on the ninth day in paris

16 - March - 2012


Dear Reader,

it's not that the Reporter doesn't like to write on even days, it's only that she pretends she is very busy.

So this will be a short post as she has soon to leave to go see a friend for a late afternoon tea. Friendship in france, is a very important thing. It's sort of amazing coming from a national collective group who is so easily grumpy, complaining how much it is impossible to live in france now, the food is not what it used to be, the baguette is a mockery of what it used to be, the weather is not what it used to be, anything dealing with city ordinances and its red tape has them in semi cardiac arrest. Parisians will lift their eyes to the heavens and exclaims, "L'Administration" with an admirable display of disgust. L'Administration covering anything that has to deal with government employees.

So you would think that the French and above all the Parisians, are completely depressed people. Well, not at all. They are not, because they have ' L'Amitie"
which is Friendship. Friendship along with wine tasting is what makes life completely livable for a French man.

So when a Frenchman takes some time off from work, he will have a cup of coffee, or a drink, or a lunch or a dinner with a friend and there he will be able to depict all the ills of his life, the weather, the baguette, his wife, his children, his mother, the Administration, the weather, and so on. And in fact if by a nice warm spring day, you check people at the terrace of a cafe having a cup, or a glass of something, you will notice that they are never silent. They speak eagerly to their friend across to the table, sometimes they both speak at the same time. So after one hour or so of this talk, they will both shake their heads, say together that this a terrible place to live in, they will complain that everybody complains, and that people are so negative, and then they pay for their drinks, and then they hug or shake hands agreeing to meet again soon like tomorrow, and then they part and they walk home happily.

And that, dear Reader, is the reason why the French do not go see a therapist, because they would have to repeat all over what they just said, and that would be terribly boring. What is more, therapists in france do not offer you wine or coffee or such amenities so there's really no reason to visit them, and that is why you have so many cafes in france, they are of national therapeutic value.

In a future post, there will be some pics from these therapeutic places, the Reporter didn't have time to do any as she had today and yesterday to meet three friends in three different cafes and there was a lot to discuss.


There is another thing that keeps the french happy and healthy, and that is books.

People in france love to buy books, and sometimes they read them, but the most important thing about the books they buy is that after they buy a book, they can go to a cafe with you and debate for a minimum of an hour the book they have just bought and explain that you shouldn;t buy it because they could have re-written that book so much better.

So Book Buying is a very big thing in paris. As a matter of fact, yesterday was the private opening of the Salon du Livre. Which means the Book Show. That in paris is a grand happening. On the first evening it opens, you can only go there with an invitation, so you walk there like the Reporter who had an invitation, and you arrive thereand you get into that convention hall, Porte de Versailles, and there you are swamped with about 10,000 people who were invited too, because books are important in france. So you can go from one publisher stand to another publisher stand. Each stand has its own little private buffet and bar, and everyone is engaged into a very serious conversation how they would have written that book so much better, it's pretty exciting.


So the Reporter stopped to have a look at the Moscou Cafe, but there, it was full of Russians who looked to be very absobed into re-writting Russian books too.








then there was the stand for a television weekly Telerama, who had also a very nice little buffet, where people were explaining how they could have shot themselves that little tv series so much better :










Then there was a lot of very important people who were walking really fast,










And then there was that publisher called Albin Michel and the Reporter took a picture since she liked their poster a lot :









And then the Reporter met her friend who works for l'Institut Francais, and since she is an awesome wonderful friend, the Reporter paid her homage,
and then the Reporter went to have dinner to another friend's house, because friendship in france is the thing to be involved with.

And as the Reporter walked through the Place du Trocadero to her delightful friend's house, she saw that all the cafes were full, the temperature at 8 pm was like 80 degrees, people were having dinner outside, and the Reporter remembered that Voltaire had said " The Weather is not what it used to be. ' And Voltaire wrote this in a letter in 1756.

So the Reporter felt really good.

With love,

the Frog

on the seventh day in paris

14 - March - 2012


Well dear Reader,

The sixth day in paris was so eventful and hectic that it was impossibly late to write about it, so we now tackle the seventh day, and an adventurous one too.


It all started with looking down the staircase while waiting for the elevator.












It's hard not to admire the mixture of the dark crimson carpet, the ivory black of the banister, the subtle pale grey of the walls, and the sort of peach ham color of the stony steps.

Then listening to the only voice of courage, the Reporter flew to her most favorite of favorite of all stores in paris :
the admirable Sennelier.













There she got some supplies passionately needed as she has been commissioned for a work of art, what else.
She tried to furtively take some shots of the inside of that venerable house, but as there was no customer that early morning
and all eyes of the suspicious staff were on her meager person, she most meekly transferred her i phone back to her satchel, and looked very innocuous for the rest of her visit. Too bad as Sennelier has indeed the most eccentric arrangement of crowded wooden shelves you could wedge in such tight quarters.


Then after vacillating between hundreds of different options, she finally decided to branch on a subject which she hadn't pondered on, nor ruminated about, yet.
And I mean to say : men's shoes.

Men's shoes in United States is a pretty simple subject. it will be either sneakers, flip flops or some sort of cheap lawyers shoes.
Men's shoes in france are an entirely different landscape.

As a matter of fact, this post here will barely tackle the essence of that landscape, so vast is the subject, its possibilities, its modalities, its new trends, its implications in the french men's life. In a word, or a few, it is a Shakesperean subject.

First, let it be said that the frenchman doesn't know the word 'sneaker.' On occasion, when he is near the sea, he will let himself to wear some boat shoes, usually, as a matter of fact, of an american brand, and usually faded to a gentle neutral color due to the wear and tear. You will simply not see on a french man feet, a [ gasp ] new plastic neon color sport shoe. It just will not happen.

He may in the middle of a holiday, show off some canvas sneaker, of the very old fashioned model, designed this way :










A tennis shoe that already existed in the Thirties.
This is how far a french man will go in the sporting department.

Now the rest of the time, men will be seen wearing those :












Well, as a matter of fact, NO. This is the very elegant shoe of the Reporter.
So rather they will wear those :









or those :









or those :











Those above are in fact worn by a very very elegant teenager who was not ready to give this one pair of shoes to someone needing a pair, as he was looking at them while waiting for the cashier, with much pleasure, lust and love.


Or last those :











Now those were the best. It's hard to see on the photo which is sinfully dark, but they were of dark brown suede, and they must have cost a fortune, but the nice thing was that their owner, a gentleman in his early forties, was not at all lost in the beauty of his own feet. He was in fact discussing the inside merits of two different cotton boxer shorts with a lovely sales lady and he was really putting all this heart into it. If he had been just a little more deeply involved with the said boxer shorts, it might have been possible for the Reporter to discreetly pull out the laces and who knows, she might have walked away with a beautiful pair of brown shoes though she would have been at a loss at what to do with them, realizing that men's shoes are not the equivalent of a glass slipper.

Still, this was about a wildly beautiful landscape anyway.

Till next time, with all affection,

the Frog

on the fifth day in paris

12 - March - 2012


Well dear Reader,

fact is, time flies in paris faster than in the other interesting parts of the planet.

The reason is this :

It is extremely difficult to walk fast, check on the windows, bump into strangers while you check the windows, apologize, listen to the grumpy repartees, take in the insulting stares of the Parisians, grab back your i phone which is on its way to hit the very dirty sidewalk when you happen to be a very intensely clean person and the same time keep that beatific zen smile that your Reporter practices so well.

But, though these sad sequential events hit her at several different times in the last several different few days, the courageous Reporter did manage to collect some very essential information to keep her numerous devoted readers entertained and educated.

So we shall start first with food.

Having navigated several mean little streets as below,










Our battered and bloodless scribe needed some sustenance so she stopped in a little brasserie, shortly named Lipp to get something like this below :











This is, well in fact this is not the dish that the courageous Reporter ordered, that was the dish that her companion, who is on a diet, ordered for him, that is Cervelas. Cervelas is a very light dish made of assembled parties of pork mixed with lard and some butter and other fats, it comes covered with a nice layer of mayonnaise, and you eat that when you want to detoxify.

This, is the dish that the Reporter who needed some stronger sustenance ordered :











This is Poireaux a la Vinaigrette. This is a very heavy dish, with added sustenance in the form of little tidbits of hard boiled eggs and little croutons and fresh parsley. This is a very heavy dish and you need a robust stomach, like your scribe's to be able to master it.

Now that the courageous Reporter was full of courage again, she could endlessly roam the streets of the Seventh Arrondissement, a very dangerous area in the City of Lights and she fell on that exquisite store in one of the most dangerous streets of that Seventh :











This is a very new addition to the exquisite Parisian landscapes. These contraptions have the Parisians in a teezy.
If it happens that some of our readers use this very unknown type of contraptions, instead of going straight to Nature, when nature calls, well it does happen, that once you sit on it, one of these delicate showers will be activated and, since you know that the French are so clean and scented, well this is one more example where their research has extended the field.


Next door to that interesting store, was another store, which we have to say is one of a kind :
this is a store where you can, provided the shades are up, you can see what they provide, but as you see, security being paramount, you cannot enter as they decided to do without a door. This is indeed the most secure store in Paris and you should feel comfortable visiting it.
Here is one view of it :











And here is a little close up :









So here it is, dear Reader, and we are done with our educational post for today !!!

With all affection,

the Frog

on a first day in paris

9 - March - 2012


Well in fact this is the second day dear Reader,

but the Frog had to do quite a lot of little uninteresting things on her first day in the City of LIghts.

But still, the arrival was exciting, waiting at Charles de Gaulle for her ultimately small suitcase that she had to check in anyway since she was carrying her favorite Lotion Nacree from Carita which is above the maximum of liquid allowed in the cabin, and if there isn't a sillier regulation, you tell me.

So she arrived in Paris and waited for the elegant luggage dispenser to start moving :







Then she went off with her usual courage and strutted to the nearest transportation from the airport to the capital.

So on her second day she attacked things straight upfront : a visit to the Bon Marche which facade has been bleached and repainted and looked awesome :









Then she proceeded to Place St Sulpice which church after 15 years of work hdd been bleached too :







If you look real close at the above photo, you will see that the right part doesn't look so clean and that is because it was done 5 years before the 15 years so it is getting darker again. I guess we shall mever see the whole of St Sulpice church clean all at the same time on every side, but such is life,
and it doesn't prevent elegant gentlemen to walk the sidewalk around the Place :








Then there is the wonderful building where a friend of the Frog's brother lives, behind that nice blue door :









Then as the Reporter ambled through the tiny street along the church there was that exquisite crumpled tafffetas dress in a window, slightly reminiscent of a Watteau painting :








Then on the Place St Sulpice, the Reporter encountered a cute transportation tool titled La Petite Reine.
Now La Petite Reine in the early 1900's was the nickname for bicycles, in the back it opened on those ugly plastic containers, so this was a delivery of some sort :








And in the front were grouped in fact two bikes, was the delivery boy riding in fact the two bikes at once, that remains a mystery.









Then the Reporter stopped in front of a very vulgar home store with cheap candles :







And the Reporter who is very chic and elegant, extremely affected by the vulgarity of the window decided to stop in a cafe to restore herself of a bitter expresso and mundane camaraderie at the counter :









Now that she was restored a bit to her normal self, she could amble back to her fav haunt, the Bon Marche, there she checked as usual that her shoes looked all right on the marble floor :









And it sort of did, and since she was feeling a bit tired she looked for the offered free chairs where men can sit when they are waiting for their wives to finish their purchase. So here were the traditional Bon Marche pink chairs for the Beauty department :









And since they look exceptionally sweet and intelligent, the Reporter did some added coverage of the said pink chairs, here is the first one on the right :









And here is the second one, which was on the left,







And here is the same model but in black leather as this was in the chic section of the men's clothing;











Entranced by the fascinating subject of the free provided chairs, the Reporter went to look for more, so she found this one, hard white plastic, uninviting and part of the Estee Lauder landscape, but it looks peach in the photo :







Then she saw that white plain one at the Clinique landscape :






Then on her way she met those different people :
a humble little stool :








A shiny and pretty happy with himself metallic stool :









A very happy with herself pretentious transparent chair :








in fact so happy with herself that the Reporter sat on it and admired the ceiling at the Bon Marche ;







And then the floor:







A little tired with all that Bon Marche watching, she decided to make her way towards the door as she encountered display of the Bon Marche catalog on which the model was ALSO sitting on one of those chairs :








So she crossed the street to have a look at Conran and see if there too they had some interesting chairs to offer freely to the visitor, and she immediately saw a very friendly one who was extending her arms to her :








But that exquisite and friendly blue grey chair who was so eager to have the Reporter sit on her, was... on a glass shelf which was itself a little high up on the wall, but the Reporter listening to the frantic appeals of the chair, had pulled another stool and started to climb on it, aiming to be at the level of the sweet chair when one of those pompous sales person came and asked to stop immediately her efforts to that noble goal.

Much distressed, our Reporter went to look for a nice armchair into which to throw herself and rest from her emotions.
She first saw a pale blue one :







But she could feel that this one was a little stiff and not to inviting, that was when she noticed that sumptuous and generous and kind velvet blue sofa who was tenderly appealing to her, and then to her relief she plopped herself with delight and ecstasy into the arms of her new friend :







And that, my dear Reader, was the end of the adventures of day 2 for our courageous Reporter,

with love,

the Frog

good bye to city of lights

Dear All,

Rustication having its limits, after having cleaned out the flower beds,







in her magnificent attire,









and oohed and ahhed at the little tree in fall colors,








the Reporter courageously left the countryside for the City, and maccarons at Laduree,









and repaired to her little apartment,









by the river,









Before she flew away, she stumbled in the Metro, and there !!! They were announcing it, on the walls of the Metro !!









That's when she decided to get on way more adventures, see below,
with excited hugs,
The Frog