Home Sweet Home

Holy shit finding an apartment in Paris has to be one of the most stressful things either of us have ever had to deal with in our whole life.  I have never had to sign my name on so many pieces of paper before, I felt like a celebrity.  But it finally worked out and we got an amazing little place right in the heart of the Marais.  Next to some amazing boutiques and galleries. Here are just a couple photos of our place and one from the craziest move by taxi ever committed.  All the driver kept saying was we should have gotten a bigger taxi.  I hope we never have to go through anything like this ever again.  

Vegetarian Thanksgiving in France (while trying to move)

Its been a crazy past couple of days and we still have a couple more ahead of us.  Our sublet ended on Thursday and  we thought we were going to be getting the keys to our apartment on Friday but as it turns out we aren't going to get them until Monday.  The French require so much paper work and that takes so much time apparently.   Never the less our lovely friend Berenice is letting us stay at her place while she is out of town for the weekend, Thank god.

    We still had time to make our Thanksgiving meal at our old place before we had to get out.  Thanksgiving doesn't exist in France and neither do veggie burgers so we made due with what we could.  Goat cheese mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, broccoli, baguette, wine and some cookies, mmm just like mom used to make.  We had a good laugh but we were sad to leave the comfort of our old place and roommates behind.    

Picture perfect Paris

We went to see some stores which we had researched before we got here and ended up right in front of the tourist haven that is the Eiffel Tower, but it made for a good photo op and then we moved along.  We walked near the Palais de Tokyo which seemed really interesting but unfortunately not on our agenda.  The back end of it has these great statues and they are all covered in graffiti, it also has a lot of windows smashed out and boarded up which we thought was really strange for a massive museum.   There an older woman said she loved Judys dress (we made it!) and wanted to take a photo of the two of us (sartorialist?) After that we went on and strolled down the St. Honoré, stopped to look in Sonia Rykiel, Christian Lacroix, Christian Louboutin, Lanvin, and Junko Shimada before calling it a day and heading home.  We keep seeing models every where we go and one today was staring at Judy like she wanted to take her home.  Judy was too enamored to respond, too bad.   

Brrrrrrrr.....

Judy had her whole face rapped up and everyone else was wearing heels with no socks. (I think that's the first time everyone knew we weren't from Paris) check the invisible hand.
Amazing illustrations from the 20's
Vintage Couture
How did they make pixelated fabric before there was even such a thing as a pixel.

Well, winter is definitely here.  It actually snowed today and it was so freakin cold.  Most of the businesses are closed on Sunday(and Monday) so we decided to go to the Puces de St. Ouen (Flea market).  Grant really needs boots and within 5 minutes of being outside he knew his vans just weren't going to cut it. You have to walk through a huge perimeter of junky new clothes to get to the amazing vintage stuff but once you get there it is pretty unreal.  Everything from the vintage Chanel Couture shop to this crazy shop of all one of a kind accessories. The prices are pretty high but Judy considered going into permanent debt for this 1900's circus themed projector powered by a candle. Everyone is really strict about taking photos though so we only got about three before we were told it is not ok to take photos.  

The French are onto something

Here are some more photos from the past couple days.  The first one is from a really cool gallery we stumbled into featuring all these Andy Warhol photos. The next is from this bar that we walked past several times but was always too crowded to get in.  The bar is called Machine á ecrire and if the wallpaper doesn't give it away it means typewriter in french.  There was a guy singing on top of the bar and if this place were in San Francisco it would be the most popular hipster bar ever.  Lastly this is how people move furniture in Paris.  Makes sense right? forget day laborers, just get this handy elevator and shut down traffic for the whole day  so you can move in your furniture through the window.   

Graffiti Report #1

Paris is super smashed. The streets are like a free art gallery on nearly every Rue.  For the record Horfe, and space invader are killing shit.  More to come in future posts.

Touristy stuff

                            Judy battling for space at the Sacré-Coeur
                On top of it all
                 On the banks of the Seine near the Louvre 
       Judy takes a second to consult the map near George Pompidou
                                  Pullin a fast one at Yohji Yamamoto
                                       Lunch at the Water Bar

We have been here for about a week and it feels like we have already done and seen so many things.  Paris is an amazing city filled with history around nearly every corner.  Its hard to not whip out your camera and pose in front of every building on the street.   We also had lunch today at colette just to say that we did.  Everyone was looking at Judy like she was a movie star (at least in our heads).  Then we went to the brand new Yohji Yamamoto museum....I mean store.  I almost died when I saw this crazy hat was retailing for 1200 euros.   After that I didn't look at any more price tags and just oogled over each piece individually.  And lastly something about watching two gorgeous models being buzzed in to the Chanel atelier is quite a reminder that were not in San Francisco anymore.