The Paris I Lived In

Train station in Charles de Gaulle Airport.

 

First fruit stand I shopped at in Paris. When I was still trying to document everything. In the end I shopped most frequently at the supermarket; it's cheaper. Honestly, I didn't think the fruit in Paris was very flavorful regardless of what vendor it came from. The strawberries I bought from the stand above- I'd swear they sprinkled sugar on the top. The strawberries started out sweet and got progressively blander as I ate towards the bottom. It's a touristy area, maybe that's the problem. On the other hand, all the dates I got in Paris were huge, plump and deliciously sweet.

 

The sort of thing you might see out your bedroom window in Paris, six floors up.

 

Of  course the Pantheon is being renovated while I'm in Paris. It's still open, and I did go in. And into the crypt as well.

 

This was my first view of the Eiffel Tower.

 

The kitchen in my Paris apartment, with barely enough room to turn around in. The hot water heater is right above the fridge. The old gas stove and oven had to be lit with a match; that was fun, but I didn't die.

 

I loved the wood furniture.

European keys!

 

Peeking through the keyhole. Luckily it had a privacy cover.

 

The elevator and stairs in my building. It was hard to believe that elevator actually functioned but it did.

 

Metro stairs.

 

An unusual metro entrance next to the Arènes de Lutèce.

 

They're marketing Ford SUVs in France?!

 

 

This ancient French queen is being restored, but in the meantime you can view the artistic cover they made for her.

 

This is what the Eiffel Tower looks like in real life. And it gets soggy and yucky in Paris when it rains.

 

Movie posters are still going strong in Paris. They're in gilded frames all over the Metro stations too.

 

Chocolate sculpture.

 

The other half of the chocolate sculpture.

 

I chose the wrong day to visit the Place de la Concorde. Getting ready for Bastille Day. And it was wet, which makes it the wrong day for anything. I think 50% of the days I spent in Paris were rainy.

 

Probably the ugliest photo ever taken of this fountain!

 

It's sort of hard to get a good picture in front of the Arc de Triomphe.

 

I risked my life for this photo. Not really. I was on a median.

 

Neighborhood laundromat. This place just eats money. I learned to buy my detergent at the supermarket, wash as much as I could in the sink at home, and take the clothes that won't wrinkle too badly home to hang dry.

 

Fabric shopping in Paris. You have to dig, but you can find almost any fabric in Paris. And the leather scraps- so many gorgeous skins!

 

Restroom in the art gallery/studio above the Louis Vuitton boutique. My favorite thing about the whole place.

 

Is this the Parisian version of barbed wire?

 

Sometimes the buildings I happened upon were my favorites. Unfortunately this lovely church building was closed for the noon hour when I passed by.

 

The lens cover didn't open all the way, but I like the effect.

 

Absolutely love the stylized eyeglasses hanging above every optometrist.

 

Sweet park I passed on my way to church. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of the parks where I went to sit and draw: Arenes de Lutece and Jardin des Plantes. The Jardin des Plantes is home to thousands of the most unusual plants I've ever seen.

 

Fire station and a corner bakery.

 

Was so tempted to buy more flowers for my apartment.

 

Just an ordinary evening in Paris. I love how they twinkle the lights every evening when they turn it on- at least I think it's every evening. I had other things to do like homework and laundry and sweeping the floor in my apartment.

 

Chausson aux pommes. Not my favorite pastry. The best I had was the croissant aux amandes, a flat, shapeless pastry with sliced almonds and a dusting of powdered sugar on top. It's not the prettiest so I didn't think to photograph it, but it tasted so good.

 

Eating lunch by the fountain on a green bench.

 

This is what the July 14 Champs-Elysses military parade looks like. And this is what it looks like when you're already standing on a lamppost. Some people brought ladders from home. No kidding. Saw them coming out of the metro with it.

 

Mini pastries = a very good breakfast choice. That's pain au chocolat in front. Yum.

 

My Australian roommate: "You don't have artisan coffee in America?" We do, of course. It's just that I'd never had artisan coffee before, if a cream doodle on top makes it automatically qualify as such, so I had to take a photo.

 

More fabric shopping. I wish I'd taken pictures of my favorite mannequins before an employee told me that no pictures were allowed. The fashion got way better than this.

 

They were all over the store. They were darling. I love that coat.

 

Pastry flavored yogurt, with Vermeer's milkmaid on the front. Had to buy it when I saw that.

 

This bearded fellow made me laugh. So this is a Nutella shortbread cookie sandwich. It was bigger than my hand!

 

A favorite spot.

 

A pink patissier. Too cute.

 

So they have Office Depot in France. I would never have guessed.

 

Most darling little toy store. See Settlers of Catan?

 

Local Bible Bee Day

 

We were in a very small Bible Bee this year. Five primary contestants, two juniors, and one senior- my sister Kayley, who of course was the lucky shoo-in for senior first place. She loves studying the Bible and participating in Bible Bee, even when there is no one else her age at the meetings and even when she has no intentions to travel to the National Bible Bee (which is the case for us this year). This year was very special because her Bible Bee studies caused her to question her faith deeply and talk to her student pastor about her relationship with Christ, and then she committed her life to Jesus and was baptized. She desires a faith in God that actually changes her, and I'm so proud of and inspired by her.

 

The local contest day was short and sweet, since there were no oral rounds, only an hour-long written test. We talked to the host couple a bit, and my mom and I took ourselves on a self-guided tour of their church building and the lovely old chapel. Afterwards we ate pizza for lunch (well, there was also cake and fruit and Kayley's delightful mini fig Newton Bible cookies! This may or may not have led to someone to joke about "taking the little book and eating it".) Then each contestant received their participation award and got to share their favorite passage with the group.

 

That's our Bible Bee story for this year. I must say, Bible Bee has caused us to do family devotions more regularly. We've always prayed together at night, but Bible Bee is a good influence on us to read the Bible together and talk about it (though we still need to get much better at that) and to sing hymns together (If I had my way we'd do that every day!)

Pretty Paris

 



Sometimes Paris actually lives up to its reputation. That last photograph of the Seine at dusk is so achingly beautiful. It was my last evening in Paris, so of course I would think that.

 

I enjoyed being able to walk everywhere in Paris. I know that's not unique to this city, but it was the first time I got to "live" in such a place. Building up rather than out just makes sense to me, and I reveled in how much gasoline I was saving every day. I appreciated the feeling of being part of the world rather than viewing it out my car windshield. I noted the other individuals on the street (Paris surprised me with how diverse it really is. Probably still not quite as diverse as Houston but much closer than I would have guessed). I embraced the adventure of being lost in a place I didn't know. I liked looking at window displays; even real estate agents and construction firms have interesting windows in Paris. I thanked God for greenery every time I saw a little garden tucked in a courtyard or got to enter a public park. By the end of my month in Paris though I was yearning to get on a train and go out to the country for a day and get some breathing room!

Custom Keds

A few years ago I decided to destroy a beautiful, classic, clean pair of white Keds by dabbing green, purple, and blue splotches all over them. I thought I was being artistic. Even as I was in the process of painting them, I didn't exactly like them. Random, multicolored, shapeless splotches are not exactly true to my heart or my sense of style. Wanting to pretend that I had created something special, I wore them anyway.

 

Luckily for me, something went wrong and the paint never set properly. Every time I wore them, the color faded more, until one rainy day when the purple and green washed almost completely out. (The paint I used was made from fiber reactive dye, water, urea, and soda ash. Once the soda ash is added, the paint needs to be applied quickly. Most likely I had let the paint sit around a little too long before using it. After painting, the fabric should be wrapped in plastic to keep it wet and left to sit for a day or so. I can't remember anymore how long I left it, but it might have also dried too quickly.)

 

They were a sorry mess. I stashed them under my bed and never wore them again until this summer when I had time to create for myself once more. What I did is not artistic, but it did turn out a pair of simple shoes that I actually like and can wear with all my summer clothes.

 

Before:

 

 

The laces, for some reason, never absorbed the dye at all, except for a small amount of pigment trapped in the plastic tips.

 

I tried to remove the remaining color by soaking them in a discharge solution (RIT color remover). The laces lost the last traces of dye, although it took a while.

 

 

As long as the shoes were in the discharge solution, they appeared to have lost most of their color. The once-blue areas were still a pale green, but I thought that would easily be covered by the next dye. When I took the shoes out, the pale green quickly intensified until it was as blue as it was before!

 

 

 

The new color I had chosen was navy blue, so, not knowing what else to do, I decided to go ahead and overdye the shoes, spots and all, hoping the navy would be dark enough to conceal the bright blue underneath.

 

 

While I was heating the water for the final dye bath over my butane camp stove, the drop cloth caught on fire! I don't know if it's just a dumb idea to have a butane stove sitting directly on top of a cotton sheet, or if the stove wore out and overheated, or if gas somehow leaked out onto the sheet. There flame followed the path of a little crack in the concrete below; maybe that had something to do with it? This is how strange superstitions start...

 

The water was hot enough to use by that point, so I finished without the stove. And haven't touched it since.

 

 

The shoes were dyed with liquid RIT navy blue, and they are gorgeous and dark. I can't see the old spots at all. The rubber soles soaked up a bit of dye as well, and now they're lavender. I wanted them to be their usual bright white, but I've decided I rather like the color now. Contrary to all the advice I've received, I plan to keep the laces white though!

 

After: These shoes got to travel with me to Paris!