My blog

Today I played tennis for my first time ever on clay!  It was fun!  Although I was afraid of falling, and I was out of breath after 5 minutes!  I really need to start training again!

Today we went to see the Lion King.  It was pretty good.  It was in French though, so I couldn’t sing along to the songs in my head.  But it was very well done…the costumes, the stage, the choreography.  I love broadway shows!

View from the top of the Montparnasse tower in Paris. It takes about as much time to go up 6 floors to our appartment as to go up 53 floors in the tower! That’s fast!

That green part on the left is the Luxembourg garden, and below of course is the famous Tour Eiffel…

Today we went to the Pierre Paulin exhibit, where I discovered these very trendy chairs and matching table were in the French president’s kitchen around 20 years ago in “L’Elysée” - the official presidential residence in Paris.  Pierre Pauloin also designed President Mitterand’s desk and a bunch of other furniture in l’Elysée.

At “Les Mouettes” restaurant at Larmor Plage in Brittany.  I ordered the magret de canard (duck breast).  So good!  We had such a wonderful view too!  Our table is pictured in the “diaporama 2“.

Today we spent the afternoon in Vannes, in Brittany.  The city centre is like a little medeival town.

The French take summer holidays very seriously.  Everybody, and I mean everybody goes on holidays, and pretty much all at around the same time - July and August.  This is a picture taken on July 11th, at the Montparnasse train station while we were on our way to Brittany for the long weekend.  A lot of these people were probably on their way to places called “centres de vacances” situated all over France.  These places employ people called “animateurs” (usually struggling students), who are in charge of organizing activities for kids and parties in the evening where everybody sings traditional “summer holiday” songs.  Everybody, and I mean everybody knows the words to these songs by heart.   They make movies about these places.  They sell “vacation” activity books for kids.  I’m telling you, in France, the summer holidays is an institution!  Which isn’t bad I suppose.  I guess I’d rather be at a centre de vacances singing my heart out than sitting at my computer figuring out how to display an “e accent aigu”.  Man, I need a vacation.

The country of honour at this year’s Paris Cinéma Festival is the Philippines! So I decided to go to a screening of one of the movies tonight called “Kaleldo” (Summer Heat). Did me some good to hear a little Tagalog again!

This mornning I did a little shopping at the market with my trusty market basket by HandedBy. I love their whole line of baskets.

After surviving the Place de l’étoile, I managed to get a little shopping done before the stores closed, but I didn’t find anything. So, I decided to go back the following day. I stumbled upon a one of a kind (in my eyes at least) Abaco bag that I bought and then returned at Printemps (see above picture). Here’s the story. I bought the bag (it’s indigo blue by the way - so cool!), then decided to look around a bit more. Big mistake. Because around the corner was the Marc by Marc Jacobs stand and this pretty little thing. Torn between the two, I decided to return my indigo blue treasure and opt for a better known brand. The next day, I couldn’t stop thinking about the Abaco, which I havn’t felt about a bag for a long time. So…on Saturday, I went back to re-buy it. I know, bad Lyndsey! But I couldn’t help it. And I promise not to buy another bag for at least a year, which is a promise I am confident I can keep, seeing as I now have two new wonderfully awesome (and high quality might I add) bags. Vive les soldes!  And Happy Canada Day to all the Canadians reading this!