Girls are Caterpillars

Marais Exploration

Brilliant bars, old boho atmosphere. There’s a good energy in the marais.

Hotel de Sully, 62 Rue Saint Antoine

Along with the Jeu de Paume this forms a two part centre for Centre National de Photographie but when I was there it wasn’t open… There was a great stone monument of a snail on a mound though. 

Maison De Victor Hugo, 6 Places Voges
He lived there between 1833-1848. It’s a maison of odities. His hpmemade furniture and over 500 drawings. Check it owt!!

Musee Carnavalet, 23 Rue de Sevigne

It’s free wooooo! And over 140 showing the chronological history of France. Some rooms were better than others, I seem to remember getting a bit bored. But it’s free nature is definitely a draw.

Cafe de la Gare, 41 Rue de Temple

It leads to the former Aigle D’or coaching inn and now a theatre. I lovely courtyard to sit in the sun.

FALAFFEL, Rue de Rosiers (Best falaffel in the city)- also worth nipping into the Frepstar vintage stores, Le Petit Fer Un Cheval (V small but pretty) and La Perle (site of the infamous John Galliano anti-semitic comments)

So I have long neglected my culture blog due to other filmic blogging duties. I am going to try and finish telling some of the tales of my Parisian adventure,

here it re-commences:

Gay Pride Paris

I have never been to pride which is a veritable bloody miracle considering the amount gay guys and gals in my friendship circle. However in Paris I finally popped my pride cherry and was very proud and liberated traipsing through the streets of paris through my bra.

Vive la France!

Post we ended up at Quai de l’ourcq (while 2 of our number nursed someone, who got a bit too boozed, in an emergency tent) and some others revelled in Palais de Tokyo at one of their summer parties.

Quai de l’ourcq is one of the many sickeningly romantic dridges in Paris where people have left locks and keys to show their relationship’s longievity.

Incidentally, on this day gay marriage was legalised in NYC woooo!

My first encounter with La Defense

In the midst of all the old beautiful architecture Paris has to offer us stands the slightly Sci Fi looking empty square of La Defense as well as of a cluster of New York style towers.

I stayed at a friends house in the suburbs (it was absolutely stunning, for 350 euros a month they gained a cottage with a wood, garden and pear tree!!) and the next morning his friend gave me a lift back out of the dream to civilisation. He worked in the city, also known as La Defense. Seeing it so early in the morning was a sight to behold. V awe inspiring. The fun thing though was what I came across on my way to the tube. Below are some observations I wrote about this experience at the time:

Why is a giant thumb sticking out of the ground near La Defense? It is almost a contemporary version of the feelings the Romantic writers referred to as the sublime (shock and awe). Le Pouce De Cesare by Cesar Baldccini is its name and that is all I could find out. It’s phallic symbol of power is quite appropriate in La Defense, home of the financial and business district and site of potency.

Fete de la Musique, 21 Juin

Fete de la Musique is an event every year where Paris turns into a giant music festival. Each neighbourhood treats it differently and I heard the coolest party to be at was at espace 104.

I ended up sunning myself in the jardins de la palais royale having just missed my friend’s performance with her hula dancing collective. I did however get some free smurf candy from the experience which amused me greatly (see novelty pics).

Then I wandered through the marais, grabbing a cheeky falaffel from rue de rosiers along the way and danced to various folk bands and calvin harris before I reached Bastille where a grand stage had been erected and various performers were on.

Post this we hit up a squat party in a secret location but sadly the squat was new and the space, although epic with a lot of party potential, was quite dead. Onwards we pranced to Jazz in Oberkampf ending in Gare d’auserlitz where we failed to get into batofar. The moral of the story is plan plan PLAN! There is music everywhere, so it is probably more intelligent to stick to one event.

NB these photos are of situations/people I encountered on my fete de la musique wanderings.

SONGS TO COOK TO

I was reading a comment piece in the paper the other day and Sophie Dahl (babe) had chosen 5 of her favourite songs to cook to.

They were:

‘I want a little sugar in my bowl’- Nina Simone

‘Come Together’- Ike and Tina version

‘My girls’- Animal Collective

‘Just a friend’- Biz Markie

‘Tramp’- Otis Reading

Pikachu I CHALLENGE you- what are your 5 songs to cook to tumblr community.

Mine are:

‘Fish’-Mr Scruff

‘Milkshake and Honey’- Sleater Kinney

‘Milk Coffee Sugar’- Prevu pas Prevu

‘Que Sera’- Wax Tailor

and either ‘Birthday’- by the sugarcubes or ‘concrete schoolyard’ by Jurassic 5.

This is subject to change but ‘fish’ will always be in there, especially if I’m cooking fish.

Sacha’s Crew and La miroiterie, 88 rue menilmontant

It’s not often on first meeting a crew of people you stay up till 6am dancing to disney songs in a rooftop appartment. This was my initiation into a group of (mainly) science po cool kids.

I had many adventures with these guys (more blog posts on them to follow). One particularly epic one was a fundraiser in La miroiterie- a squat/gallery/music venue covered in graffiti where the booze is oh so cheap. We danced to jazz freestyle in a hot room till closing.

The day after meeting them, 3 of their number took me to the dark room @science po and re-taught me how do develop b & w film. Hopefully many creative collaborations will continue in the future.

But thankyou sachasophietristanenguerrandbarbiepeuhtetolivierthomasantoninkamellaceylukas and many more people for including me!

ps sorry it seems i took so few photo’s of y’all