What a weekend. As you know, yesterday morning has been all about the brunch with Jean Imbert and it was a good, high start to the day (I’m sure it’s not just the coffee/ caffeine talking). Frédéric and I were also at the cinema twice in two days, cycled around town, and in whatever extra time I managed to steal, I blogged for April last year too. Yup, time to play catch-up, so keep an eye in the next couple of weeks for more posts, including those related to Iceland!
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1 Apr: It was yet another day I played tourist with Nancy and we headed out east to the Bois de Vincennes. After consulting the map and a quick check of our watches, we knew we didn’t have time to do much so we kept to visiting the Parc Floral while we were in the area. That was when we passed by this peacock which was seemingly oblivious to the attention it was getting. This was officially my first live peacock sighting in greater Parisian area. I wonder if there are any in Paris itself…
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There was some serious cooking going on in my petite cuisine Parisienne this morning.
About a month ago, I came across an online quiz + lucky draw to win a home-cooked brunch by renowned chefs, courtesy of Nespresso, in conjunction with the launch of their new capsule line – Linizio Lungo. I decided to give it a go, but was out of luck on both week 1 and week 2. I was expecting another tough-luck-you-didn’t-win email on week 3 when I received one with the header “Felicitations!”.
Pinch, pinch! Third time’s a charm apparently :D
That is how Jean Imbert of L’Acajou, winner of Top Chef France 2012, came to prepare a fantabulous brunch at our place and feeding a small crowd of six, as Frédéric and I were joined by Anne, Hélène, Claire and Victor. Marie, who was coordinating the event, and Juan, an assistant to Jean, were also here. I must say it felt a little strange to have someone cooking for us when usually, if we invite a group of people over, I’d be the one slaving over the proverbial hot stove.
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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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One of the big news circulating in the last couple of weeks has been on the imminent death of Google Reader. It may be a non-issue to many people (how many of you here read this blog via Google Reader as I advised last year, or do you subscribe to the email notification?) but to the more techy crowd, this represents a more serious problem. It’s an issue of trust. A number of Google Products have been retired in relatively short period of time (cf The Google Graveyard), and it is chipping away the goodwill of its users, many of whom have worked hard to build a techno-ecosystem that’s most efficient for their use. To have random tools taken away from this network of utilities is jarring to say the least. Last year, I was sad to hear about the shut down of iGoogle but there was over a year’s notice to transition the content elsewhere. With Google Reader, it’s reduced to mere 3 months. At least, you could still, for now, use Google Takeout to download all data that you want to keep.
Ps: I apologise for the lacklustre photos for the week. The lack of sunshine really shows how dull things can get…
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18 Mar: There is a typical “feel” of Paris which everyone could pinpoint out right away. In my humble opinion, it stems in large part from the architecture introduced by Baron Haussmann, which incorporates these distinct rooftop styles. The top floor with grey exterior, corresponding windows to the maid’s rooms, and terracotta chimneys that emit white fumes when there’s a nip in the air. If you are lucky, peeking through your rooftop view, you may well see some of the most well-known monuments, including the grand dame in iron, la Tour Eiffel.
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It had been a frantic few days.
As a result, the small pot of daffodils which I bought in support of Institut Curie sat there for 4 days before I got round to replanting it into a bigger pot. I did buy the soil for re-potting right the next day after I brought the daffodils home though.
As a result, I didn’t have time to bake some goodies for a girls’ evening with my friends and I ended up with a store-bought cake.
As a result, I was enormously happy to squeeze in a walk at Luxembourg Gardens with Frédéric on Saturday, when he surprised me after my science outreach activity afternoon and just before I left to meet the girls.
And so forth…
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I have been on a kind of high since renewing my carte de séjour last week. It may seem trivial to some (“I don’t know why you worry about it because we were sure you will get it”) but for an expat, the actual possession of a confirmation that it’s all good – even if just for another year – means stability for a year to pursue all that I want to chase. It was an important win.
Then came a crash this morning.
No, no, don’t panic. It has nothing to do with my residency rights. Nobody’s trying to send me away or anything. In fact, the madame processing my carte de séjour last week was nice and helpful when we got there with a big huge folder of all kinds of paperwork plus copy but sans my actual card! The ditzy-me left it in the scanner at home. I was calling myself a hundred kind of stupid and was very glad that she processed my file as usual, with the onus that I retrieved my card and returned to the Préfecture later with it.
Anyway, I digress. My bone is with the CPAM. Again. The crash came when I saw the amount of reimbursement I have just received from the CPAM.
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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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My social media feeds have been flooded with various St Patrick’s Day-related photos, videos, well-wishes, articles and more. They are making me very nostalgic for the good ol’ days when I celebrated the festival with much gusto, as well as certain level of silliness, with my friends.
Today, I found a folder of photos from St Patrick’s celebration back in 2008 on my computer. These photos are precious to me. I have not been in Dublin for Paddy’s Day since 2009 (I was elsewhere, then I moved to France) so this was more or less the last time I properly celebrated the big day with the whole shebang: parade, céilí, pub crawl! (Previous years I even hosted parties at home – fun, but a lot of work!)
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