Bye Bye

The French choreographer Maurice Bejart is dead, at the good age of 80. His choreography to the tune of Maurice Ravel's Bolero is of course his most famous.

Marianne debunks the view of Sarkozy as an inflexible president who will not give in to strikers etc. Examples? It only took medicine interns a few days of strike to make the government change its mind on a reform that would put an end to a grant they get if they go practice in rural areas. The fishermen managed to gain 6 months free of employment tax and charges after only 12 hours. we're gonna be so disappointed.

Oh la la and another dead, that of the terrific Spanish actor and director Fernando Fernan Gomez. I can hear his low voice in my head right now, in the movie El espiritu de la colmena. He was 86. Reading the El Pais article, I found out he also wrote plays, including Las bicicletas son para el verano, a classic that a lot of French students in Spanish have to read! What a man.

Paris Commuter

RER C to Versailles, Paris, 06/09/06

Paris 3

I shall end here with my trip in France.
As Michael said "Paris doesnt disappoint"

Versailles certainly didnt. At 25, it was time for me to visit it after hearing so much about it as a kid in our history lessons!
A huge and almost perfect place. So much details was put in everything! Just amazing. (Sorry it is late and it would take too long to describe everything!)

Paris 2

We have been pretty unlucky with Parisian Nightlife. On Saturday, we queued for a while but did not manage to get into the "River's King" boat, for the Supa Fresh night. Had we arrived 5 minutes before, we would have probably gone in. Obviously, a night with open bar until midnight, on a boat, taking you on a cruise on the Seine, and 2 dancefloors, was always gonna be popular. Yesterday, we looked for but never found the Mix Club, by the Tour Montparnasse. The guide said it was a huge venue, and held a popular gay night on Sundays. It turned out that we didnt look properly, and that this gay night was only once a month, so, had we found it, it wouldnt have been much fun in there!

Still, I managed to meet up with my friend Viviane. Hadnt see her for 3 years, but she said "It feels like I last so you yesterday!"

Paris - pics

Michael and I are in Paris, France (cher pays de mon enfance) until Tuesday, eating like pigs and meeting friends, chilling out and trying not to think how much more beautiful it is than London.





So far, we have ran into many people who seemed crazy (they talked rather agressively to random people) as well as a busker on the tube who had "un petit programme musical pour vous les voyageurs" and started shaking his body to african tunes. A woman went on for more than half an hour on "ces salauds de Bordelais". We had diner at 1 in the morning in a brasserie. We have also been to the Musee de l'Orangerie in the Jardin des Tuileries to admire Monet's Nympheas. It has a strangely relaxing and soothing effect on you, something intended by Monet. He was the first living artist to give a painting away to a nation. He travelled around, was a major Impressionist figure, went almost blind... I am quite keen on reading his biography now.

My twin Romain, his gf Nathalie, Michael and our cousin Julia, outside L'Orangerie