Paris to me was a let down.
Take your time, let that sentence sink in.
Perhaps I’ve seen too many French film, perhaps I had unrealistic expectations of Paris, perhaps that’s not my fault, perhaps Paris is just overly good at marketing itself and ends up overselling itself. The Paris I saw was not the Paris they sold me. The Paris I was sold is moody, sexy, glamorous, artistic, like a 35 years old gorgeous woman, not young, no, she’s been around the block, but she’s sure of herself, she’s single but she’s got it all. However, the Paris I saw was clean, wide boulevards, beautiful in a few rare moments, rarely romantic, sexy or glamorous and never moody, never did I find that oomph that character. Let down, yep.
I sometimes think it’s perhaps the way I traveled around France, the way I did Paris last, because I thought it would be a great whirlwind ending with me falling in love with the city. Perhaps if I started the trip with Paris, I would have liked it and enjoyed it more, but I’m not sure if this theory is valid. Paris is what it is, it’s become overly touristic, overly gentrified. The Paris I had in mind can only be found in old photographs.
Sorry to start on a sad note, but to cheer you up, here are some lovely photos.
Day 1



A photo studio’s way of advertising itself. Pretty cool huh, really reminds me of Amelie.

Jady and I went to the biggest outdoor food market in Paris, we arrive too late and some stalls are already packing up, by the time we buy and finish eating lunch, almost all the stalls have packed up and gone. We did buy a box of lychees for the cheapest price in history, 2 euros! And I did a little scavenging in the dumped fruit pile and found some perfectly ripe plums, I believe Jady has photographic evidence…

Jady’s potato heart…
Day 2
We did the new Paris walking tour, it was a good introduction to Paris, seeing almost all the famous sights on foot in about 3 hours.

Place St Michelle in the Latin Quartier

Pont Neuf with its funny faces

Tip of Il de la Cite

“Let me out!”

Hiding in the archways of Lourve waiting out the rain

Concorde with that famous thing in the background

Petite Palaice
Day 3

Took this photo right near the tunnel where Diana was killed, didn’t realise that and was wondering why there were a whole heap of people there and so much graffitti and scribbles.


We just walked around really. I made sure that we visited Colette, it’s like the most famous hip clothing store I know in Paris, it’s expensive and attracts a hip young crowd, some will even tell you that Colette is legendary. It’s similar to London’s Dover Street Market or Sydney’s Corner Shop I suppose. Downstairs in Colette was just cheaper fun little gadgets that people would buy because they can’t afford anything upstairs. So upstairs, as soon as I look through any rack of clothes, a shop assistant would come immediately after to rearrange it. That pissed me off.


Oh! We also looked for Pierre Herme’s shop that day, but it was closed for summer. Bummer, I was so so SO dissapointed, but we did come across a nice little looking restaurant which we went back to later for dinner.
After dinner we strolled around, ended up on one of the bridges, I can’t remember the name, apparently it’s the bridge in the last scene in Sex and the City the movie… hmmm… Anyhow, being a balmy summer night, the bridge is filled with young people, mostly tourists, drinking and having picnics. Jady and I linger, take photos and finally we sit down to just enjoy the view. One of the guys sitting next to us, offered us some box wine, we accept. He’s from Czech and is apartment sitting in Paris for 3 weeks while his friend goes on vacation. What did he study? Some science related really serious sounding thing. And we end up having a conversation about economy, China and politics, ending on the note that I said “the perfect system (both economical and political) isn’t possible, because humans aren’t perfect” Deep huh? I know! It seems like a lot of conversations I have with strangers in Europe end up being deep and meaningful. What’s up with that.


Il de la Cite again.


People on the bridge
Day 4
We went to Versaille, all my photos are on film. You might get to see them, some day.
Day 5



It’s a painting, wordpress can’t censor that right?
Musee D’Orsay! It was great, I loved it. So tiring, so so much to see, by the end I felt like I was simply looking at the paintings but not seeing them.

After that we dropped by Pierre Herme again, the notice on the door said it should be re-opened by now and it was Jady’s last day in Paris. And it was open! Oh what relief and what tremendous exciting. How my heart pounded as we waited in line, “oh oh, I can see a little bit of cakes now”. Yes of course the queue went out the door. We buy 10 macarons, 1 of each flavour. Never mind the pretty boxes, just in plastic bags please, we are only going to devour them in 30 seconds. Jady and I somehow manage to choose a cake each, with the not so big but each tantalising looking selection, it was a difficult choice.
Jady chose something chocolatey, it had a few layers inside, 1 was chocolate mousse and 1 was praline if memory serves me correct. I chose an almond mille fuille, it was messy to eat and if we weren’t in the middle of a public square in Paris on a sunny day, I would have licked the plastic wrapper the cake same in. It was that fucking good. Oh excuse my French! With the macarons, we had half of each flavour and each produced an “woooo” “arhhh” “ooohhhh” “mmmmm” from us. Each flavour oomphed but our favourite was the salted caramel. No wonder the guy in front of us bought a box with 1 of each flavour but 3 salted caramel.


Mmmmm

Jady’s cake

My cake

Half way through the delicious mess
Actually writing this is making me sad. When will I next have the chance to eat Pierre Herme’s macarons? Never??? At least not for a few years. I don’t see myself going back to Paris anytime soon. So I guess I’ll just have to jump on a plane and head to Tokyo at the next opportunity.
Jady took the train to Venise with a fully and satisfied belly
I took a long walk after dinner from Place du Concord all the way to Arc D’Triumph.

Seine at night

Concorde in the background, fountain in the foreground

Arc d’Triumph

Shop window on Champs Elysee, cake killed fashion

Asian photo shoot on Champs Elysee


Inside of arc
Day 6
I walked around Marais, the Jewish quarter in the morning, it was quite nice day and I had the best felafel wrap for lunch.




Hotel de Ville aka Town Hall, took me a while to work that one out “So… where the hotel?”
Seeing as this was my second last day, I felt anxious to tick off more on the tourist list. So I saw the Notre Dame. It’s ok, not that exciting.




The world famous flying buttress
I went to the Louvre. Since it’s free for all under 26 on Fridays after 6pm, it opens til 9.30pm. I found the Louvre itself very impressive, it rivals the Versaille. There are so much art in the Louvre and I was pressed for time, in 3.5 hours, you get to see nothing. So I was the Mona Lisa, it’s small, you can only see it from 10 meters away, behind a wall of tourists, I didn’t like it much. I saw Venus de Milo. But the favourites I saw and I only saw about 30% of the Louvre, they were 2 frescos by Botticelli, they were magnificient, beautiful and sadly most people just walked right past them.




All for a glimpse of Mona Lisa

Can’t see shit being 10 meters away




Venus and her admirers

There was also Napoleon’s apartment. It was grande beyond excess and really too too much, I have no idea how anyone can live in such a space.


The entertainment room, it was so dazzling, you didn’t know what to look at.

The giant dining table

Looks like a giant glowing insect with red eyes…
Day 7
I went to Centre Pompidou and I absolutely loved it. The building itself is very impressive and its collection even better. I saw so much, Picasso, Mondrian, Calder, Matisse, Rothko, Pollock, Duchamp, Arbus, it’s like a who’s who of modern art and of course they contain some of their most famous pieces.
My fav though was this video floor projection, I must have stood on it for 20 minutes. It wasn’t part of the permanent collection, it was part of Elles @ Centre Pompidou.



To the left, Eiffel Tower.

To the right, Montmartre.


The project that I stook on for 20 minutes.



Mondrian

Calder

Duchamp

Matisse

The square below

Oh! How could I forget, I had been looking for a nice pair of vintage boots ever since the purple ones I got in London started falling apart and I threw them out. As I headed to Pompidou, I walked past this vintage shop. Now the day before I searched up a whole list of vintage shops in Paris and went to all of them, they all had very little ankle boots. But just accidently I past this shop and they had a great selection of ankle boots, I tried on a pair, they fitted, I paid for them and just kept them on… Hah! It all happens when you don’t expect it.
Then it was an early night in packing bags and getting ready to fly to Stockholm today the next day.











































































































































































































































