Things you might see by the Seine

For those of you who don't know, Paris brings the beach to the city every summer - they truck in a few tons of sand and create a beach alongside the river, complete with loungers, ice cream stands, beach umbrellas, water features and so forth.  And this year, one gigantic mofo of a sandcastle...

A week in Westeros

Gentle readers, I must apologize for my recent absence - I unexpectedly took a vacation.  My office was closed last week, and I just didn't know what I was going to do with myself as I couldn't afford to go away anywhere for a holiday, and Paris is a ghost town in August.  So, having thoroughly enjoyed the fabulous "Game of Thrones" on TV, I decided I would read the first book in the series just for all the extra details, and then I'd eventually read the next book after the next season of the show.  But it didn't quite happen like that.  I got to the end of the first book and promptly ran out to buy the next one...and then the one after that...and then the one after that.  I literally couldn't stop - I was so enthralled I was up until 4 or 5am every night reading.  My laundry didn't get done, my dishes stacked up in the sink, my emails piled up in my Inbox, I saw no one, I barely took the time to shower and get dressed.  So blame one Mr George R.R Martin for luring me away from you - six books, 5060 pages, 11 days of reading and now that I'm done, I feel like I've actually taken a vacation after all.  Because, trust me -  a world full of dragons and hot men in armour is waaaay more exciting than Paris in August...

Let's try that again

Sorry about yesterday - as I said, I'm really going to try to finally achieve a perfect record of posting every day this month, but as I ended up going out with Tiny Dancer and English Rose for a drink yesterday afternoon, it kind of turned into an all-day-and-all-evening sort of thing and I had to blog from the bar on my iPhone just to make the deadline.  (And yes, I felt like a pretentious idiot for doing it - the things I do for you, gentle readers...)

So, as I said, I was at Rosa Bonheur in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont last night - it's  a famous bar in Paris, but you may not have heard of it as it doesn't seem to be in the guidebooks.  It's an interesting combination of outside (picnic tables, everyone chilled out and relaxing) and inside (full-on disco nightclub), not to mention that the park is high up, so you get a spectacular view of the sun setting over the rooftops of Paris.  Highly recommended for a summer evening...

Favourite Paris photos - 24

Tales from Toronto (Part 2)

Toronto is an awesome place to live.   The weather is great in the spring, summer and autumn (okay - admittedly, winter can be a little rough), we have a lake so big you could fit a hefty chunk of Europe into it, and we have world-class theatre, opera, ballet, restaurants, bars, music, wine, sports teams (okay - admittedly that one is stretching it a bit) and so forth.  But no matter how sophisticated and cosmopolitan Toronto can be, it's still a place where someone can get on the subway with a circular saw tied to his belt and no one will give him a second look.  You don't get that on the Paris Metro...

Slightly misplaced generation

Okay, wait a minute - how exactly did it get to be the end of September already???  I thought the craziness of summer in Paris was going to die down a bit as we eased into autumn, but looking at my calendar, I realize that I have been to 17 social events in the past 27 days - no wonder I've been such a...how to put it?... slightly erratic correspondent, shall we say? 

But I have a theory about what's going on here - my circle of expat friends in Paris is all very Lost Generation: we have no money but we somehow manage to go out (hence the summer of picnics - relaxing in a park with a bottle of wine and a baguette is one of the cheapest and nicest things to do in Paris), we drink far too much, most of us are creative in one way or another, and we hang out together all the time.  But there is good reason for this - when your friends are expats, you never know how long they'll be here, because Paris is very expensive and can be difficult, and for one reason or another, people leave.  In just the past few months, Chica Libre (who writes the great blog of the same name, look for the link on the right side of this page) has moved to New York; Bronx Girl has gone back to Los Angeles; and the Southern Belle (previously known in this blog as Miss RA, but this nickname is better) headed off to Italy.  And as wonderful as it is to have them as friends wherever they are, it sucks that they're not still here.  So I think the moral here is to appreciate the people you're with, because you never know when they just might not be around anymore.  Or it could just be an excuse for us to all drink more wine...

Totally crap outfit of the week

Ahhh, summer - responsible for oh-so-many fashion crimes.  Witness the below - I mean, really.   Those god-awful harem pants are hideous on anyone, but if you're wearing them when you are already shaped like a Weeble, it's downright dangerous -   someone might give you a shove, just to see if it's true that Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down.  (Not that falling down would hurt this lady, seeing as how she appears to be wearing a bucket on her head.)  And the clearly visible black bra is a classy touch, but I think perhaps the tartan shoes are my favourite thing - you're getting  dressed and you think: "Hmmm, bucket on my head, clearly visible black bra, harem pants that make me look like a Weeble - now what shall I put on my feet?  Perhaps a nice simple black ballet flat?  Oh, hells no - the tartan shoes with the ankle strap that make me look like my legs are literally two inches long, that's the way to go!"