October In Paris

We've spent our second day in Paris, and now that the jet lag is wearing off (a little), I thought I'd share some pictures of what we've been up to:

Saturday

Yesterday after we arrived we went up to the flea markets in Porte de Clingancourt. Our friends Alison and Tim came over from London to meet up with us, and one of our favorite pastimes is going to the Portobello Road Market in London and the 23rd Street Flea Market in New York. We rarely buy anything, except Steve once bought an antique horn on Portobello Road and then almost got arrested when he started busking. The best things you can get in Flea Markets is photos, and here are some of my favorites:

Steve in the winding lanes of the flea market. There was everything from high end ornate chandeliers to junk in what seemed like an endless labyrinth of alleys like this. You could get lost there for days.

An army of antique tin soldiers. I loved how this shot turned out (although a bit blurry), so I had to add it.

Alison and I trying on some very cool vintage cat-eye frame glasses. I don't look jet lagged at all, do I?

I thought of Mirjam when I saw this table of amazing egg cups. I wish I could have bought them all for her. There were some amazing ones, but they were all over 40 Euros each. Ouch.

After a nap at our hotel, we got out to Monmarte on Saturday night. What a neighborhood of contrasts. We went from the Moulin Rouge and sex shops to...

Sacre Couer where they were having a church service at the time. We couldn't take photos, but one of the nuns in the service was singing acapella with one of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard. There was also a huge party going on outside (you can see the shadows of all the people in this photo) where there was African drumming, fire throwers, and lots of booze and cigarettes. Contrasts, indeed.

And, of course, the obligatory pastry shot.

Sunday

We started out the morning starving, so we went to a patisserie near our hotel. We were trying to find one that we had been to before, but ended up at another. When we didn't know what we wanted the exact second we walked in the door, the lady working there started tapping her watch and getting annoyed by our terrible French. We chose that patisserie so we could sit at one of their tables, but they told us that they were "closed" (yeah, right), so we ended up walking a little further and eating breakfast here:

Not too shabby, and the woman from the patisserie has now been named "The Pastry Nazi."

And since we were there, an Eiffel Tower shot.

We walked across a bridge and along the Seine where the leaves were changing and the morning was absolutely so amazing I had to stop and tell Steve, Tim, and Alison how happy I was to be there at that moment, and how lucky I am.

And then it was off to the Pompidou Centre. I love this museum because it has some of my favorite art in the world, and they let you take pictures of it. Here's some of my favorites:

This video installation was one of my favorite things I saw at the Pompidou. It has cameras that capture your image and then translates them onto patterns on the wall. You can see me at one point walking across the room with my camera, and Steve's there in the dark too. Totally amazing.

Then it was dinner at the Creperie du Beaubourg on Place de Stravinsky where we had eaten eight years ago and it was still as good as we remembered. It was warm enough to sit out on the square, look at the Pompidou Centre, people watch, just talk (instead of watching after kids), and enjoy the amazing fall weather. To me, this was an absolutely perfect day in Paris.