C'est quoi, ce truc rond et jaune ?

Paris is currently all abuzz about the weather. After a cold, wet spring that I think was technically called "late winter", the sun came out and the earth heated up and we've had a stunning past couple weeks.

Picnics and festivals and concerts outside are all much better without getting pelted by rain, and having to layer your cute summer dress with wool tights and layers of sweaters. Rather optimistically, I picked up bottles of fancy sunscreen during the Soldes and this year, I've actually gotten to use them.

I totally get the magic of Paris now. It's truly a spectacular place with shadows and long, low light in the extended afternoons into evening. The sun doesn't set until almost 10pm still, which means you can laze around in a park until security chases you away.

I've barely eaten anything that wasn't picnic food lately. I do miss having a BBQ. Even in NYC, I had a little bucket grill that I would haul out to Prospect Park to fire up on nice weekends. In Paris, there are no fires permitted in the city, so you can't even grill if you have a little backyard. I miss that.

Cafe business is booming.

But mostly, I am in love with the light.

Last summer, we barely saw the light until August. This is just refreshing.

And people here are out, and the attitude adjustment has been remarkable. How can you be having a bad day with the sun smiling down upon you? Everyone hates a killjoy on days like this.

There's barely any outdoor space devoid of picnickers. In theory, having a bottle of wine will get you a ticket, but I've never seen it happen. It's just what you do here. You sit out, you drink your wine, you chat with friends while clouds of cigarette smoke drift by. Which, lately, has been replaced by electronic cigarette vapor, which is just not the same.

I hope you are having a fantastic summer. Take a lesson from Paris and enjoy it!

Another Failed Walk: this time in the snow.

On a recent afternoon, I set off for a long walk to go to Shakespeare & Company, a well-known expat hotspot and historic Anglo bookshop near Notre Dame. I needed a travel book of the Lonely Planet variety for un upcoming trip, and this was by best option.

Rather frustratingly, they only had travel books about France. Ah well. It was a nice walk anyway, made extra fabulous by the dusting of snow that was going on.

First, a stop at my favorite North Africa pastry shop for a little sweet nostalgia.

Once I had pastry-fueled energy, anything is possible and a sunny outlook can be had on the grimmest of gray days.

I hadn't been over to Notre Dame in a couple of months. For the 850th (!) anniversary of the church, they built a huge stadium-style viewing platform on the plaza out front. I have to go back when it is sunny as it's a great way to get a good view of the statues and windows up close.

A Tourist in Paris

Despite not being the most patient person in the world, I do enjoy playing tour guide for friends and family. The whole time that I lived in New York, I welcomed people into my studio apartments to sleep on the floor in awkward arrangements, try to explain to their faces full of wide-eyed jaw-drops that it's totally worth it to be spending $xxxx on rent every month, and then I'd drag them all over town to see the sights and sample some of the sweet life that can be had there.

I was pretty sure that at the end of the trip, I had convinced said hayseed guests that the rent was indeed worth it, and I lived in the most amazing place on earth.

I'm starting to get to know Paris a little bit better. I haven't gotten lost in a couple months now (which is really easy to do since you don't have the Empire State Building to help you out) and I have a few choice places that I know won't disappoint when we sit down to eat.

I feel like I purposely saved doing a ton of things in Paris because I knew I'd have a lot of visitors while I lived here. There's only so many times I can crowd-surf to the Mona Lisa before I've run out of awe over the dingy bit of canvas.

So finally, my first visitor arrived. It was fantastic to catch up and see a familiar face that I didn't have to butcher their native language in my coarse and vulgar fashion.

And I discovered something that I seemed to be totally ignorant of.

It's really fantastic to be a tourist in Paris.

The whole week, it only rained once, and it was only for 10 minutes.

It was sunny and warm, but not too warm.

I had forgotten what had planted the seed to motivate me to move here in the first place, all those years ago.

It's a beautiful place.

If I've had a glass of wine and a pastry to keep me in a good mood, I actually don't mind the crowds. After all, they are in Paris for probably the same reason why I first came to Paris.

It's an amazing place (well, at least when you aren't standing in line at the embassy or the prefecture with stacks of paperwork), and you will see things here that you will see no where else in the world. When the light is right in the late afternoon, it's completely magic.

Lock and Key

On several of the bridges here, you'll see the link fencing guardrails completely plastered with padlocks. They all have inscriptions on them. Basically, you are supposed to write the name of your love on the lock, attach it to the bridge and throw away the key to guarantee lifelong togetherness.

A nice sentiment, and I would like to think that it's creating a nice sandbar of tiny keys somewhere downstream along the Seine.

Goth

The rose garden in Le square Jean-XXIII, right next to Notre Dame.