One of the best things about living in Paris is that we have the time to explore the not-so-obvious aspects of the city. The Eiffel Tower is hard to miss, but there are many places that are hidden, or not easily seen unless you know where to look. In my latest post on Gridskipper I […]

A few evenings ago, when trying to come up with a place where we could take a walk and enjoy the fall colors, I suggested the Parc Monceau, in the elegant 8th arrondissement. I had heard that this park was well worth a visit, and had been eager to see it since we arrived. After […]

You might be thinking it’s a little early to be talking about Thanksgiving, but in fact it’s not too early to talk about Canadian Thanksgiving, which is celebrated on the second Monday in October. In honor of my roots, I wrote a post for the Web site Gridskipper about Canadian-related places in my new hometown […]

Today is the three-month anniversary of our arrival in Paris; given that two of those were 31-day months, it’s actually day 92 for us. That’s significant, because had we come as tourists, without visas, we would have been obligated to leave the country by now. But we’ve jumped through all the necessary bureaucratic hoops to […]

On Sunday night Morgen and I had dinner at Hidden Kitchen. We left with full stomachs and warm fuzzy feelings. It was a deeply satisfying experience all around—one of the best meals I’ve had in years, plus wonderful conversation in a truly delightful setting. HK is sort of a cross between an exclusive restaurant and […]

Over the past week or so, we’ve received a string of messages, from friends and strangers alike, wondering if we’re OK, since neither of us has posted anything new on any of our blogs in some time. It’s nice to know we’re missed! Yes, we’re both fine, and I’m in the process of writing a […]

One thing about Paris that really suits us is the fact that it’s such a film-friendly town. There are so many theatres, playing so many different movies (current and classic), that it’s pretty easy to find something we want to watch. Of course, we’re somewhat limited at this point to English-language movies (at least until […]

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago in my post Kissell on Kessel, I discovered shortly after arriving in France that there’s a street named after a famous writer and journalist whose name looks suspiciously familiar. I’d been to the street, but once I read Kessel’s biography and discovered that he’s buried in the […]

If you’re in Paris this month, and haven’t yet checked out the current exhibition at the Musée de la Poste, I would strongly encourage you to see it before it ends its run on September 1st. The exhibition, titled “Avec le Facteur Cheval,” is a fascinating look at one man’s life’s work, and includes numerous […]

One of my favorite memories of previous visits to Paris was the first time I visited Notre Dame. Upon entering the dim, cavernous cathedral, I was awed by the incredible height of its arched ceiling, which seemed to expand upwards infinitely. The quality of the light coming in through the intricate stained glass windows was […]

Before we moved to Paris I had a list of places I wanted to visit when we got here, and La Grande Épicerie was very close to the top of the list. I had read about this food emporium, part of Le Bon Marché department store, on various Paris-based blogs, and was eager to see […]

Today’s article on Interesting Thing of the Day is about Paris Plages, the city’s yearly project to create artificial beaches in the center of town, including a 3 km stretch along the Seine. Parisians and tourists alike seem to think this is the Greatest Thing Ever, or at least the next-greatest thing to the new […]

It’s amazing sometimes how a small thing can turn into a big thing when there is a language barrier to navigate. Case in point: last week Joe and I went into a small grocery store we’d never been in before, and all went smoothly until we got up to the checkout. The cashier was ringing […]

In the waning days of June, as Joe and I frantically prepared for our move to Paris, there was one thing on our list that we did not get done: we didn’t see the movie Ratatouille when it first came out on June 29th. It didn’t seem like a major problem at the time, but […]

In keeping with the theme of “hey-that’s-almost-spelled-like-my-name,” this afternoon, just a couple of hours after my post about rue Joseph Kessel, we walked out of a Métro station and saw this: It’s a tiny shop on rue des Halles that sells women’s clothes, shoes, handbags, and suchlike.