I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again:  Paris is so quiet in the month of August!  Besides the hoards of tourist at every turn, there are virtually no locals left in town.  It’s hard to make plans without first calling to see if the place you’re headed to is open or closed for the next 4 weeks.  Even during the work week I’ve been disappointed after walking to some of my favorite lunchtime haunts only to see a closed-for-vacances notice scribbled on sheet of paper and stuck to the front door. 

So, Gui and I decided to get out of the tourist-laden city for a bit.  Realizing that we’d only just come back a week ago from a full week of holidays, we were still itchin’ to do some traveling before la rentrée and in anticipation of fuller workloads at the end of the month.  Belgium is practically down the street from us - the same amount of driving it takes us to get from Austin to Dallas - so, that’s where we spent our Saturday.  At first, we couldn’t decide between Bruges and Brussels (we’ve already been to both), but eventually headed towards Brussels so that I could relive a little of the first trip I ever took there in 2008 with Gui and some of my closest girlfriends. 

I was pretty amazed at how much I remembered and recognized from my one single night spent there over 2 years ago.  It was warmer this time around than that first February trip, so we sipped a beer on a terrace, ate moules-frites and boeuf à la bière among the locals, grabbed some nutella gaufres and strolled around the streets and parks of the city without any rush or fuss.  We had no idea that we were coming to the city during one of its most popular weeks – the week of the Flower Carpet – so we were surprised at how big the crowds were in the Grand Place.  We didn’t spend too much time there, opting instead to visit some greener areas of the city I’d never seen before.

There was a lot going on in town, though, and we came across a music festival (Massive Attack and some other groups were playing), a park full of people and even a few pianos in the street.  It was an interesting daytrip, though much of it totally unexpected.  In the end, we came home with full and happy bellies, a trunk full of beer and a few bags of our favorite chocolates.  A day well spent if I do say so myself.

Taking flight

Gui loves his Kwak

The flower carpet at the Grand Place

a little gaufre for Gui

street pianos

Manneken pis

So, half of our vacation is over.  It's a sad reality, really, but we're making the most of the precious few days we have left before we take on a desolate Paris Monday morning.  We spent nearly five glorious days basking in the sun on the Cote d'Azur.  Gui's grandmother (Mamie) has a lovely home on a small piece of land a bit west of Nice and a short drive away from the celebrated city of Cannes.  We soaked up enough sunshine to get us through the rest of our beach-less summer; our lunches were made of the freshest summer fruits and vegetables, picked directly from the enormous garden each and every morning; and we relished in our free time spent reading, knitting and napping by the pool, on the terrace and in the comfort of Mamie's domain. 

We spent one day on the beach in Cannes, where we people-watched, sunbathed and dipped our sandy toes in the refreshing blue sea.  The beach is so magical, isn't it?  I could seriously spend my life trotting around from beach to beach, taking in the sun and rolling in the sand with a good book.  I'm not much into swimming around in salt water with marine life, but I can't think of any better place in the world than a sandy beach with cool, clear water within arm's reach - heaven on earth.

I got a lot of knitting and reading done during our long, leisurely days, but I admittedly spent a good deal of the late afternoons snoozing to the sounds of far-off crop planes and mountain winds.  The coolest thing about the south of France I found, was how varied the landscape is - mountains, sea, farmland - it's all there.  And I found myself in the rare circumstance of feeling overwhelmed with absolute calmness and tranquility, which I wholeheartedly reveled in.

We did run into a few snags along the way though, in the form of my sensitive skin's allergic reactions to weird, country insects.  A wasp flew into my chest as I was running out to the pool, which scared the crap out of me.  I'd never been stung by anything other than a mosquito, and man, is it painful!  Mamie brought out some fleur de lis petals and I rubbed them on my wound until all was better.  Nature versus nature, I guess.  Then, the day before we left, I broke out in some sort of rash along my collarbone and upper arms.  We never figured out what it was, but it went away and came back the next day only to go away again.  There's no sign of it now, so we're chalking it up to over-exposure to the sun or something.

Now, we're in the lovely center of France.  It's not exactly in the middle of the the big hexagon, but it is kind of in the middle of nowhere.  We're here to celebrate a wedding of a friend of my father-in-law and to finish off our week of vacation in the countryside with a bit of R&R.  The landscape is tremendously beautiful here, but the cool winds and sweater weather is a stark difference from the hot sands of the French Riviera.  I plan on lounging around, finishing my knitting project and catching up on some True Blood before we pack it up and head back to Paris on Sunday.  I heart les vacances!

Herbs that came home with us from Mamie's garden.

It's so nice to take a day off to do nothing.  And, that's exactly what I did on Friday.  Wednesday was the fête nationale in France so I had the day off, and I worked it out with my colleague to take advantage of the empty office and take a long weekend.  I didn't have anything in particular planned, but I ended up being really productive around the house.  I even made a skirt!  I haven't sewn in ages, but I wanted to use up some fabric I've had stocked up for a while, so I found this tutorial and gave it a go.  Well, I think I'm a little rusty from being out of the game for so long, and I ended up with a skirt more in the size L range than my more usual size, XS.  I took my measurements and all, but I think I over-compensated for my waste size, thinking I would go larger in case I needed room to grow.  So, I ended up with a poofy, green, bag-of-a-skirt that adds on about 20 pounds to my lower-half...and that's just never flattering.


It's not horrendous, but even the my fashion care-less husband remarked right away that it was way too big for me.  I think I'll save it anyway for a day when maybe it might be wearable.  I really like the color, and I think it'd be cute as a maternity skirt, so maybe I'll save it for that far-off day.  I'm just glad that I know now how to measure for my next skirt, which I plan on making very soon.  (Will keep you posted on how that turns out.)

I'm looking forward to posting a bit about this past week and what's been going on in my little life in Paris, and I will soon. But, for the moment, my mind is so preoccupied with thinking about the season finale of Lost, which will air in the US on Sunday.

I'm not usually nutty about stuff like this, but for some reason, I feel kind of emotional about the finale. I saw an interview that "Kate" (Evangeline Lilly) did on The View a while back, and I think she really made a great point - that Lost is a show that focuses on so many universally-emotional and personally-important questions that other shows in our generation don't address.  And, I totally agree.  It's had its shaky moments and outlandish plots, but something about it just sings to me - and to so many others, too, it seems.  It could be that watching someone else's interpretation of the ultimate answer to the ultimate question - why are we here? - just seriously entertains me.  But, I think in some ways, it's a little more than that, and something about "getting to the end" and "finding out what happens" helps me move along in my own little journey to find the answers I'm looking for.  And, well, I think that's worth getting a little emotional over.

Paris is full of creativity, creative people, inspiring scenes.  So many friends I have made here have inspired me to feed my creative passions that I never really knew I was starving.  From knitting, to cooking, to sewing to blogging, I have found so many outlets to express my point of view and creativity that I might never have otherwise known about.  My knitting group has the cream of the crop of creative types in Paris, and I'm truly inspired by them every time we meet up.  I met my friend Abby at Tricothé and she is seriously creative - she turns all kinds of objects into beauitful treasures, and she seems to find magic in the most everyday of items.  She has a perfectly charming blog where she posts her thoughts and musings on the very simply lovely life she leads in the city of lights.  This post is inspired from the Marché Photo of the Week series on her blog, and hopefully it will become a regular on this blog, too. 

This past week brought the devastating news of the passing of one of my dearest aunts, an incredible, bold and loving soul who taught me that many of life's grey days could be brightened with a funny joke and a hearty laugh.  After a few days of grieving and reflection in hibernation, I finally left the apartment to live again.  The sun came out this morning, and we took to the marché to embrace its warmth and energy. 

My Aunt Clare loved to cook, and she introduced me to so many new flavors and recipes in my younger years that inspire my culinary endeavors to this day.  My first manicotti, my first split pea soup - she was a whiz in the kitchen who influenced my palate and fed my creativity at the stove.  Her spirit of life and her passion for sharing delicious food with the ones she loved will always resonate in my heart and in my kitchen. 

Since Gui and I travel at least once a year to the States, we try to track the movements of the Euro against the US Dollar so we can capitalize on the best exchange rates for our trips.  We've usually been pretty good about exchanging our currencies at really favorable rates, which lets us spend a bit more when we're visiting and going out in The Land of Plenty.  Back in November, we talked about exchanging our fancy European money while it was towering over the dollar at about $1.50.  But my overly-confident optimism kept our Euros in the bank and our American bank account stagnant.  Since then, it's all been literally downhill for the Euro, and we'll likely be forced to deal with a relatively even, Dollar-for-Euro exchange rate while we're visiting next month.  Which sucks.

While I'm clearly no expert on the subject, it wouldn't surprise me to see the Euro pan out flat against the Dollar in the coming months.  With all the uncertainties surrounding the Greek and Spanish economies (and the French one, for that matter), the Euro seems to be holding less and less water these days.  Luckily for Gui and I, we don't have a problem subsisting on 79¢ tacos and $1 Lone Star.  America The Great, indeed!

Today sucked for no good reason.  It was rainy.  It was cold.  It was Monday.  And everyone seemed to be wearing their grumpy pants.  Karen Carpenter is familiar with this rainy Monday phenomenon, it seems, and somehow, hearing her sing it kind of makes me feel a little bit better.

So, here's to sunny Tuesday...