There’s a change in the pace of my personal life this week, and instead of slowing it down a notch to catch a breather, it got cranked up to include reasonable amount of travelling for a couple of weeks. We just came back from the region of Lorraine where we attended a wedding over the long weekend, just to unpack and repack today for a week in Ireland. All these travelling is going to test my resolution when it comes to this blog’s schedule – I have opted not to travel with a laptop and I’m not normally someone who plans post(s) in advance either. Guess I will have to learn the how-to now, stat!
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6 May: It is May but the sunshine pretty much comes and goes, its level measurable by the amount of people sitting at the cafe terraces for a drink or two. On a good day, it could be a real challenge scoring a table from an already tightly packed terrace, never mind the best effort afterwards not to wince when presented with the bill that appears to have packed in also a cost for the beaming sunlight onto your table. Often (just often, not all the time), it’s worth it though.
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What a day today has been. The emotional rollercoaster evoked by the general election in Malaysia, which undermined the true spirit of fair and clean election, was followed by the disenchantment that the popular vote didn’t translate into electoral win (because, you know, when the margin is small and one does 5 recounts to include “forgotten” ballot papers, one suddenly wins and that’s the end of recount!). Malaysians deserve more than polarising rhetorics from the ruling party, race-based politics, vigilantism against phantom voters, and bald faced lies propagated through the government-controlled media… :(
On the positive side, voters are more aware of their rights and more politically involved than ever – in the past, many didn’t even care because they felt change was a hopeless quest. They know better now. Their voices will be heard louder in the coming years. For now, time to look onward and upward.
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29 Apr: There are many sculptures tucked within the Jardin des Tuileries and it seems I’m still discovering new ones each time I popped over for a stroll. Today’s find is one simply entitled Column, by Antony Cragg. Tucked just behind the Jeu de Paume, had I not been at the WHSmith to look for books and then decided to take a small walk, I may still not be aware of its existence!
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Edna and I met up on Thursday for a Vietnamese lunch not too far away from Nation. As the sky cleared up for the afternoon while we searched for something sweet – we ended up in Grom for some gelati – an afternoon flânerie was definitely in order.
We explored parts of the 5th and 6th arrondissements, the two neighbourhoods often featured in this blog. Afterall, these are my regular stomping grounds, where I work and live. I am always excited to show them off to everyone and here I am, showing them off to you too! ;)
(Note: the first three photos were taken in Nation, and the rest in the 5th and 6th arrondissements; hover over images for captions)
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It is quite a mouthful to say – Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris – and CIUP would be yet another confusing acronym among the gazillions that every French(wo)man seems to know but elusive to most expats. It is easier and simpler to call it Cité U (“see-tay yu”).
The place I called home for my first nine months in Paris is a 34-hektar park with 40 residential houses and over 5,700 housing units which hosts not only students but also researchers and visiting academics. I have mentioned it a number of times in the past, but never really show it off properly. This is my chance to rectify that. Last weekend, after our wonderful picnic at Parc Montsouris, I went over for a photowalk as well as showing F around since he was not familiar with the campus.
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This has been a week full of sunshine and bright sky, and the occasional downpour hasn’t dampened the mood at all. I find myself taking a lot more pictures than I normally would; as Sarah pointed out a few days ago, everything looks better with the sun. Without further ado, the photos from week no 16 of the year.
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15 May: Not a lot of people have love for the Tour Montparnasse. It is deemed ugly, and Parisians normally joke that the best view in Paris is the one from the top of the tower, as this is the only place one doesn’t see the tower itself. Yes, it is out of place given the architectural style of the buildings in the surrounding, but I don’t think it should be so villified. Besides, for me, this is great for giving people direction on where my neighbourhood is. “See that tall tower over there? I live just around the corner from it.”
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Paris, at its heart, is a walking city. It is not very big, approximately 105km² in size (for comparison, London is about 1500km²), and there are many lovely small streets and hidden gardens to explore by foot.
Now that the weather has been rather pleasant again after a very long winter, the amounts of time I’ve been spending walking across parks have also increased significantly. I’m also very lucky that Jardin du Luxembourg sits between home and work, so it’s not as if I’m taking massive detours!
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It was as if winter morphed overnight into summer, and today we’ve been enjoying unprecedented (for this spring anyway) a temperature hitting upward of 25°C! Despite having more work to finish up, I decided to give myself a break in the afternoon and went out for a cycle and a walk at the parks instead. The photos will come in a day or two, when I have time to go through them. In the mean time, here are the photos taken through this week.
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8 Apr: I have a confession to make. In all the years that I’ve visited Paris and that I have been living in Paris, I could count with one hand just how often I took up a seat at a cafe terrace. A little shocking? Perhaps. Afterall, Paris is the perfect city to score the front seats of the sidewalks and watch the world goes by. Perhaps I should make it my goal this summer to at least have tea or a meal al fresco, at the open terrace.
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This post happens quite by chance. In preparation of some changes to come in my life (and no, we’re not talking about starting a family or buying an apartment – not yet anyway), I started tracking my expenses not so long ago. Normally I have a pretty good idea what I spend my money on, but to actually see the amount I spent on certain things, I scared myself along the way!
Then a couple more things came my way: (1) an article that I saw on Twitter last week about budgeting based on the 50/20/30 rule – more on this below – and (2) curious friends who have been asking me about the cost of living in Paris. The former had me pondering if I’ve set my financial priorities right, while the latter had me seriously thinking about feasibility of living in Paris.
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This round up is being posted later than usual. Despite last weekend being a long one, I was busy playing host (to a visiting friend) and tourist at the same time. My friend left this morning so I guess it’s time to get back to normalcy. Work to tease out, reading to catch up on, photos to sort, and blog entries to post. And oh, making up for lost sleeping time now that we’ve lost an hour to daylight saving. ;)
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25 Mar: This bouquet of flowers reminds me of Wexford – the sunny southeast of Ireland – of which the official county colours are yellow/gold and purple. Ironically, there is very little sunshine in Paris at the moment that Wexford may well be seeing more of the fireball in the sky than here. Still, this vibrant combination does cheer the day up a little. To the big guy up there: hello, we’d like spring whenever you are ready to send it our way?
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On Friday evening, I came home to a beautiful green bag sitting on the table. Inside, a box of eggs, and these are no ordinary eggs ;)
Patrick Roger produces these specifically for Easter. The eggs have previously been emptied and thoroughly cleaned, before an even coating of dark chocolate was set within the eggs. Then, soft praline is piped into the core and finally sealed off with a dark chocolate button. Voilà! I’ll let the pictures (hover over them for captions) do the talking.
On the other hand, I’m not sure that my photographic skill does them justice though…
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A couple of weeks ago I managed to not only renew my carte de séjour but to also change the visa type to vie privée et familiale. It went well, except for the part where I forgot to bring my current carte de séjour with me and had to go home to retrieve it, oops.
Frédéric attended the appointment with me – a requirement given the change of visa type – and even though we arrived 15 minutes ahead of our appointment, we were attended to immediately. After about an hour wait while someone reviewed the file, we were informed that the application has been approved and a relevant récépissé for me was duly issued.
We celebrated this paperwork victory with a lovely lunch at Les Bouquinistes. The choice was an impromptu one. Initially we were going to go our favourite creperie near Odéon but when we passed by Les Bouquinistes, I couldn’t help but paused to take a peek at their lunch menu. The next you know, Frédéric walked in the door to ask if a table for two is available.
Choosing what we would eat couldn’t have been easier. The daily lunch menu consisted of two options for each of the courses: starter, main, dessert. Yup, you’ve guessed it, we both ordered the different items and promised to swap a few bites during the meal. Drink-wise, a glass of apricot juice for me, and a glass of white wine for Frédéric.
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This week’s selection of photos is perhaps one of the most eclectic yet. Some day, I have so much to choose from it’s actually hard to figure which to include for this weekly project round-up. Other day, limited option as I shot something on the go quickly. Then of course there were the two days of snow, but I have other non-snowy photos to share for those days, just so you’re not tired of seeing snowy pictures on this blog again.
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11 March: Oooooo hot beverages… After the wonderfully warm Saturday, the weather turned rainy on Sunday evening and cooooold on Monday. Snow had arrived on the northern parts of the country, so it was just a matter of time before it made its way to Ile-de-France. Nothing like a cuppa something warm to keep one going. And at home, I even have a supply of Horlick’s now thanks to a friend who gifted a jar to me.
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It may says March on the calendar, and we’re a mere week away from official start of spring. However, the weather is anything but that. Between yesterday and today, the temperature plunged to sub-zero level, and in Paris, the snowfall easily measured a good few inches. Not as severe as the northern part of the country, where some places received over 60cm of snow!
As the buses were not running this morning and trying to take the métro would only complicate things for me – there’d be unnecessary distance to travel before changing line and the two lines, which are already normally among the busiest in Paris, would be completely crazy on a day like this when service was reduced and there were even more demand than usual. Besides, it was not a terribly long walk, and I got rewarded with pretty winter scenes to photograph.
Without further ado, snowy Paris in March over two-day period :) (Hover over images for caption)
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Another gear has kicked in at work and the next two months will be full-throttle busy. I’m not yet sure how it will affect this project, but don’t be surprised if the photos are shot mostly between places I pass between home and lab instead of other Parisian neighbourhoods. The blame for lack of leisure reading now sits squarely on work too. I’m doing so much project-related reading that I have little wish to read more while at home…
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25 Feb: It snowed overnight so first thing I did upon arriving at work this morning was to head straight for the top floor of the building. As it was still snowing at that time, the view was not as crisp and clear as I’d like. You could just about make out where the Eiffel Tower and the dome of the Invalides are in the shot. Oh how I wish I have an office on this floor of the building…
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This winter has been the bane of my health and I am really tired of it. It seems I’m falling ill nearly every month, and this week has been the worse yet. The irony is that I’ve had a restful week last week and was preparing for a solid week of work and planning etc, only to be thwarted suddenly by a crippling flu. I had to stay put for a couple of days at home. Boo.
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18 Feb: Seeing cherry blossoms makes me happy. It just does, and I can’t explain why. Maybe it’s the imminent arrival of spring (never mind that the weather forecast for the rest of the week would be coooooold). Maybe it’s the wispy splash of soft pink. Maybe it’s its association with Chinese New Year. Maybe it’s the reminder of the beautiful view I used to get from my studio in Cité U.
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It has been a strange kind of week, which I couldn’t quite put my fingers on. The days rolled by quickly and yet everything felt stretched out in time. And weekend, well, it just disappeared. Maybe that’s a sign I’ve spent way too much time on the phone (well, plenty of calls to be made to family to send my Chinese New Year greetings) and watching rugby (nail-biting, and ultimately disappointed that both France and Ireland fared poorly)?
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4 Feb: Just how cute is this set of window display? It is a miniature orchestra set, most of the items smaller than my palm! The shop itself is one selling actual size musical instruments, mainly string instruments. Jean Pavie – Luthier can be found on Quai de la Tournelle, and this shop itself has been in operation for nearly 30 years. Creating is a work of art here, and there aren’t many of them around anymore nowadays.
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A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the level of water of River Seine had been unusually high. I made note of it during my photo round up of Week 5 and quickly forgot all about it. It appears the water level hasn’t subsided since and remains at flood level that footpaths of the embankments are currently closed for safety reasons.
A few days later, I was out after work one evening along the quay again, and this time, I saw water that had spilled over what was normally a pedestrianised path. I guess, given the amount of snow and rain we’ve been getting this winter, this is to be expected. Little did I know that there have been warnings given by the city about the high level of River Seine. I do read the news nowadays, really, except my news feed had been kinda swamped by articles relating to the raging debate in the Assemblée Nationale.
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As I’ve promised previously, back to normal transmission. I’m glad that the days are getting longer, but I’m a tad frustrated too that I’m rather busy at work so by the time I’m out of the office, it’s dark outside. There’s a limit to how far I can go without being home too late for dinner either. I must try harder to get more variations!
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28 Jan: The first woman to ever receive a Nobel Prize, Marie Curie was an extraordinary scientist. She won not only one, but a second Nobel, and both in different disciplines (Physics and Chemistry). Her former lab has now been transformed into a small museum and it was also here where her daughter and son-in-law made new discovery that went on to win another Nobel Prize for themselves. The museum is open Wednesday to Saturday in the afternoon from 1pm to 5pm. The admission is free. (I must come back when it’s open one of these days!)
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Treasure hunt in a museum? And one of my favourite museums to boot? Yes, please!
Let me cue you in with some background about the hunt. Treasure Hunt at the Louvre aka THATLou is the brainchild of Daisy de Plume, and it is a wonderful initiative which combines her entrepreneurial skills and her love of good arts. At THATLou, participants disperse across the many wings and floors of the Louvre in search of artworks which Daisy has challenged the groups to find. The group which earns the most point (by finding the pieces and/or answer the bonus questions) will be crowned winner of the treasure hunt!
When Daisy announced bringing the hunt over to the Musée d’Orsay, nicknamed THATd’Or, as one of the events hosted by the AFMO’s Avant Garde, I knew I had to try to make it this time. Possible obstacle? It was slated for Thursday… uh-oh, it’s a work day!
I was delighted when Daisy tweeted back “THATd’Or @ 19h45″ – perfect!
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Am I having alternate good and bad week with this project? Sometimes I even ponder if I know what I’m doing anymore… Perhaps it was also my state of mind – I started the week with a terrible backache, which tapered off but got me more cautious about overdoing it, about going out in the cold. Booo.
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21 Jan: Ok, this is cheating. This photo was actually taken on the snowy morning of 20 Jan, when F accompanied me to the Louvre and then to Montmartre. I stayed home most of the day to rest my aching back, and as a result, this project was far from my mind until the next morning. Ooops. As compensation, well, I give you F ;) (and he doesn’t even know that he’s going to be featured here!) I have no idea what he was doing either at this very moment – adjusting his neck-protector-against-the-cold thingy, I think.
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