We have been blessed with a second sunny weekend in a row. While the temperature was a good 8-10°C lower this time round, when the sun hit upon us directly, we remained quite warm and happily stayed outdoors without a coat.

Last weekend, for Anne’s birthday, a picnic was held at the Parc Montsouris at our regular spot. We numbered just over a dozen people, and everyone brought a little something to share. Everything was fairly casual, people came and went at convenient times, and I thought – hey, why don’t I share photos of what make a typical yet informal picnic between my friends and I?

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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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There’s so much to tell today and I don’t know where to start. Or how to keep it short-ish. Just know that it has been a gloriously warm Sunday and I wish everyday is as wonderful as this.

Only one museum visited this morning – Chloé and I went to the Musée des Arts et Métiers where we caught live demonstrations of Pascaline calculator and Faucault’s Pendulum – before our stomach rumbled and we got very lucky to get a table at Breizh Café without reservation. A galette Breton and a sweet crepe each, yum. Sitting outside at the terrace for a bit of a tan while eating delicious brunch – bonus of the day.

That was not all. Today is Jour du Macaron as well, so we made it to Pierre Hermé’s shop near Pasteur (the queue at the shop near St Sulpice was crazy long and we didn’t even try to go there) for some treats. The flavours I picked: fig, sweetbriar and foie gras; white truffle and hazelnut; and “dépaysé” which combined matcha green tea, azuki bean, lime and ginger. Two words to describe them all – flavoursome, delectable.

As the Salon du Livre was also running this weekend, I went over to check it out. Free entry with my Paris public library card – nice! I bought a couple of books, including Dessine-moi un parisien by Olivier Magny (who keeps an entertaining blog of Stuff Parisians Like), which he also kindly autographed. I would have like to stay and chat with him for a bit, but my French was failing me…

The day was capped off with dinner at Chloé’s where the girls and I were served raclette with potato, salad and saucissons. Even though we were stuffed in the end, we incorporated a little twist to dessert, by serving roti bakar, Malaysian style.

I am having the time of my life :D

I visited Eve and Pras today, and my do they have apartments with views! One on side, there’s the skyline of downtown Dubai and a slight shift to the right, Burj Al Arab stands proud of its own and a little further afield, Atlantis at The Palm. On the other side, the view of Bur Dubai and beyond, and another slight shift later, the floating hotel aboard QE2, now permanently docked, yet another luxury sleep in The City of Gold.

However, with the changing season comes an unavoidable feature – fog. It makes it just that bit harder to photograph the city. The position of the sun at that time also meant it was hard to see Burj Al Arab (gotta squint a little) and Atlantis was hidden from sight, so photographic attempts for these buildings failed rather miserably.

So far, I have only explored a small part of Dubai given limited time and opportunity (Eve and Pras did take me out on a city-wide introductory car tour one night), but there’s always something to be discovered. I’ve been to and visited some of the landmarks including Dubai Mall (next to Burj Khalifa), Atlantis and The Palm, Madinat Jumeirah (to peek at Burj Al Arab), Dubai Creek, Dubai Museums and Bastakia Quarter.

However, there are more things that I’d like to do, such as a visit to the Jumeirah Mosque, the various souqs (I’ve only been to one), have a traditional Emirati meal at the Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding… but so often, they’re time restricted. E.g. a tour of the mosque begins at 10am, but to try to travel from Sharjah to Dubai in the morning is just asking for sitting in the traffic for 2-3 hours. Not ideal.

I could try to stay over in Dubai one night with Eve, but magic time scheduling will be required, since we have wildly different kind of timetable to observe. I was lucky to have nabbed both of them on the same day to hang out a bit today! In any case, the next day we are all free, we reckon we should go to Oman together. Road trip!

The question is, will that happen before I fly back to Europe?