Packing

All my clothes might still be black, but at least I've branched out to bold patterns...

Paris in springtime

Its 10:01pm and this is how light it is outside.

more yumminess

The Fraisier: a delicious little treat with layers of light cake, whipped cream, and fresh strawberries - just perfect for the summer weather!

Outlet Shopping near Paris

Nothing is open on Sundays in Paris, except for the Chinese restaurants and the outlet mall.  Today I went to La Vallée Village, an upscale outlet mall to the east of Paris on the RER-A train.

It looks just like the outlet mall near Boston.  They even have Starbucks!  They had some stores that are very common in the States (like Puma, Nike, Coach, and Ralph Lauren), so I didn't bother with them.  Instead I hit up many of the European labels and other places that I like: Burberry, Longchamp, Missoni, Armani, Chantelle, Dolce&Gabbana, Givenchy, Jimmy Choo, Versace, and Valentino.  I found the PERFECT graduation dress, but I accidentally picked it up from the Valentino Label side of the store instead of the RED Valentino side and had to put it back because it cost 1500 Euros.  But it was very cute!  (And on sale! But still not a good deal.)  

Overall, the deals were decent.  Things were off-season or last-season, but still mostly top-quality things that I recognized from the regular stores.  Usually the markdown was about 30%.  Things don't really go on sale much in France, so 30% off is really good, plus some clearance stuff was down to 50% off.

I picked up a few things: a graduation dress, a cute scarf, and a present.  Can you guess which is which??

Carte Vitale!

At LAST!!!!!  It has arrived!  My key into the (less) paperwork portal of the French Healthcare System!!!!

Excuse the ghostly picture of myself on the upper right corner.  All official French paperwork requires passport-style photographs, and it is interdit (forbidden) to smile in them.  My lab mate always teases me that I look like a zombie, or dead, or something else terrible in my photographs.  I think that's because in real life I'm always making funny faces at him because he's making terrible jokes.  :-)

Culture Club: MONUMENTA 2012

After our picnic, the Culture Club went to see Daniel Buren's installation "MONUMENTA 2012" at the Grand Palais.  

We entered into a sea of brightly-colored plastic disks suspended above us.

In the middle of the hall were huge round mirrors on the floor, so we could see reflections of the ceilings and the disks (and ourselves!)

The views from above were great too.

We stayed through sunset and into the night so we could see the exhibit in the dark.  I actually preferred it at night!  The colors were more intense and the reflections were really amazing.

J'aime ma ville!  (I love my city!)

Picnic!

Yay, Fridays!  The Culture Club picnicked in the Tuileries Garden in the warm spring sun with traditional french provisions (pate, cheese, bread, snacks).

The perfect way to start the evening!

dinner

gardens (so french!)

dessert

sunset behind the Concorde