tombstones and a little tranquility from facebook...

Went to the Père Lachaise cemetery last week and wandered around just taking it all in.  It was really beautiful and still there, aside from the handful of tourists in search for Jim Morrison's grave (anticlimactic by the way).  BUT, check out this beaut - Oscar Wilde's grave.  It was recently re-done by a benefactress that was a fan of his work.  If you zoom in, you can see lipstick kisses all over it!!!  Love love love.  Shades of pink, reds and browns - lips on stone.  

There was a little bit written about him on the back, but also a lovely little epitaph:

And alien tears will fill for him

 Pity's long broken urn.

For his mourners will be outcasts

And outcasts always mourn.

More of what the rest of the cemetery looked like.

  

View from our living room. 

I joined facebook the other day.  It was a little overwhelming at first and I'm retreating to this blog as a security blanket of sorts.  It's so quiet here!  Facebook is like a highschool science fair, everyone's lives on display on a 3-panel bristol board.  Or maybe a highschool cafeteria, where there are so many people you can go and talk to in 5-minute intervals before moving on and getting in line to order your fries.  I'm more used to wordy blogs and lengthy emails of late - but that's because I've had time and lots of it.  I wonder if I am in actuality a homebody or if it is just being with P, ironically he happens to be the most socially well-received person I know.  But P loves being at home.  "Hate" is a strong word, but I'll say he was "glad to escape" Vancouver and all its (our) social obligations.    As I flip through photos on facebook and see myself and my friends I really question if I'm as homebody on the inside as I've come to be with P.  

Paris week 1 + visitors...it just doesn't stop

*sigh, what can I say, it's Paris and it's beautiful.  The food is beautiful too, and we've only been here a week.  We managed to stumble on a bakery that was voted "meillure boulanger 2008" in the 10th - had to buy a half loaf, could not resist.  More on Pierre Hermé later,  all that I will say is: they're expensive, and yes they're worth it.

Fraser struggles to mount the block, not the spry little guy he used to be, but just wait and crank some of Paris' "grime-y" electronic beats into him.  Note in the background how others are using the blocks to take pictures, using perspective to make it look like they're holding the tips of the pyramids.  Joke/gag pictures abound in Paris and the Louvre.  So many nude statues, so many opportunities and hy-larious photo-memories to be had.  Fraser never fully got up on his feet, something about his hip.

Ian waiting at our metro stop.  We're staying in the 5th for the month of May.  The apartment is a bit run-down, but the outside looks lovely...and it's super central.  

Lunch.

We went for a beautiful dinner at a restaurant in the 11th called "le Chateaubriand".  All male-wait staff in threadbare white shirts and scraggly french beards.  It was perfect.  So very casual, serving beautiful, seasonal and thoughtful food.  They do a 5 course tasting menu, starting with a cold tofu and fish foam for an amuse bouche.  Then it was seared mullet with fresh garden peas and a chicken liver mouse, cod with white asparagus and black olives, and a bavette with some sort of shallot and fish-roe sauce.  DESSERT?  Fresh mint ice-cream served with "sticks" of chocolate and vanilla meringue and a basil butter.  The basil butter was a gift that really kept on giving - basil butter burps, you get it.

Ian took this amazing picture (he's a pro and has shared some amazing photos with us).  This was off from the Pyramides from the Louvre.  This little girl was rapt with attention watching the fiddler.  Just her, and the guy, his fiddle and the music.  I died, it was so cute.