It “exudes a youthful energy that promises to make Paris an even more exciting place.” The new coffeetable book Shop Image Graphics in Paris is describing Point WC, a public toilet that has its own online shop of chic accessories, such as black toilet paper. The book captures what every lover of Paris knows: the [...]
When I finally arrived in Paris and got settled in my apartment I would pass in front of a store named Picard each day as I either entered or exited the metro. During my first 6 months in Paris I had no idea what the store was or what they sold. And while I was [...]
I’m officially starting to feel the effects of August in Paris….the Parisians have left and the tourists have taken over. My office is starting to empty out as everyone takes a month off for les grandes vacances as the French normally get around 6 weeks paid vacation per year. Working as an intern I only have 1 [...]
Over the last few weeks I have watched history being washed away from the street in which I live. This may seem a strange thing to say when the result is a suberbly renovated ancient building, but the peeling away of layers of grime has also peeled away a layer of time. The walls of [...]
I had some sharp stomach pains early in the morning on Tuesday that wouldn’t subside, so I decided I needed to go to the emergency room. So I took a taxi to the closest hospital, the Hotel Dieu on the Ile de la Cite. The emergency room was eerily quiet with only two people in the waiting [...]
Late in the first act of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George,” about the painting of Georges Seurat’s masterpiece Sunday Afternoon the Island of La Grande Jatte, as they sit in the park on the eponymous island, Seurat’s mother says to her son: “What’s that? Off in the distance?” A tower, he tells [...]
Call me crazy but I went to Champagne on Saturday and didn’t drink any. In our last ditch effort to have grownup fun while the kids were at camp, my husband and I took a day trip to Reims, the heart of Champagne, but we had other things in mind. And to tell you the [...]
I bawled my eyes out on the plane ride back from New York this time around. Alone in the dark at 3AM. For exactly 76 minutes. I thought about my family and cried. I thought about my friends and cried. I thought about all the stoops in Brooklyn and Queens I sat on and cried. [...]
My husband goes to work each morning and kisses several women. This isn’t because we have an open relationship, but because he is French, and when you work in a French office, this is what you do. You don’t just hunker down and work, first you do the rounds and say hello to everyone, and [...]
Since 2002, Paris Plage has been enchanting sojourners with imported sand aligning the right bank of the Seine. And this sand is the good stuff too. It’s not the course grainy sand of the Pacific. It’s as though they sifted all the junk out, leaving only a fine layer of a bit of Heaven that [...]
