Paris Views

Pompidou Modern Art Center - the Parisians hate it, and I can't blame them, but it's certainly fun to walk by.

A Street in Le Marais - we decided to spend Sunday in this predominantly Jewish neighborhood, as everything here is closed Saturday and open Sunday. We enjoyed seeing fresh challah and bagels in the bakery windows.

On the right you can see a fine example of "Flying buttresses" - one of those architectural terms that's always getting tossed around but is hard to visualize.

We enjoyed walking along this canal and wondering how parked-in houseboats ever get out. Really, who double parks in a canal?

Crossing under a bridge on our Seine cruise, we found out the king who built the bridge modeled all the faces underneath it after his friends who said he'd never manage it.

It's the Eiffel Tower + B + b Post

I was going to pick just one. But then I decided not to.

Pastries and Chocolate and Cheese - Oh My!

When Brett and I woke up early Saturday morning in Vincennes, we didn't have to go far to find a boulangerie/patisserie (bread/pastry shop). In fact, on our 45 minute walk, we wandered into five or so. Later, as we drifted through the Latin Quarter with Lisa and Max, we dipped into perhaps five more. And then there were the cheese shops. And the chocolate shops. And the meat and cheese stands. And the gelaterias. And the creperies. All told, I believe we managed to spend about 1/3 of our day and 1/2 our money on the culinary delights of Paris that day.

No regrets.

Park Art + Performance Art + Digital Art =

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Paris in the Fall

Paris in the fall means the snappy crackle of chestnuts roasting in a grocery cart on the corner. It means sunshine on your shoulders as you wander in the crowd from Modern Art Museum to Moroccan spice store to Myberry California-style frozen yoghurt shop.

Paris in the fall means the tiny dogs wear hooded sweaters. It means scarves of every shade and velvety mushrooms piled dramatically at the farmer's market. It means the French senate museum shop gets a few extra customers during downpours, but so do the gelaterias - still able to convince the sweet-toothed to break up the afternoon with a cup of combined mango, dark chocolate, and fig.

Paris in the fall means postcard shopping outdoors, red-cheeked and admiring. It means alternately hiding behind the Seine cruise ship windows and then popping into the fresh air for self-portraits with the Eiffel tower.

Paris in the fall means chocolate and cheese, just like Paris in the winter, spring, and summer, but it also means orange frosted pumpkin cakes and yellow calla lilies.

Paris in the fall makes for a simply splendid Saturday and Sunday away.

David Lebovitz Copes with Paris

As I was browsing through David Lebovitz's wonderful Paris/chocolate/recipes site today in preparation for our trip to Paris this weekend, I was amused to discover his "8 Coping Tips for Living in Paris." I think all ex-pats make a list like this at some point in their time abroad. Click here to check out his rather amusingly foodie-oriented tips for the homesick.

First Snow on Mount Vitosha and....

THE HEAT IS NOW ON!

The best sandwich on Graf Ignatiev?

When walking along Graf Ignatiev, one is presented with many consumer options. Most of them, as we discovered last Sunday, are shoe shops. But in between footwear boutiques are two rather different lunch options - Mimas, popularly known among the international community to serve the best doner kepaps in town, and Subway - a brand new and wildly popular addition to the usual Sofia lunch fare. This week we decided to try both.

First, we watched the doner man work his magic on the grilled chicken stack, massaging a pita into one side of his open oven while slicing off crisp pieces of meat, finally scooping it all together with some piping hot french fries. As Brett happily munched this Bulgarian version of the burrito/gyro/wrap/lefse roll, we wandered down into the new (packed) Subway store. How can something be so exactly what you expect and yet so different at the same time? There were the friendly sandwich options and gross-looking cookies of high school sporting days, and yet written in letters on the menu that would have been gibberish to me in high school.

As I walked out with my foot long roasted chicken sandwich on multigrain, Brett called for a return to the doner kepap stand. Subway was making him hungry...

Borisova Gradina: You Never Know What You'll Find...

Borisova Gradina is a HUGE park downtown - a park that's always full of surprises. You may remember our post last year about the Italian-Bulgarian cultural festival, host of the pizza pie throwing dancers - that was in Borisova Gradina. Last winter a giant ski jump was set up in the park for sledders, a karaoke stage is in permanent residence, and today, as we drove by, we saw something even more amazing. Giant bubbles with kids inside, rolling around on lakes. GIANT BUBBLES FULL OF KIDS.

We had to stop. We had to wander. We had to enjoy. In the end, we did not have to get into bubbles of our own, but we certainly enjoyed witnessing the madness.

Borisova Gradina on a sunny afternoon? Highly Recommended.