Space Invaders

Sunday. Paris.

Like most big cities around the world, Paris has its fair share of random occurrences. Turn around the corner, and you see something you least expect in front of you - or above you, for that matter. I've come across such similar random sightings in my walks around one or the other of the city's arrondissements.

Among those which have particularly caught my attention to me have been a series of mosaics found all over the city - a rather unique kind of street art by someone called Space Invader. Any kind of street art is illegal in France, and this isn't your stereotypical graffiti either, so I find it somewhat interesting that someone goes through all this trouble to put up little pixelated monster mosaics up around the city.

Lots of buildings around the city tend to have large murals painted on their sides - another (more legal, I think?) take on street art. I've come across a few which piqued my curiosity - including those with faux windows which at first glance mislead you into thinking they're actually a part of the building. But they're not. Evidently.

As for other random sights: Saturday, for example, while walking from a Japanese patisserie - a new favourite of mine, by the way - with Cody and his friends, we saw a group of about fifteen unicyclists speeding down the footpath. Surprisingly (and impressively) not all of them were adults - a number of our unicyclists being between 10-15 years old. Two of them happened to be carrying a bench as well. What else can I say? While I don't have pictures of this budding circus troupe (they were too fast for me and my camera), do check out others below, because they truly do speak for themselves (the last one especially).

P.S. Cody will eventually have a more expansive treatise on other Parisian street artists - of whom I'm slowly learning, and to some extent appreciating a bit more.

Sailing in the Rain

Thursday. Paris.

We had lots of rain in Nice. Coming from the desert, it wasn't a bad thing. Last time I was in Nice, I saw the Ironman Triathlon. This time, I was fortunate to catch a regatta with my morning drizzle.

Nice, an Agreeable City

Tuesday. Paris.

Turquoise waters, stony grey beaches and abundant sunshine - these three essentials make up what is known as the Côte d'Azur. During our weekend in Nice, we got two out of three - abundant sunshine being replaced by intermittent patches of rain. The rain, however, didn't faze us in our wanderings around Old Nice - with a ton of cafés and restaurants; or up and down the Promenade des Anglais - walking, while everyone else ran, biked, or bladed past.

Nice is a very agreeable city with its fair share of the unbelievably wealthy (not overshadowed in the least by neighbouring Monaco), hordes of tourists (mainly from cruise ships), fitness freaks (rain or shine, there was always someone jogging up and down the promenade) and dog-lovers (Niçois like their dogs, it seems - and they like them small).

Sunday, half the city came seaside to watch the Regatta. A parade of beautiful sailboats dotted the marina and the Baie des Anges for a good part of the morning. It also happened to be "give your dog a bath-day" on the Promenade des Anglais. Clearly, two important events on Nice's calendar.

And so our visit to Nice mainly comprised of promenading and puttering about the city, visits to the Villa Rothschild, Matisse and Chagall museums, and a few large and tasty meals with Mr. and Mrs. Jhaveri.

Papaparis

Monday. Paris.

And here we are, finally in Paris. I'm in the 5th arrondissement, home to the city's Latin Quarter, a bunch of universities, hospitals and schools. I'm within walking distance from both the places at which I need to take classes, not to mention this street lined with restaurants and cafés called Rue Mouffetard, Notre Dame and Jardin du Luxembourg. It's definitely one of more centrally located neighbourhoods by far, and I'm really happy about that.

The Pope himself, who paid his first visit to France over the weekend, made two stops in the area. I went over to Notre Dame with Cody and two other friends to try and catch a glimpse of him — along with 250,000 other Parisians. Definitely an interesting experience with Vatican flags flying about and "Benedicto" being chanted all evening. Not so easy, trying to see the Papa. (Check out Cody's post below for a more detailed account)

My host family, the family Bonnet, consists of Christian, a professor of philosophy; Cécile, who researches Ancient Greek; their kids Grégoire (28), Pierre (25) and Marie (18). Grégoire's a music composer/jazz pianist, Pierre a journalist, and Marie studies medicine. An academically inclined family, but very interesting all the same. Perfect, dare I say, for me.

The apartment is a bit small - nothing like your sprawling mansions in the 16th arrondissement - but it's cozy (in a non-euphemistic sense) and is lined with tons of books. French classics, Shakespeare (in French, of course), volumes of German and French philosophy - a veritable library. Things look good on the host family front. Paris is off to a promising start.

Be-ne-dic-to!

Monday. Paris.

It's been a busy weekend here in Paris.

I arrived late Thursday just in time to dine with my Parisian hosts Christine Menegaux and her son Etienne (18). Friday, I took a walk around my neighborhood to get my bearings: just North of Parc-des-Princes (home of FC Paris St. Germain), just East of the Bois-de-Boulogne, and two minutes south of Roland Garros. Friday night, I went to see the Pope.

After evening ceremonies inside Notre Dame, Benedict XVI came out and spoke to the youth. His message: N'ayez pas peur! Ayez le courage de vivre l'évangile et l'audace de le proclamer. L'Eglise vous fait confiance, je tiens à vous le dire! - in other words, "Never fear, the Church is here! Give it up for Christ!" To which he received chants of "Be-ne-dic-to! Be-ne-dic-to!" amid much general applause.

A few minutes before midnight, candles were then distributed to the crowd (some 200,000 people) and everyone processed from Notre Dame through Paris to Les Invalides. (See pics below) Once there, most bedded down for the night in order to have a good spot for mass the next morning. I walked home.

Also, as mentioned above, I live quite close to Parc-des-Princes and Sundays are match days for French Ligue 1. Results for week 5 of league competition:

Paris St. Germain 1 / FC Nantes 0

Girondins de Bordeaux 1 / Olympique Marseille 1

In Paris, everyone hates Marseille but me. PSG is third in the league right now, Marseille is second. (Lyon is first, but nobody cares.) Marseille and PSG play each other October 25. It's the French equivalent of Trojans v. Bruins. Allez l'OM!

P.S. 'SC, that was nice work against Ohio State. Fight on!

(and for those of you still wondering about the state of the châteaux, see Abhinay's post below)

  

   

   

Châteaux Country

Friday. Paris.

Pictures from our châteaux-filled weekend in Tours.

Villandry and its gardens.

Cody in the maze at Villandry (l) and its vegetable gardens (r).

Chenonceaux (l) and the Caryatids there (r)

Chenonceaux gardens

Vélo City

Wednesday. Tours.

Tours, as some of you may know, is in châteaux country. These grandoise houses dot the Loire and a host of other rivers criss-crossing the region, and we got the chance to visit two of them this weekend. Chenonceaux, with its well-known arches spanning the Cher, and Villandry, with some stunning gardens. Once again, I'll let the pictures do the talking.

While Chenonceaux is better known than Villandry, I much prefer the latter. It's more livable, less ostentatious, and I could spend days on end walking around those gardens. Chenonceaux is by all means an interesting piece of architecture, but it didn't leave as memorable an impression on me, the jaded traveller that I am.

Another plus for Villandry is that we got to bike there from Tours. Chenonceaux — by train. Biking there — and around Tours — is a rather enjoyable experience, as compared to driving around anywhere. Tours is also built to cater to those riding vélos with a network of bike lanes dotting the city. Paris has its fleet of vélibes, which I'm looking forward to take advantage of. It'll be somewhat of an experience traversing a city like that by bicycle.

Wanderings

Friday. Tours.

It's been a week since I've arrived in the Loire valley, and I definitely have more to say this time around. Let's start with my family, or "famille d'accueil," rather. The family Gendron-Bulot consists of Michel and Martine, the parents, and three kids — Mathieu (27, lives elsewhere), Mélanie (25, lives in Paris) and Maxime (18, the one whose room I'm living in). There you have it, the five MGBs.

Tours, as I said earlier, is your stereotypical quaint European town. I've walked beyond the Cher and the Loire, the two rivers sandwiching the main city, and everything in between. There's not much else to do here otherwise besides walking. You have Place Plumereau, a square with a multitude of bars and cafés, but there's a limit to how often one can go there. I think I've crossed that limit.

I have, however, stumbled upon some very interesting parks in the process of my wanderings — a large number of them done with Cody — and they include la Place François Sicard, le Jardin de Prébendes d'Oè and l'île Honoré de Balzac. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

While it isn't necessarily the most boring, I can see myself tiring of Tours after the second week (which is why I'm glad that we're here for only two weeks instead of a whole month). I guess you can view this as testing the waters, before you make the big splash in Paris. Now that's going to be another experience altogether.

A random square in Old Tours (l) and Place François Sicard (r)


An entrance to some house we came across (l), at the Expo Calder (r).


Le Pont Wilson (l), and the front of my house on Rue d'Entraigues (r).


"La Pata" on île Simon (l) and an alley way in Old Tours (r).