la fare les oliviers

my dear sunday hosts...

...and their "petit fils" Gary

We ate such delicious food--an incredible Thai salad that I am determined to replicate and a traditional tarte of Lyon. So happy to have met this part of my family, however distant. I am so spoiled!

cote d'azur

visited cassis. hiked some cliffs and saw the calanques (of the cool underground streams). quality cousine (and tante) time.

PAGO xoxo

feels good to be in a place where landscape is so culturally important.

sante

et des oeufs dur, de les cousins de belleville

131

Going to visit Mairie Les Lilas, the area where my paternal grandmother (Ama) lived as a little girl, was a process of decoding an overwhelming montage of visual information. 131 rue de Paris, the building where her grandparents and cousin lived, still stands with a very sleek-looking McDonald's on one side, an Asian general store (aka "Mega Affaires") set back from the street where her family's bronze workshop used to be, and "Nicole Lingerie" at the base of the building. A lot has changed and I was lucky to have Francois (my excellent guide, and distant cousin) along to tell me what was old and what was new, and that there used to be a pond with fish where there is now a concrete slab.

The Mairie, with a restored front, still showed the pockmarks of WWII. Saw the church where the family was baptized, married, etc. just before it is scheduled to be demolished (a large "modern" church has been built next to it and the belltower will exist where the old church still stands). Also stopped by the cemetery to see the family tomb.

Ama's school which should look about the same as when she attended (as confirmed by Cousine Denise).

Chez les Mauvoisins, la Garenne-Colombes.

kilometre zero

Look at all the love-locks! Over the Seine, catching wind, small metal prayers that cover an entire bridge. Made me think of the prayer flags in Ladakh.

On my first day in France I made it to the zero-mark of Paris, smack in front of Notre-Dame.

This is all a short swim away from Shakespeare and Company, the bookstore I have been volunteering at.

The Paris I recall as a child was full of narrow corridors, fish under glass floors, chocolat chaud and croissants (also terrible piss smells and impressive beggars). In short, a sort of magic city where I experienced awesome (I mean this in the original sense) sights/smells/events. It still retains some of that aspect now. I saw some incredible street artists--some men roller blading over a jump to scale a pole at ten feet. But it was also incredibly real to me, as most cities are, as a place of unhappy individuals, of people who don't have time to appreciate much more than a few people, a few activities. I have to say that the Paris I had as a child will be forever special and apart for me--a place of extremes but without stress, a place where I truly admired my parents and was happy. Mille fois merci, D&D. Love, T