost town?  The new Lost Generation?  The revolting lack of customer service in this city (yeah, I've talked about that before but I have a whole new rant coming up)? Suddenly being able to see English-language tv after 10 months of being deprived of it?  Finding inspiration from unlikely sources?

Yep, that's all coming up.  But the decision for what to write about today was taken out of my hands, because as I was sitting at my dining room table writing this, I just saw a guy riding down my street on a bicycle.  Nothing interesting about that, except that he was making vroom-vroom motorcycle noises. Yelling them out so loudly that I could hear him from three floors above street level.  I just... I... words escape me to describe this level of crazy.  Paris, man.  Sometimes I don't even have to do any work, this stuff just happens right in front of me...

Ennui? Oui.

You know that feeling when you come back from vacation and everything seems just a bit....blah?  Okay, I am perfectly aware that I'm not going to get a lot of sympathy, considering that the place I came back to is Paris, but you know what I'm saying, right?  I'm just feeling a bit flat and uninspired, which is why I haven't written this week, but today I am going to shake it off and just make it happen.  I am about to slap on some sunscreen, put on some good walking shoes and go for one of my really long hikes all over the city, which is something I haven't done for quite a while.  Photos will be taken, weird randomness will likely be encountered, a glass of wine might be drunk at a café, and inspiration will occur.  Or so I tell myself.  Tune in tomorrow to see if I get my writing groove back...

Magical Marrakech - Part 7

I'm actually not still in Marrakech, I'm back in Paris, but as I didn't get a chance to post about our last day there (no time on the actual day and technical difficulties between my laptop and my camera since then - and was I going to do a post about our last day in Marrakech with no photos?  I don't think so), I am afraid this one is a little bit behind the times.

Nevertheless, our last day there was excellent - Bronx Girl was fully recovered and so we dashed around doing the few things we hadn't managed to previously fit in.  We paid an early morning visit to the Majorelle Gardens (famously owned and restored by Yves St Laurent - apparently he had his ashes scattered here, and who could argue with such a beautiful final resting place?), which turned out to be my favourite place there - it's a tranquil oasis of blues and greens in a very hot, crazy city.  If you are going to visit Marrakech, I highly recommend a visit here (it's not a big place so come early to avoid the big tour bus crowds), but do it toward the end of your trip as you will really appreciate the peaceful surroundings by then!

At the entrance

The light was just beautiful

The exquisite waterlily pond...

...where there were turtles!

It's amazing that turtles are cute, but they really, really are.

The nice people at Canon make fabulous cameras - I was about 10 ft away for this shot!

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Another water feature

The villa

We also thought we should check out the ruins of the Badii Palace, seeing as how they were right behind our riad:

See the plants? That's our roof terrace.  See the storks?  That's the palace wall.

There isn't actually a great deal to see at the palace as it was pretty much completely plundered, but since the plundering took twelve whole years to accomplish, you can easily imagine how impressive it must have been, back in the day.  The shell of the palace is vast and there's virtually no shade, so if you do go there, don't do it in the full heat of the afternoon (which is what we did, but we had no choice as we were leaving later that day).

And that was it - our trip to Marrakech, I hope you've enjoyed hearing about it.  One final picture, as it was the last one I took on our way out of town:

More storks, just hanging out at the mosque.