Saturday in Grenoble - part 2

Saturday afternoon we explored the town of Grenoble. Here are Jean-Marc, Flo, and Odette in the Caserne des Bonnes - formerly a military base that has been redeveloped with apartments and shops and parks.

It looked like this originally:


Afterwards, we took the aerial tramway (or whatever you call this thing) to the Bastille which overlooks the town.


The view of the surrounding mountains is great from the top.

Saturday in Grenoble

Saturday morning began with a visit to the market with Jean-Marc. He does all of the cooking for the family, and he takes great care in the selection of fresh products. While he was selecting a salmon for our Sunday lunch,


I was intrigued by these interesting looking sea snails.


We sampled several cheeses before settling on a couple.



Then Jean-Marc bought some olives


while I enjoyed the paintings on the walls


Our visit coincided with a music festival in Grenoble. This group of Senegalese musicians played in a program called Kedougou.

Friday afternoon at the Cabane

I love introducing friends to the Cabane a Huitres.
Friday afternoon my Words and Images class met here for lunch. The oysters, foie gras, cheese, dessert, and several glasses of wine were enjoyed by all.

Weekend in the country

I'm on my way to Grenoble for the weekend to visit with Odette's son Jean Marc and his family. I was there almost exactly a year ago with Odette. You can see last year's post here.

But first, lunch at the Cabane a Huitres with members of my photography class!

Stay tuned for new stories and pictures.

Art in Paris

What a privilege to live in Paris with access to some of the world's greatest art treasures, along with a constantly evolving selection of temporary exhibitions. You can see something different and extraordinary every day of the year.

Last week when Régine was in town, we decided to go to the Van Dongen exhibit at the Modern Art Museum. (Francis prefers to stay home and watch rugby on TV, so Régine likes having a museum buddy when she comes to Paris.)

Kees Van Dongen was a Dutch artist who lived in Paris in the early 20th century. The exhibit focused on his paintings in the Fauvist style. He was good friends with Picasso and this is a painting of Picasso's companion Fernande:


Here are a couple of other representative images from the exhibit:

Another side of the Eiffel Tower

This week I stopped by the Eiffel Tower to pick up some souvenirs for Sophie to take back to California. I often see the guys hustling tourists who are standing in line to visit the tower. The vendors, most of whom are from Africa, are a skittish bunch; often looking over their shoulders, ready to grab their goods and take off if the police come by to hassle them. It's not exactly legal to sell goods without a permit, but they are always there and usually tolerated.


I decided to try and interview a few of them. Some were quite reluctant. This guy, from Senegal, let me take his picture, but later declined to talk further.


Then Housseman came along. He was a lot friendlier, and agreed to talk after I bought a handful of Eiffel Tower keychains. Here he is finishing up a sale to some Russian tourists.



"I'm just trying to make a living," he explained. "I send money home to my family in Senegal, but it isn't easy to find work here in Paris. And it's an expensive city. I'm here every day and I do pretty well because I speak eight languages," he continued, "but some of the new guys are timid and they may earn only a couple of euros per day."

Oh, these military guys don't like to be interviewed either. They don't hassle the souvenir vendors; they're too busy patrolling with their automatic weapons. They're on the lookout for terrorists.


But don't worry, Paris is a safe city and the people are friendly. Let me know if you want me to bring you a souvenir Eiffel Tower - I know where to buy them ;-)

Paris marathon

A perfect day to run the Paris Marathon - or to take a bike ride through the empty streets. I opted for the latter. Here's a crooked photo of the elite women as they ran along the Seine not far from my apartment this morning.