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...