Mer, Soleil, Paris, Aznavour, la Famille

Place de l'Opera

Champs Elysees

How to park your Smart car

The Seine by Notre Dame

Rue de la Montagne Ste Genevieve

Stained Glass in Eglise St Etienne du Mont

"France makes me happy!" :)

Eglise St Etienne du Mont

A new coat in front of the Pantheon

After the concert

In front of the Olympia concert hall

Charles Aznavour rocks!

Another nice day by the sea...

We spent our time from Sept. 11-18 between Nice, Strasbourg, and Paris. The heat wave was still hitting Europe and we enjoyed days at the beach as if we would be still in July... Quite a treat coming from Denmark where the summer had long long long disappeared...

Our main motivation for going "North" to Paris via Strasbourg was our tickets to a concert by Charles Aznavour at the famous French music hall called l'Olympia. At 87 years old he had booked the concert hall for an entire month with plans to then tour the rest of France until Christmas.

In a shape that most of us near 40 could envy, he sang 27 songs over 2 and half hours, with no break! The warm energy in the room was quite palpable, even to C who was missing out on half of the French lyrics. This evening really illustrated how Charles Aznavour is sort of a grand father to pretty much any family in France. People just love him, and he clearly loves to be on stage. It looked like he was at home, at least more than on the TV sets where he has been spending a lot of time these days, advertising for his concerts, his new album, and his latest book.

This evening was not only great, it felt like a so unique and perfect way to spend an evening in Paris! Especially with a fine early dinner before at the old Parisian restaurant Chartier and an aperitive on the boulevard, at sunset, right before the concert... Chrysa also chose this opportunity to get herself a brand new and cheerful coat from Desigual that has since attracted much envious looks from other women ;-)

We also spent a fair amount of time exploring Paris' past and history, by visiting some of its oldest sites and paying homage to Sainte Genevieve, one of Paris' first patron saints who rests in the church of Saint Etienne du Mont in the Latin Quarter. During our visit we met a French fan of 17th century painting who joined us on a tour and shared his knowledge of what we were seeing. We ended this quite inspiring day with a dinner at L'epigramme, a modern Paris bistro. We ate there with Q's sister Sigo, who will be studying in Paris this year, and her boyfriend, Manu. Then Sigo took us all to the Grand Palais (built at the end of the Champs Elysees avenue at the same time as the Eiffel tower) for a special exhibition and "meditation in action" for the victims of the Fukushima nuclear accident.

On our way to Paris we made a stop-over in Strasbourg to return Q's parents car that we had been borrowing for too many months now... That was a quick but always enjoyable opportunity to cross Q's beloved Switzerland, and also to remain in awe at the wonderful vistas on the Aosta valley in Northern Italy. After this scenic but a bit long trip (10 hours in the car...), we were welcome by Q's parents and grand father. We enjoyed a fine dinner, with C now able to participate and even launch complete conversations in French with Q's family! They were all quite impressed (they should be!).

Dynamo Fukushima - Grand Palais

Catching up on 2010: Ah, Paris!

On a normal day, the fast train that runs between Paris and Brussels takes a bit more than an hour to get from one capital city to the other. December 20th was not a normal day.

Very cold temperatures had interfered with proper functioning of som

e of the cars on the train. So half of them were missing by the time the train pulled in at the Brussels station, coming from Amsterdam. The problem was two-fold: our seats were on one of the missing cars, and no one on the platform knew that was the case... There were of course much people in the same predicament, running from one end of the train to the other, wondering what to make of this unexpected situation. Missing cars could

have simply meant they were going to be added while the train was sitting at the station... Quite chaotic, but remarkably typical of Belgium, in some way.

C had the good idea to just board the train wherever, and that happened to be a first class coach. By that time other folks were doing the same thing, because after all, the train had been planned to stay for only a few minutes before leaving for Paris. So here we were, standing with others in first class. Half an hour after our departure, a message finally announced passengers about the missing cars, and that the train would also be delayed since it was running less fast on those icy tracks.

The whole event made for an interesting situation, people chatting with each other, like we did with this Texan professor who was on vacation from a sabbatical in the UAE. We were standing, sitting on our suitcases, our seated fellows offering us occasionally to trade places with them. We arrived late in Paris of course, but early enough to still shop for dinner and host as planned our friends Leo and Virginie where we were staying at (Leo's sister apartment, while she was on some skiing holiday).

Paris is now the beloved home o

f one of C's favorite fashion stores, Antoine & Lili. Hence, while we were there, we naturally visited their pink/yellow/green flagship store right on the canal Saint Martin, a very scenic area in the middle of Paris. Q also enjoyed some of his favorite book stores, and an exhibit of renowned artist Jean Giraud a.k.a. Moebius.

We both liked to just walk around Paris, still one of the most enjoyable things to do. Especially when such walks lead you to get some delightful macarons from Pierre Hermé, which you can actually order online, if you don't live in Paris or Japan... These are not to die for, but to be resuscitated for ;-)

We even had some macarons left for our train ride toward Strasbourg, which we expected would also not go "as normal" since temperatures were not getting any higher as we would come closer to "France's Siberia"—as Q's grand mother liked to refer to Alsace...