An excellent Thursday

Another delicious oyster lunch with René and Sophie. This time we shared a table with Monsieur Pons. He celebrated his 96th birthday at the Cabane on November 25th. Despite being hard-of-hearing, he is really quite "with it". Yesterday he expressed his wish to celebrate his 100th birthday at the Cabane. He'll invite the local TV stations - which will be good publicity for Francis!


Thursday evening I met Charles from Switzerland for an early dinner. He had a three hour layover in Paris while changing trains traveling from Switzerland to Brussels for business.

No, it wasn't a date - Charles is Sonia's cousin, and he is already spoken for. Sara is waiting for him back in Switzerland. You can read more about my visit to Switzerland last June here and here. By the way, Charles, also known as Karl Hausmann, is the author of a hiking and climbing guidebook to the Jungfrau Region. The current edition is written in Swiss German. Maybe he'll translate it into English or French? He speaks both languages perfectly.

A good week

Monday - book group at the American Library . .


Tuesday - a guided tour of the Ministère de Finance . .

Fascinating for its architectecture and art work.

Wednesday - birdwatching in Paris . .

To learn more about the little yellow birds that are regular visitors to my balcony.

So if my Christmas cards are late in reaching you, it's because I am out exploring every day!

My Dad, part 3

My Dad's birthday was December 10th. He would have been 83. I thought about him a lot that day. And then, coincidentally(?), as I was sorting through photos this weekend, I discovered this photo of him and me. I didn't even know it was there. It was taken at a combination birthday/going away party just before I left for Paris last March. My dad never saw this photo, but I think he would have liked it.

Monet

I finally made it to the Monet Exhibit at the Grand Palais. It has been the biggest art event of the year and tickets have been sold out since the beginning of the show. If you don't have advance reservations, you can still get in if you are willing to stand in line for two to four hours.

What a treat when my friend Sophie invited me to join her for a visit using her press credentials! We went straight to the head of the line.

The exhibit is a major retrospective of Monet's work over 60 years of a very prolific career. It includes many of his most famous paintings along with others seldom seen in Paris.

Here are a few well known images on display:








To take a complete virtual tour, you can go here.

More snow in Paris

Wow, it is really snowing today! I decided to head over to Luxembourg garden to take a few photos. It was worth getting cold and wet. This is very unusual for Paris.


It didn't stop this jogger, though.


And of course the kids love to have snowball fights.

Holiday sparkles

I signed up for a photography workshop to practice capturing holiday decorations. Good! I can learn some new tips and techniques for taking pictures at night.

However, I felt out of my league when I showed up with my simple point-and-shoot while others were experimenting with shutter speeds, color settings, and focus.


First assignment - the giant Christmas tree inside the Galeries Lafayette.


Then, outdoors to check out the store windows. Little kids liked the toys in the Galeries Lafayette windows.


While the windows of the Printemps appealed to a more mature audience.



I have no cool special effects to show off - but I'm still happy with my pocket-sized Sony camera.

Lucca reunion

My Lucca traveling companions will be having a reunion this weekend - getting together in Boulder on Sunday evening to eat, drink, look at photos and reminisce about our trip to Lucca in September. I'm sorry to miss the party.

One of our memorable stops near Lucca was to visit Terre del Sillabo, a vineyard owned by Carla and Giampi Moretti. Carla conducted our tour, explaining how the valley soil and microclimate is particularly suited for growing sauvignon blanc. The day we arrived, she and her husband and a handful of workers were going through the vines one by one, trimming and removing individual grapes that had been damaged by too much rain.


The hills above the house are better suited for chardonnay grapes which are much hardier and easier to grow.


Their production is small, only about 1,500 cases per year.


I have one bottle left from this visit. Maybe I'll open it this evening and toast to my wonderful traveling companions back in Boulder.