A mostly grey week made me hanker for more sunshine, but as I was busy catching up with various course load from my online classes, among other things, time just flew by and before I knew it, we were packing our bag to go away for the weekend to attend a family event, and by the time we got back to Paris, my best friend was settling in into our apartment with a cup of hot chocolate and awaiting our return. Next few days will be busier than ever!

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21 Oct: It is easy to walk down rue de Rivoli and identify the building that is today an art squat. I’ve photographed 59 rue de Rivoli for my previous Project 365, and it appears the exterior of the building is ever so lively! The changes made had been subtle, in terms of forms of the decor given the theme promoted by the artists in residence, but the materials used seem to be similar, mostly clothes and string-based. I like this new “kite-like” theme more than the old “pants-like” theme.

22 Oct: Chloé is quite a gardener, isn’t she? She dried some seeds from her crop of cherry tomatoes last year and planted them a few months ago. For a couple of months now, she has been enjoying the fruit of her green fingers and quite generously shares some of them with us too. Since I risk killing just about any plant under my care, I am completely envious of her thriving crops. She plans to repeat the process next year, and may send a pot over to my place and see how things go. Given my record, I’m not particularly optimistic about harvesting my own cherry tomatoes…

23 Oct: In conjuction with an exhibition of the Italian director, Pasolini, a couple of metro stations in Paris have been transformed. Not only those stations bear the posters related to the exhibition, even their names were changed. Italianised. Rome naturally becomes Roma, and Place d’Italie is now Piazza d’Italia. If there is a Venise within the system, it would have been renamed Venezia – sadly there isn’t such station here. We are debating if we would see one or two of his movies that are being shown as part of the retrospective movie festival.

24 Oct: On a first glance, it appears this street art is depicting a soldier, laughing at a joke or two as a measure to relief his tension, possibly after a long day of harrowing work in the field of combats. On a closer look though, he seems to have lost his head. Something in him broke after day in, day out of just trying to survive in the battlefield. He sadly lost his internal fight…

25 Oct: Ciaran stayed with us last night, and this morning, we decided to head out for breakfast. Colorova is in the neighbourhood and had just recently changed its operating hours to start early in the morning, at 7.30am instead of 10.00am, so we took advantage of this schedule so F can join us too before heading out to work. We were the only ones there this early in the morning, and Ciaran was openly admiring the unusual and tasteful decor, including these bright couches with ethnic motifs.

26 Oct: My beaux-parents decided we should go out for a nice meal and a walk this afternoon, and we ended up in Guenrouet, a village by the Nantes-Brest (East) Canal. After a delicious meal at Le Relais St Clair – the pink building in the photo – we went on a long walk along the canal. The canal has an impressive total length of 385km initially but today stands at 365km due to the construction of Lake Guerlédan (to power a dam of the same name) which breaks the canal. It is an impressive engineering feat, and given most of the canals are canalised rivers as opposed to manmade channels, there is a rich ecosystem around and in the canals. Long distance cycling trip could be really fun here.

27 Oct: Now, how’s that for an impressive wave crashing in!? After the fine weather we had yesterday, it became more wild overnight and we woke up to strong winds that send waves after waves onto shore at a speed of up to 140km/h, causing powercuts and ferry cancellations through parts of Brittany and Normandy. Luckily, we were not affected and instead, we got to see the force of mother nature first hand while cocooned inside, safe and warm. Our journey back to Paris in the evening was plagued by rain, but that’s really not that big a deal.