GRRRRR

Today I am a bit cranky with France!!! The railway workers have decided to go on strike to protest some kind of changes in the system and those who are suffering because of this strike are the ordinary worker who depends on the rail system to get to work, the poor students who are taking the huge baccalaureat exams and have to travel to various exam sites and visitors who have travel plans and places to get to and maybe even a tight deadline!
JC and I belong in the last group and as a consequence of this strike cannot get to see Maya's recital for Ecole de Cirque nor can we celebrate JC's birthday " en famille" as we had hoped in Carpentras! We have had our train tickets for a long time in order to get the best price and our train was cancelled....sooo MAD!

Here is what it looked like on Wednesday evening in the Gare de Lyon.

Lots of the French people are totally frustrated and upset too as I could see on TV interviews and comments online. This cartoon was in Sunday's Figaro Magazine aimed at France's current government. I am not sure of the interpretation but the subtitle is"the French exception."

L'exception française

I am not sure if I did a walk through of our studio here on rue Legendre. There have been some outside photos but here is what the place looks like on the inside...here is the main living room looking to outside courtyard

This is the living room from the window...behind JC is the entry hall and a sliver of the kitchen window.

Voici la cuisine...

View from the kitchen to entry hall and living room...

There is also a bedroom and bathroom on the left facing the entryway. And that is where we live for now!

JC and I went out to Velizy for dinner with friends the other evening and took the RER (before this darn strike began) this is the RER station at Invalides.

Actually a very nice place to wait for the RER which is a kind of metro/train that goes out to the suburbs.

Zipping along the Seine by the Defense I saw these new buildings:

The station we arrived in however was still pretty classic!

The Hôtel de Ville near the Cité des Arts has opened a new little gallery/boutique called Paris Rendez Vous.

Since it was a nice day and not hot we went over to the neighborhood to take a walk. Here are some of the posters up along the way on the Rue de Rivoli...

The address for the office is 29, rue de Rivoli....

Inside the bureau d'informations there is a boutique that had this surprising record album for sale! I almost waved it around to tell everyone in the place that we were from Portland!! What a funny thing to see in Paris!

One of the songs recorded is "Louie, Louie"!!! That is from my days in high school!

On the walls they have framed the covers of what looks like a magazine (which I've never seen but now I'll look for it) that are like New Yorker covers...here are a few I found to be intriguing.

This one is my favorite:

They have put out blank pages with the title and ask you to draw something and tack it on the wall. I thought that was really fun!

We had lunch outside on a tree shaded square before we walked on. We had salade Niçoise!

The area near the Hôtel de Ville which flows into the Marais has plenty to see. I liked how this sign was made of recycled beads from jewelry and other things:

It is a resale shop with all sorts of treasures!

What about this wall mosaic:

and of course there are always geraniums in a window somewhere.

Sometimes cats go shopping too...this one was really studying what was in the shop window and it wasn't cat food or mice!

At the Maison de l'Europe, which JC was part of when he was a college student, there was this giant Easter egg sent by Croatia as a symbol of friendship.

Can you see how large it is? Those are tall French doors in the background.

We ended up the afternoon at this café...we could not resist Bourgogne after all...the waitress told me they serve escargots here all day and they even have the recipe written across the wall inside!

Across from the café was this ancient building...one of the oldest in Paris built by François Miron for whom the street is named.

Right next door to the house was this place...I could not resist the photo:

Now...the question remains:

I'm sure I'll find something more to do in the days to come!