francais friday

Oui oui, ce sont les escargots.. ooh la la!!!
Hubby and I really *did* eat snails when in Paris.. they arrived sizzling and completely drowned in garlic butter and the report is that they tasted like *rubber chicken*.
strange but true...
and I'm also ecstatic to report that my schoolgirl french allowed us to communicate tres bien in Paris...
though Hubby kept asking me: what does that say/mean?
and I would mostly think:
je ne sais pas, moi...
and mostly whenever I asked les Francais a question, they'd answer with a tirade of french, to which I'd shrug and then we'd work it out in *franglais*.... with lots of gestures...
but once, I tried my perfectly practised sentence and mademoiselle immediately answered me in english... *blush*.. so much for my twenty-year-old schoolgirl french, je trouve!!
c'est la vie...

francais friday

When I was in my teens, there was a Claude Monet exhibition at our museum.
I was so wowed by the colour mixing, the way the light still seemed to shine out from his paintings. The whole romantic feel of it all. I'm sure we saw all his famous stuff, I just cannot remember. But what I do remember, is that *he painted what he saw*.. so in his later years, with failing eyesight, his paintings look a bit smudgy. That whole idea governed and inspired me when I was teaching classrooms full of kids to *do art*. Whether drawing or painting, first draw what you see. Not what you think you see. Tricky.

A little while after first seeing Monet live, my dahling Mum knitted me a funky jumper out of different colours of sunshiney pastel shades all created in random tiny horizontal stripes and we affectionately named it *my monet jumper*

Six weeks ago, in Paris, hubby and I got to see it all again.


I have such an attachment to the impressionist painters. Perhaps it's because I also have a love affair with the sunshine.. and you can *see* the sunlight here... all those yellows and reds and oranges. They make my soul sing.

Perhaps it's the impossible that Monet wished, becoming possible:
I want the unobtainable. Other artists paint a bridge, a house, a boat, and that's the end. They are finished. I want to paint the air which surrounds the bridge, the house, the boat, the beauty of the air in which these objects are located, and that is nothing short of impossible.

Monsieur Monet, I'm breathing your air...

francais friday

Go, commando!!

Last month in Paris, hubby and I went to the Musee du Louvre. The glass pyramids are amazing. It was a hot summer's day and there were people languishing all around the fountains, dipping their toes in the bright green water!!


We'd got the wrong information re. opening hours, though, and missed seeing La Joconde (Mona Lisa) by two minutes... gutted!!

The history of the Mona Lisa is shrouded in mystery. Among the aspects which remain unclear are the exact identity of the sitter, who commissioned the portrait, how long Leonardo worked on the painting, how long he kept it, and how it came to be in the French royal collection. The portrait may have been painted to mark one of two events - either when Francesco del Giocondo and his wife bought their own house in 1503, or when their second son, Andrea, was born in December 1502 after the death of a daughter in 1499. The delicate dark veil that covers Mona Lisa's hair is sometimes considered a mourning veil. In fact, such veils were commonly worn as a mark of virtue. Her clothing is unremarkable. Neither the yellow sleeves of her gown, nor her pleated gown, nor the scarf delicately draped round her shoulders are signs of aristocratic status.

So we decided instead to buy a fabulous book there, called PARIS 360.

It's a collection of photos, taken on a wide angle lens, and shows places and people around Paris. It's been reclining on our coffee table since our return.. and is already becoming much-loved. D16 (who had just spent half an hour on the phone to Granny, practising for his upcoming French assessment), hubby and I stayed up late last night, poring over the photos and our memories.. reliving our authentic croque monsieur experiences and generally reminiscing..

francais friday

When Hubby and I went to the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, we were absolutely captivated by Auguste Rodin's Le Baiser (The Kiss). Rodin is also the sculptor of Le Penseur (The Thinker).

Auguste Rodin (November 12, 1840 – November 17, 1917) was a French sculptor.
Born François-Auguste-René Rodin, to a working class family in Paris, he is often given a pivotal role in the history of modern sculpture, as both excelling at and rebelling from the Beaux-arts tradition. His unique, virtuoso ability to organize a complex, turbulent, deeply pocketed surface set him apart from the figure sculpture traditions before and since his time.

francais friday

Hubby and I saw these babushka dolls in a little shop window in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris.
Aren't they adorable??

I have never seen so many in real life.. I started collecting russian nesting dolls for R13 a couple of years ago when we visited Sydney (she still has only one set!)

(and how many are here? Put down your sudoku and count....)

francais friday

katie and the sunflowers

I've had a love-affair with van Gogh ever since I was a little girl and my Dad used to sing Starry Starry Night with me. Two years ago, I made a skirt with five of van Gogh's sunflowers (one for each of my babies) sewn into it.


So when we arrived at the Musee D'Orsay last month, I was ecstatic to find this

and this

and this

and I was standing just a few inches away... breathing the same air...

francais friday

Our first day: it was so overwhelming, so beautiful, so perfect.
Everything in Paris is grand, exquisite, quaint, delightful.
We woke up to a french breakfast in the "dungeon" of our hotel: cereal, croissants, ham and cheese, fruit, yoghurt, juice, coffee.. and after scoffing all that.. we weren't hungry until late afternoon!!


We wandered five minutes down the road, past cafes with ones and twos drinking little espresso coffees and tearing pastry bits off croissants, past huge ornate buildings, across the Seine River and down to the Ile de la Cite, where our lady, Notre Dame stands.


The Seine is the ribbon that ties hearts to Paris. All along the river people wander, sipping coffees, drawing, writing in their journal, painting, drinking a bottle of wine with friends, thinking or larking about.. being alone and together.


Here is the entrance way to Notre Dame. I wonder who all these people are.. saints, church fathers, heroes?

francais friday

Two weeks ago we were in Paris.. it was a three nights/two days whirlwind in the city of love.
It was a dream come true for me: I have been longing to visit Paris for over twenty years.
Hubby and I travelled by Eurostar from Waterloo, and arrived at the Hotel du Pantheon just in time to whizz down to the Ile de la Cite for a quick look at Notre Dame before finding a possy at a little french cafe to watch The Game.. the FIFA final between France and Italy... what a blast.. five hundred people all drinking warm beer and chilled red wine (what *is* it with those british and french?? sacre bleu!!!) and yelling hysterically... they all cheered for Zidane's head butt. Hubby was mortified!!
I had my first croque monsieur (a glorified ham-and-cheese toasted sandwich, cost $NZ 20 lol)
The next day, walking down the Champs Elysees, (I could hardly breathe, and it wasn't just the heat.. so amazing just being there) we noticed everyone rushing to the Place de la Concorde.. and so we joined thousands of spontaneously-gathered-French-soccer-supporters yelling, "Allez Les Bleus!" and "Zizou.. clap, clap, clap.." waiting to welcome the team. What a celebration!!! What an experience.. people everywhere, up on statues, all over the huge area at the Concorde..

Le Pantheon, just down from our hotel.

It's huge, and so elaborate.

Louis XV built it as a monument to St Genevieve

after he recovered from illness.

It was finally completed at the start of the French Revolution.

People buried there include:

Rousseau, Voltaire, Marie Curie, Louis Braille and Alexandre Dumas.

(See, you learn a new thing every day!!)

La Place de la Concorde

Allez les Bleus!!

Hi, honey... I'm h-o-m-e !!!!!!!

so jet-lagged..
we arrived home last night after 36 hours travelling: car, plane, airport-wait, another plane, another car, another car...
got the kids, all home and hosed...

we had the time of our lives, Greg and Em's wedding was completely fairytale.
i think i'll have to start a *francais friday* or something, to blog all my Paris photos over the next few months lol.

we were welcomed by a sweet banner that R13 has strung across our doorway.. and THIS:

The Rooster aka D16

it turns out that the brother of one of his mates bribed D16 with $10 to give him a mohawk.
and he used blunt scissors. so as of this morning, D16 has a number-three.

*grin*

right then, sweet dreams, i'm off to bed. again.