Paris Gay Pride

Today is June 30 and like last year and the year before about 500 000 "gay priders" are going to march from Montparnasse to Bastille between 1:30 pm and 6 pm. This year I won't be able to attend and take tons of photos, since I only return to Paris on Monday. That is why, I decided to cheat and show you a photo I took last Sunday during the San Francisco Gay Pride. Let's face it, apart from some very graphical scenes (I'm talking VERY graphical!) that you would never see here, the SF march is not very different from the one in Paris.
Discuss the Paris Gay Pride and many other Paris related topics in the PDP forum.

Freemason Museum

Here is a bit of a Masonic Museum located in the 9th arrondissement (16 rue Cadet). It is also the home of "Le Grand Orient de France", one of the main Lodges in European freemasonry and also the most liberal and progressive one. In this museum you can see all of the ritual symbols that masons use during their meetings. The building is quite ugly (very 70ish) but the museum is interesting, at least for those who want to learn more about this organisation.

Merry-go-round

"Mon manege a moi c'est toi" (you are my merry-go-round) is a famous line from a song by Edith Piaf and I could not help thinking of it when I took this photo on Montmartre, near the Basilic du Sacre Coeur. When I look at this, with the typical Paris building in the background, I start missing my favorite town now, even though I'm told the weather is terribly cold down there at the moment...

Quiz!

Here is a little quiz for today... What building do these columns belong to? A theater? A train station? A church? Hint: I did take this photo in Paris, not in Athens LOL!

The Paris Metro Web!

107 years after its official inauguration (1900 on the occasion of the Exposition Universelle) the Paris Metro never stops growing... I just discovered today that they are about to open a new metro station in the 13th arrondissement on Line 14 (the latest one, also the only one to be fully automated). This new station is called Olympiades and it will certainly improve the daily life of the large population that lives in this area (wich includes part of the Chinese quarter). More - in French - here.

Paris Daily Photo in San Francisco (part deux!)

You know I very very rarely post a photo that was not taken in Paris, but today, on this special occasion, I had to break the rule. So here it is... These are the wonderful people I got to spend the evening with, last night in San Francisco. Two are actually missing (Larry, where on earth was he?!) and Clo, who arrived a little later) and I let the others introduce themselves in the comments. I really enjoyed myself and I do mean it. Once again a big thank you to BuzzGirl (slightly hidden in the back LOL) for arranging the restaurant and to everyone for showing up.

D-Day! Paris Daily Photo in San Francisco

Today is a great day for me. It's Sunday and at 5 pm I'll be meeting all San Francisco PDP lovers who can make it to the little gathering organized by Buzzgirl at Cha Cha Cha in the Mission (2327 Mission St., between 19th and 20th streets). I'll try not to be late (providing I can park!) and to bring little surprises... Needless to say that I will also post photos the next day. (Sorry for those of you who are not in SF nor the Bay area. I promise everything will go back to normal on Tuesday!) .

Treasure hunting in Paris

One of the favorite activities of some groups in Paris are treasure hunts. They are organized by various associations or even specialized agencies and they take place in the most typical places of Paris (where hidden clues can be found!) I took this photo in the Passage Jouffroy - where the Musee Grevin (wax museum) is - and I noticed right away, from the way they were dressed and from their attitude that these ladies were treasure hunting...
PS: last call for tomorrow PDP meeting in San Francisco. All details here.

Fete de la musique

Like every year - for the 26th time! - Paris celebrated "La fete de la musique" yesterday. The weather was good, there were bands everywhere - and everyone was in the mood to party. Well, so I'm told because, for once, I did not take this photo myself but a colleague of mine (Nicolas) did. One thing I can tell you, there was no music festival in the streets of Palo Alto last night!

Jogging in Les Tuileries gardens

If you're looking for a nice place to run or to take your children to while you're in paris (they have cool things for kids, like this sail boat rental that I used to love when my parents would take me there!). The fascinating thing about these gardens is that they have been the 1st public gardens in Paris, ever! It was Louis the XIVth, after he commited famous gardner André Le Notre to design them, who decided that Parisians would be granted to right to walk through them every year on June 24. Imagine!

In the Paris Metro

Not much to say on today's photo, nothing to learn! I took it with my new camera, just to try it on my way home from work and I just love it. The blurry part, the metro arriving in the background, the colors...
PS : for those of you who want to know more about the PDP meeting in San Francisco, please visit this post in the forum. A big round of applause for BuzzGirl who organized everything. See you all on Sunday.

Want to ride my bicycle?

OK, OK, my bicycle does not look too good... I'm going to have to buy a new model, or... take advantage of a brand new service they are currently installing in Paris. It's called Velib and it allows you to "borrow" a bicycle at one station, drive it for 1/2 hour and give it back at any other station of your choice (eventually there should be a station every 300 meters (1 000 feet). All this is free as long as you pay a yearly fee of 29 euros. You only pay extra costs if you use the bicycle for more than 1/2 hour. Isn't great? All the info is here (but in French only...)

Through Le Pont de La Concorde

How about a little view on the Seine? I took this one from La Concorde Bridge (the one that goes from the Place de La Concorde (where they used to chop the head off aristocrats during the French revolution) and the left bank. Actually at the time of the French Revolution (1789) this bridge did not exist yet, you had to take a boat to cross the Seine. The "funny" thing is that originally this bridge was meant to be called Pont Louis XVI (after the name of the king that was beheaded)...

MissTic

Those who live in Paris are pretty familiar with this little silhouetto of Miss Tic, an artist (a poet really) who is now famous for, precisely, exposing her little self portraits on thousands of locations in Paris. This one is actually a poster but most of them are stencils ("Pochoirs" in French) that she paints directly upon the walls. She published several books, has a line of Lingerie and even featured in a ad campaign (more on her website). I once asked her agent to photograph her but she politely declined...

PS: I'm currently in the Bay area at the moment, if you're in the neighbourhood and want to attend a little PDP meeting on Sunday June 24, please check this post.

More street marketing...

Do you remember this photo with this very unusual advertisement for Ray Ban? Well it seems that Sony had a similar idea... To promote a new product they scattered "cling rites" - that is what these little "figurines" are called - throughout Paris (I shot this one at Bastille; you can see the column in the back). Of course some of these cling rites are winners and if you discover the right ones you can win a prize. Pretty clever but it just sucks they did not disclose the product yet, as they promised they would on June 15 on their official site!

White Dinner party

Every year around mid June, a big open air white dinner party is organized somewhere in Paris. The funny part of it is that its location is kept secret until the very end. Participants are asked to go to a certain spot and wait. 15 minutes before the actual start they get an SMS or a phone call that tells them where to gather. As a sheer coincidence (ehem!), I happened to be passing by... This year it was around the Arc de Triumph on the place de l'Etoile - and it was quite impressive as you can see from these photos I took from the top of the Arch.

Concert in La Madeleine Church

I surely have better things to do than attending a concert 2 days before leaving home for 2 weeks, but... I could not resist going to La Madeleine Church last night (Wednesday) after I saw, on an ad, that they would perform Mahler's Lied von den Erd and Gabriel Fauré's Requiem. The acoustics in La Madeleine is really bad but I did not regret attending this concert, first because I did enjoy the performance very much and second because they played for a charity (Espoirs sans frontières - Hopes without borders). BTW, I arrived a little early while there were still rehearsing as you can see on these photos.

Sculpture or real legs?

I took this photo on the Boulevard Haussmann near the Galeries Lafayette. In your opinion, is that a modern sculpture or do these legs belong to someone? Answer in 18 hours...
NB: If you're in the Bay area and want to join me for a PDP meeting on Sunday June 24, please check this post.

Welcome to Hotel California

We're so lucky here. Not only do we have THE real Paris Hilton (have you seen that by the way?) but we also have a hotel California! It's not on a dark desert highway, but right in the middle of the 8th arrondissement (16 rue de Berri) but don't ask me if it's heaven or hell nor of they serve pink Champagne on ice, I don't know! The reason why I'm showing you this hotel today is that in in 3 days I'm on my way to... California (Silicon Valley, more precisely). If you're in the area and want to participate in a little PDP gathering on Sunday 24, well let me know in the forum right here. Hope to see you soon.

Voting again...

Today we just had new elections (yes, again!). We elected our representatives at the parliament (called L'Assemblée Nationale in French - see the photo). There are 577 Députés and they are attached to a region. Their role is two fold: "govern" their region and pass laws (or bills, I don't know the difference exactly). As expected Nicolas Sarkozy's party (UMP) won most of the seats and the abstention rate was really high. Although there will be a second round next week the socialist party won't have many Députés. I guess no one wanted to vote for these people...