Even the garbage is romantic

Salut à tous et toutes!  It's been a busy few days.  Since my last post I've been to another softball practice (that's really all you need to know), done some marathon shopping, been to chinatown, strolled the Luxembourg gardens, and eaten approximately une quinzaine des croissants (I purposefully made that number ambiguous!).


This past weekend I started off with a trip to Marché Edgar Quinet, a few métro stops away.  It was suitably cute and french, and I got there early enough that it wasn't tooooo busy, although the people ahead of me in line got the last two pain au chocolat.  You know life is hard when you have to settle for a plain croissant.  The market was in the Montparnasse area, evidenced in part by this mural:

That afternoon, a few friends and I went to chinatown, which also had it's fair share of murals:

Chinatown was cool, although I wouldn't start comparing it to Vancouver.  It's one major feature is a Géant Casino, the (literally) giant version of the french grocery store chain Casino.  

On Sunday, we did a group trip to the Musée de l'Orangerie, which is an art gallery at the other end of the Tuileries gardens from the Louvre (about a 20 minute walk).  It's main feature is a series of Monet paintings, displayed permanently (since 1927) under a specially designed ceiling that diffuses natural daylight into the museum so you can look at the paintings as though you were chillaxing on the grass beside the water lilies.

I told Dad I would add a selfie to the blog, so voilà

I should add, the title of this post comes from something one of my new international friends, Alejandra, said while we were waiting in line for the museum.  We were discussing the griminess of Paris, which is especially apparent right now while we are all still new to the city.  The garbage, the dust, the smell on the métro at the end of a hot day...it's a lot to get used to all at once.  But, we are experiencing all this saleté while in Paris, and so that makes it not just ok, but exciting and exotic!   Or, as Alejandra put it:  "Even the garbage is romantic!"

After the museum and a fortfiying lunch at an Alsace-themed restaurant, we went for a walk to the Luxembourg gardens.   I can't even being to imagine how many landscapers must be employed there.  The french style of gardening is very precise, so that everything is neat and controlled.  

This is a pear tree.

This is the fence that protects the pear tree.

Look at those hedges!  How could they possibly trim them that high?  This is one of the few lawns designated for people to relax on.  Most of the gardens have benches all around the lawns where you can sit, and there is also a huge playground, tennis courts, pony rides, cafés, and of course fountains where there were kids fishing for coins with magnets.  

Alors, à dodo!  Bonsoirée from Paris!