From Right Here

Photos from my first week in Paris - just wandering around alllll daaayyy loonnnggg.

These are photos of a “greve” a strike in Paris. These happen quite often and people often return to work the same day or next. They are held more to show opposition - usually complaining about a salary. This was for Hospital Workers.

‘Grise’ refers to the economic crisis in the US. They talk constantly about it, as they do everywhere. So far, there have been several small French Banks that have been hurt, but the worst of the damage is yet to come. Funny enough, aside from your house mortgage, many French people I’ve met here owe nothing on credit cards or loans. It’s not part of the culture and students rarely graduate with a hefty monthly payment because school is “gratuite!”

Musee D’Orsay - The Museum of Post-Renaissance, Impressionist and Post-Impressionists (1848-1914). It’s got all the good stuff, so make sure you stop there.

(highly DON”T recommend the food - awful, tiny cafeteria, and 2 over-priced restaurants).

For more, click on the link to my picasso photo gallery -

http://picasaweb.google.com/chodger/ParisOctober#

I’ve just spent a week in Paris - it’s beautiful but bittersweet, because Paris is the beginning of the end of my past 5 months in France. After this, it’s back to NYC, back to strolling the streets looking for a job, back to the grind, back to real life.

Paris is beautiful. As far as size and diversity, it has nothing on NYC or London or Tokyo. But every road, every street is “pretty” - creamy apartment buildings, long stretching boulevards, jardins and parks at every corner. I suppose it helps your city if you’ve had people like Catherine Medici and Napolean dispensing all the people’s taxes on whatever monument they dreamed up. But even the streets that are not dated from centuries ago are “cute”. When it has just rained, all the black streets are glissening and young ladies with dripping wet bangs sweeping across their foreheads are chatting in cafes like the night will never end.

Unfortunately - my time on the computer is hindered - not by my situation (my aunt is lovelingly taking me in, feeding me and being generally super-generous), but rather because I head out every day and meet up with friends and ‘balader’ and walk around (and spend the rest of the time planning a trip to Italy).

I promise a gigantuan load of photos…very, very soon.

For now, Good LUCK to all the Americans, and to everyone else - Bonne Journee.

Here’s an exerpt from my latest piece for my friend Clarence’s Food Blog! Click here for the full article -

http://you-food.net/

Ahhh…Bread and Cheese. The very basics of French Cuisine. If you head to your local Whole Foods and attempt to pick out a French cheese, it can seem pretty daunting, it seems like there are a million varieties and they all have names that sound funny. Likewise, it is nearly impossible to find a decent crusty bread, both in the US AND even in France. Either it’s uber-chewy on the outside and goopy in the middle or it lasts for less than one day and unlike me, you can’t bring yourself to eat an entire baguette in 4 hours….

www.cheriefm.fr

Oh CherieFM, Cherie FM…

Only you can play Phil Collins and George Micheal and Carla Bruni and James Blunt and Daniel Pewter and all those spanish guys that sing from the top of their lungs and you can TELL are sexy just from hearing it…only you, Cherie FM can make it all seem like it’s supposed to go together.

CherieFM - Love Songs from France. You may not be adored by all those techno-kids over here, but you got me-(but if you could stop playing that ONE Colbie Callait song over and over and over, I’d appreciate it).

I can’t say I just spent a whole day taking pictures of normal French people. I can’t categorize any person as normal, especially French! I spent Sunday at a Festival of “welcome”, a brilliant idea by the city of Montpellier, that invites every association, dance school, choral group, mosaic-workshop, gay/lesbian club, karate class in the greater Languedoc area to come and give out information to the public.

It was a beautiful day to appreciate how nice it is to live for a few months in one of France’s largest cities, where culture is king. Here’s some photos of Montpellierians…and French people, whom I try to impersonate on a daily basis.

Salsa dancing is VERRYYY popular in Montpellier. It may be because Montpellier is a huge cultural center for dance, with many dane schools and its own yearly dance festival - Montpellier Dance. They also had their own country line-dancing group.

Even when women are dressed “comfortably” in France, they always wear jewelery, and have great hair. Love her bag, too! And don’t even think of wearing sweats unless you’re headed to the gym…it’s just weird.