Snapshots on-the-go (taken with my mobile)

The Monday after Pentecost is a holiday in France. Apparently, the way to celebrate it is to bus in boy and girl scouts from all over the country and host a parade. Troops walked bearing flags of their departments (counties) divided by vans equipped with loudspeakers that were blasting a Catholic prayer call as the hoardes of scouts chanted responses in unison. I had heard that the French scouts were heavily religious, but the effect was creepily cult-like:
More scouts, this time with the Invalides dome in the background:
Racist, anti-arab sticker campaign resisting North African cultural influence and associating it with drug-dealing:
A cute little alleyway right on the Boulevard Périphérique at Porte d'Ivry, that contrasted oddly with the surrounding huge, Amerian-esque apartment high rises :
The side of a primary school in Alésia:
Odd art in the 14th:
This cool mural in the 13th brightens up an otherwise industrial, slummy set of residences:
This poster was all over the Metro for a while. It made me laugh, because thanks to some bad Photoshopping it looks like the guy in the back in lifting up some other guy's shirt. And who knows where his hand is going...

Bottom line: men may like to think otherwise, but sports are totally homoerotic.
McDonalds in Chinatown, just a few tram stops away from us. We come to the grocery stores on this street on occasion to find odd produce and decipher labels on strange sauces. We've made some pretty delicious stirfrys/curries/noodle soups/pad thai so far.
Ah, le Métro:
Pretty cool graffiti near Luxembourg:
A fun fooderie I came across in the 6th. Apparently Jews are doing "sushis" and "beggels" now...
Grate in front of the American Church in Paris, which is near the Seine in the ritzy 7th arrondissement. I have been making a weekly pilgrimage here to check the community message boards for housing announcements:
Scary "don't climb me" spikes on a nearby drain pipe:
This was in the window of a designer bridal store. It's basically a corset with sleeves, made with gauze and some blingin' strings of cubic zirconia. I couldn't decide if it was a really slutty piece of bridal attire, or a really formal lingerie item:
Tiles in Charles de Gaulle Étoile metro station, line 2:

Evian's creepy rollerskating baby advertising campaign is made even more badass by the graffiti:
Close up of a tile in the tea house/hammam of the Grande Mosquée, where classy tourists flock for Moroccan mint tea and flaky middle eastern pastries in the sunny, bird filled courtyard:

You know you're in France when young women bring their backpack accordions to university:
And last, a view of rooftops in the 13e arrondissement from my classroom at Paris III:
(...there's a lot to be seen in a city, if you just take the time to look...)

Touring friends 'round the Tour Eiffel

Having guests in Paris is a good excuse to get out and take advantage of all the cool things the city has to offer that I generally ignore as a resident. It's also a cool way to get reinfected with the awe of a first-timer. Laura is the world's perfect tourist: she is eternally curious, easily amazed and all about photographs and souvenirs (LOTS of souvenirs). And she had never been to Paris before. Hearing her gasps as we wound through Montmartre or the hallways of the Louvre made me remember how ecstatic I was the first time I came to Paris. And walking through France with Jason once again just felt natural, in a comforting sort of way.

Their first day here was a beautiful day to be outdoors. We started with lunch in the garden terrace at one of my favorite crêperies, and then we just walked around--through Notre-Dame, along the Seine, past the Hôtel de Ville to Tuleries, the Palais du Louvre and the Opera House. We stopped for mid-afternoon cocktails in sunny, curbside cafés and finally ended up in the multicultural Bastille area for dinner.
The next day took us to the Jewish/Gay district of the Marais--one of the only Parisian districts that doesn't shut down on a Sunday.
In fact, the Marais was so hoppin' that we had to queue to get our hands on a pita from the legendary L'as du Fallafel. It was worth the wait, though, as Lenny Kravitz knows...
Just our luck!--an old man Jewish street band started up just across from the curb where we were sitting munching our falafel.
And then, of course, we had to take Laura to see the Eiffel Tower...
...and climb it...(Apologies for this unflattering view. Laura was my designated ass photographer for most of our trip, as she has a knack for lagging behind and taking "action" (stalker) photos)
...and only a million stairs later, voilà! Can you tell it was windy?
Monday was our day for Museum-ing, which meant that I got to see the Italian Renaissance, Greek and Roman sculptures and Egyptian wing of the Louvre for the nth time. (I really need to make it back there someday when I don't have tourists in tow to see the other parts). I amused myself by imitating artwork. Here I am, posing with Ms. de Milo and a girl who is totally jealous of my mangled limbs/torso:
And now I'm paying patty cake with an Egyptian bear.
And then, of course, we couldn't let Laura leave France without trying escargot. Delish.

100 posts and going strong

This post marks the 100-post anniversary of this travel blog. Woohoo! I thought I'd celebrate with a photo post. Taken with the camera in my cell phone, here are some moments captured in my day-to-day life around Paris. To start off with, here's a picture of my friend, Lucy, on our walk home from a café and the grocery store. I thought she looked very French:
A weird iron grill on a building I found walking around the 7th:
An awesome hat, observed in metro hub Châtelet-Les Halles:
A view up boulevard Général LeClerc from Alesia:
And the nearby fresh fruit and fish markets:
A woman rocking some strange boots outside a café where I was reading and enjoying a café crème and a tiramisu macaron:
One of the best close-up shots I've been able to get of the ubiquitous Space Invader graffiti (most of them are too high for me to get close to):
A cool street musician band we ran into in the St. Germain area. Called "Texas CousCous", they feature 18 members, mostly on brass instruments, and play jazzed-up covers of pop songs:
A 100-euro bill. I should have taken a photo of it next to another bill. For anyone who hasn't handled euros before, the size of the bill increases with the denomination, so these are comically big:
A poster highlighting the gender wage gap. Woohoo!
An old Frenchman on WiFi outside a cafe:
A cute dad, giving his toddler a shoulder ride inside the Metro. He had the art of ducking when entering/exiting a car down...didn't scrape her little head once.
The NYU metro stop (Passy) in the swanky 16th arrondissement. Taken on my way home one particularly clear night:
Zombie baby:
This is kind of blurry, but I think it's funny that the regular type of Durex here (by far the most popular condom, like the Trojan of Europe) are called "jeans" (I guess to evoke associations of comfort? They're definitely nothing like denim) and that the XL size has a tape measure. Subtle.
And last, some cool cow art at a smoothie bar on the way to Paris VII. It says "Life is a dream: achieve it!" Why thank you, Ms. Cow. I do believe I shall.