From Right Here

Photos from walking around in Paris.

These photos were taken at the Jardins des Plantes in Paris - the Botanical Gardens of Paris, if you will. This garden is completely free, had many blooming flowers even in October, and has several nice exhibits for kids and people like me who are nil with biology. One exhbit chronicals the millions of years of history of the earth while you’re walking - you just have to see to believe it!

had to get me some boots for paris - can’t do the sneakers here!

Many, Many street photos - including this little cafe - where I accidentally ordered LIVER…oh la.. (it said BOEUF!)

This is what people do, alll dayyy - hang in cafe’s - rain or shine.

These photos were taken at one of my favorite spots in Paris - The Jardins du Luxembourg. They were originally built to please Queen Marie de Medici, Henri IV’s widow - I guess she was feeling homesick. So this reminded her of Florence. It’s now the home of the Senate, and is a central place to play tennis, chess, or just walk around. It contains over a 100 statues of some of the women of France.

For the link to more, go to my Picasso site: http://picasaweb.google.com/chodger/ParisOctober#

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#

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.

Can’t say there’s a uniform “style” here in the Languedoc in France, but I see a lot of young ladies with flats, flats, falts, great earings and bangs, sweeping across the brow and hiding very flirty eyes.

I met a young guy from England visiting who described French girls as this -

“They just know you want to snog them, and you can tell they don’t even care…”

Ah…I think my favorite Montpellier Photo Blogger is back from the states…finallY!

http://montpellierdailyphoto.blogspot.com/