Paris With Estelle - Sacré Coeur, Montmartre, Centre Pompidou

My friend Estelle got a new camera. We thought it would be fun that she would meet me in Paris and  take pictures all day. Estelle got in Paris at 10, we did a little bit of shopping and around 11:30,we were on our way to Montmartre. Once there we had lunch, not a single picture had been shot yet. :p

I'm not a big fan of bread. But this one was absolutely amazing!! We sat there where people park their scooters and motorcycles and ate our sandwiches.

The view from where I sat.

So we played tourist most of the day in Montmartre. :) I brought my film camera with me. I'd like to take an entire roll of pictures with as many different places in Paris as I can. On different days of course. 

The view from the Sacré Coeur.

I saw these, they look like thistle but the flowers were the size of my fist. I had never seen thistle like this before.

This is a very famous place in Paris, where all the painters used to come. Now most of the square is taken by restaurants' patios but there is still some painters and caricaturists. I couldn't get a good picture of the whole place because it's so busy and so dense, it didn't look good. It's very crowded, not only by people.

We walked in Montmartre. It was such a hot day.

Montmartre is definitely not my favorite place in Paris. It's nice but it's always very busy and the streets are very small. I'm not a big fan of crowds.

Cute poster :p

Then we headed to Les Halles and Le Centre Pompidou. It's a big art musueum/cultural center, with lots of exhibits that change several times a year.

Everytime I go there, there is this homeless man who's feeding the pigeons, always in the same spot. I don't really like pigeons, like most people, but when they are gathered up around this man, it's kind of magical. I wanted to stay longer and keep taking pictures but we were on a tight schedule. :) 

Talking about pigeons, a couple of them made their nest in our neighbors' flower bed. :) They've been away for about two weeks and they'll come home to baby pigeons! 

And now more pigeons...

Life Lately - Walks in Paris, Birthdays

This week was all about my brother's and my Grand Pa's birthdays. My brother turned 25 and my Grand Pa 81. On my day off on thursday we walked all over Paris to find them gifts. We didn't find anything but we took a nice a walk in the sun and I got ideas while doing that, so that was not all bad.

This is La Place de la République right by our apartment.

La Place is brand new and they installed this mist/water thing which is really nice for little kids on days as hot as last thursday.

We tried to find the gifts by the Canal Saint Martin because there is a lot of cool novelty shops there. They always have fun gift ideas but we just couldn't find anything. We ended up buying a bottle of Jagermeister for my Grand Pa from the local Monoprix (grocery place) and on Friday I got the Lego adventure DVD for my brother at the mall I work at. I loved the movie so much and thought it was so funny, I figured my brother would love it.

Then today, we went to my parents' to celebrate the birthdays. :)

I don't know if it's the same elsewhere in the world but in France it's concidered rude to take the last food item from a dish. As I was telling that during lunch and trying to take a picture of the last amuse gueule remaining on the plate my grand pa grabbed it saying he was rude anyway and wanted to eat it. :) So here is the last of salmon sandwiches going away.

Of course we ate a lot. This was delicious, my mom made it. Shrimps, grapefruit, tomatoes, avocado, salad and cocktail dressing.

I had a lot of this! Bénédictine used to be made by monks somewhere on the French coast in Fécamp. It's very similar to Jagermeister but sweeter. Since my Grand Pa loves Bénédictine so much, I thought he would enjoy a bottle of Jagermeister for his birthday. 

My Grand Pa's big hand of former car repair guy.

Back to Paris I wanted to check if this shop was still around. Unfortunately it wasn't. I used to buy a lot of my college books from here. It was huge. I remember the last time I've been there the salesperson was complaining of the rise of internet shopping and that it might put them out of business. I guess it did. Sad.

We walked all the way from Montparnasse station to our crib. It was such a beautiful day.

Love this! I've come accross a bunch of these by the same artist, I don't know whose it is but I sure love the style.

And a new week is about to start...

Another Day Off...

 Shop

Today has been a good day. Sewing and cooking. All I wanted to do! :)

I did mini brooches, and earrings for my shop. I usually make much bigger portraits. It's fun and quick to do these little versions.

Shop

I finally got to sleep past 8:30, which was nice. I'm kind of sad I have to go back to work tomorrow. Don't get me wrong, I like my job but I kind of miss my freedom and being able to be creative. Sometimes work is slow and I don't like to stand there doing nothing. I'm not taking care of my online shop and working to add more stuff to it as much as I'd like to and since it will be half of my income starting in october I feel scared. What if I lose all of my costumers? Or the tiny bit of 'fame' I gained on the site. Or somebody takes my place... I guess I won't worry about it when I'm completely in business again.

I even had the courage to put on make up today! :p

Here's my cat with the last book I read, Murakami, The Chronicles of the Wind-up Bird. It was a great book. I loved the style of the author and how poetic he made all the daily life actions like cooking pasta. It is a very soothing and unsettling book at the same time.

My cutie pie :)

And I baked madeleines. I bought this new mold last week and couldn't wait to try. I did a first try last week. They were not very good. I tried a new recipe today and I think they will be better.

News From the Kitchen - Making Pasta from Scratch, Cookies and Congolais, First Times

Basil on the window sill in bloom! :)

Not much has been going on since my last post here, it's just work work work. Plus it's going great at work so that's pretty much all that's on my mind. :) 

My main activity outside of work has been cooking lately. I tried a bunch of things I had never done before and encountered great success. ^^ Yay! That's not arrogant. :p

I baked cookies for the very first time, they were absolutely yummy and very pretty as well. That's not exactly true, I baked cookies before but always left them in the oven too long, they were always dry and disgusting. I got frustrated and swore I would never make them again and even declared I didn't like cookies that much anyway. This time I got it, no more than 12 minutes cooking.

Aren't they gorgeous? :)

For my birthday I got a little money and decided to buy a pasta making machine with it. I had my eye on one that was 70€ original price but I got it on sale for 33€! It was a steal, it's top quality.

The brand is Titania, it's an italian brand and the machine is made in...Italy! It's awesome and so shiny! :p

I thought making pasta would be so much more tedious than it actually is...Good for me because I'm kind of a slob and I don't like to spend too much time trying to figure something out (example: the cookies).

They were not perfect, but I think I got it and they will be much nicer next time.

 Me saying hi in the reflection.

Tadaaah!

(sorry for the mess on the table)

I found out that the trick is to divide your dough and put it through the machine one portion at a time. Don't be afraid to cut portions again once your dough is thin enough otherwise it's way too long and unmanageable.

So proud! 

Besides they are so many possibilities! I made the pasta with eggs but you don't have to if you use another type of flour than the regular one (don't know the name in english, barely remember it in french actually :s )

I'd like to make basil pasta and stuff like that, with the vegetable already in the pasta.

I put them out to dry in the kitchen. Not very practical but fun. 

The machine I got can do lasagna, spaghetti, and 'tagliatelles'. I don't know the word in English but that's the kind I did today, the ones on the picture.

I think I'll be making more soon because they are all gone by now and the whole process was a lot of fun!

Finally I made congolais. Another first time. They are made of egg whites, sugar and grated coconut. Absolutely delicious and a breeze to make!

My basil is doing good. It has been raining hard all day so it must be happy since I forget to water it most of the time. And I finally bought chive last thursday. I made purée last night with chive, I don't know how I lived without it! Purée without chive is kind of sad. :p

That's pretty much it. No drawings this week. But I have to do more because I ordered all the supplies to make earrings with my drawings.

Tomorrow is a public holiday here in France, Bastille day, so I'm not working, that's nice. It's hard not to have two days off in a row and almost 4 hours of commute on work days. I get so sleepy on the rides home.

That's it for today, I hope I'll have more to share soon because I really missed blogging.