The GRANDE Mosquée...

My french professor is particularly keen on giving us foreigners a good grounding in what is french this term, and as such decided that we should all do an exposé. So my partner and I hmmm-ed and hawed for a while and ended up choosing "La Grand Mosquée de Paris".

All in all it is quite a comlexe and certainly worthy of a longer visit than we gave it, however weekends are preciouse and somehow I don't think I've quite earned the time to go to the hammam, although I would dearly love to!

In any case, we visited the mosque and the tea room.
The mosque was beautiful.

The minaret can be seen from a distance, maybe not as far as the eiffle tower, but it is certainly an impressive symbol.

 

I kind of eavesdropped on a guided tour that happened to be going through the main courtyard at the same time as we were, and he mentioned the three balls on top of the minaret. Apparently there are a few ideas on what they represent, but he couldn't give a definitive reason. One of the suggestions was that they represented the 3... I maybe sould have payed more attention to that part. But do note the green in the mosaiques as green is very important to the muslam religion. Most notably it represents vegetation life and water, to a group, of which the vast majority, for a significant period of time lived in the desert. 

This is above the door from the main courtyard to the patio. Every surface has an ornate decoration that is made even more impressive by the stark contrast between it and the plain white walls that surrounds it.

Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of the tea room and restaurant on this visit, as my appetite kind of took control once I crossed the threshold, and the flury of the crowd made me forget my initial intent to observe. The crowd mentality took hold and it was eat or be eaten... or rather in this case, push or starve.

Balzac once wrote something along the lines of "Parisian society will welcome you with open arms, but if you aren't there, you won't be missed." Which can be said for the Paris of the XIXth century and also of today's. The city is definitely taking its tole on my psyche, and Balzac's words repeat in my head daily. It is beautiful and vibrant and very stylish however everything is a competition, and if you don't step up, you will be forgotten in the wings.

Makes for a very tiring lifestyle.

The Couple

What a couple... !?

Not much to say, just thought I'd share our most flattering "passport" photos. (We followed the machine's directions exactly.)

The Issue with Jam

I know I wrote that my NewYears resolution was going to be to eat more Jam. So far, I have not made much progress with this. Every morning during exams I ended up eating a piece of bread with nutella, instead of Jam.

Nuts.

The preparation

Well, christmas was set, and I realized I had a lot to do in 4 days, as well as going to the airport to get my mummy. So first things first, I decided to reorganize the living room, I mean, dining room.

I started by moving the christmas tree and the table and went over the space about 10 times with the vacuum. A necessary act as the christmas tree that I got for a "good price" had dried out almost completely by that time and everytime it was touched (or moved for that matter) a branch worth of needles would fall on the floor.

Midway through it was quite a mess. Along with the laudry that was still drying above the radiator.

The more or less final product, however, one might notice that there are a few chairs missing. Thankfully we have an incredible chair supplier, that has a relatively endless store of old bar chairs in his basement. The only problem is they have to be cleaned before they can be considered proper enough for use. Which I ended up doing christmas eve day. ALL DAY. and it went something like the following.

This was prior to the shower being turned on. It had been dowsed with an cleansing product usually used on tiles, and in the kitchen. Extra super heavy duty grease fighting cleaner. And this is what ensued...

Isn't that a wonderful colour? This is about 15 years of cigarette smoke coupled with 3 years of basement dust and grime running off the chair. The rinse and repeat method was implemented three or four times for each chair, and every time the same colour came off, well not the last time.

We are now the proud posessors of 10 rustic solid wood chairs.

For the space we have we may be considered a little chair heavy, but it's always good to have seats. In more ways than ever, I find myself taking after my mother. She has a very large collection of chairs. SHE however also has a basement to store them in, when they are not needed. We, however, find ourselves with chairs in every corner !

The Flight...

I realize I've made a few references to all our stairs. I figured it might help if I illustrated exactly what I was refering to. So looking down from our 6th floor landing looks like this.

From this point begins my day, or our day, or whose ever day it is. This image expanded, equates to...

6xthis!!!

I must say though, apparently there was at one time a plan to put in an elevator... but I just don't see where it would go! there's not alot of extra space in this stair well. It's pretty much a single file affair.

I should also clarify, that this is not meant as a complaint, it is by the grace of these stairs that I can eat ice cream, and wine and not gain much weight. Well it is this and the running I do in the metro, and I guess the fact that I walk everywhere. Funny not having a car is good on two fronts, great muscle toner and doesn't burn fossil fuel!

The Resolution

I mentionned that perhaps eating more Jam would be a good new years resolution... but I think I've got an even better one... Keeping up to date with my blog!

Oops!

There's still the story of my setting up for Christmas Dinner... just not enough hours in the day!

The cupboards

This has got to go quick quick... I'm currently procrastinating, which I've been doing all morning, and really needs to stop, but all of a sudden I've become quite agitated at how negligent I've been since september! (I'm also a little conscious of a difficulty of spelling in english... erg...) In any case, a long time ago I bought some lovely big glass jars on ebay, they arrived and I rearranged my kitchen cupboard. The following photos tell the story of that afternoon.

Although presented like that it doesn't sound that interesting, I had fun doing it, and documenting it.

It arrived one day... and so I carried it up my 6 flights...

 They had come all the way from Nancy, in a superbly packed box, and they were...

Perfect... alas, one soldier was lost on the journey...

In any case, the 11 that remained were washed and dried, and thus the process began!

 

The cupboard prior to the overhaul was a mess of plastic containers and plastic wrapping, although there was already the beginnings of the collection of bonne maman jam jars, reappropriated for kidney beans and peppercorns. Hopefully this collection will be added to, however for the moment I think the capacity for jam has been exhausted! Perhaps that would be a good new years resolution, I'm still looking for a resolution that I can appreciate, keep and benefit from! More jam seems reasonable, no? 

The organisation process and the purging of plastic...

And thus the final result, which is very similar to how it looks now, REALLY, even 3 months later! Although the bamboo shoots had to been thrown out along with the peanut butter... the best before date on the bamboo shoots was december 2009. (a good exemple of why you should be very consciouse when packing your kitchen cupboards in a move) The peanut butter didn't have any best before date on it, but it tasted kind of funny, and I couldn't remember buying it, so it went as well, which means there's a little more space... but not that much!

So welcome to the story of my kitchen cabinet. And now I must get back to my revision of constitutional law and the history of law in France since the Roman Empire... oh ya.. nothing much, just a few centuries!

GAH!