Salon les Thermalies 2024 - Carrousel du Louvre

Have you been to a spa?

Yesterday I went to Les Thermalies (spa) salon at Carrousel du Louvre (the Louvre’s shopping mall).

I want to go paint in Roussillon

 Running to the train at 6am com d’ab 

Eating 2 RELAY madeleines as usual pre-train

Bonjour Paris, SNCF, Travel Experiences

 

I came back to Paris Sunday Afternoon. 

Bonjour Notre Dame 👋 Very warm with lots of pleasure boats on the Seine.

Toulouse, Brick City

How many of you have been to Toulouse? Raise your hands 🙌 I forgot to mention I was running 🏃‍♂️ to Toulouse on Thursday.

Every year Urban Sketchers France picks a city to meetup in - Voila Toulouse!

Ventimiglia, Italy

Two weeks ago on my last day in Cannes, I went to Ventimiglia, Italy for the weekly Friday market. Nothing like a piccolo taste of Italia before heading back to Paris same afternoon. 

And the colors! The shuttle train took 2 hrs from Cannes (13€ A/R). 

1st stop the covered market. Many small producers with their farm-grown products.

One seller had a bowl of eggs 50 centimes each. Of course there were bigger specialty vender; butcher shops, hazelnut sellers,etc.

Temptation took me in La Bottega dell Olio (box #12). So many anchovies ❤️🤸‍♂️

CHEESE 🧀 

Lordie I asked the Fr woman ahead of me in line if she was stocking up for a soirée? Non,non, just the weekly haul of Gorgonzola, Locatelli, Grana Padana, etc. She lived in MENTON, a 20-minute train ride away lucky duck 🦆 

Limoni 

US perfect egg-shaped citrus are not lemons. Why take away the beautiful bumps?

This pile of limoni is right out of 17th century painting by BartolomeoBimbi.

Further end of the street waits outdoor venders with clothing etc. Those white lacy shorts & tops you see Cannoise wearing can be bought here for 14€ (before bargaining).

Gelato is waits every few steps in Ventimiglia. This is Italy.

My haul:

Red-stripped zipper bag (5€)to carry stuff home

A kilo of 10-month aged Grana Padana cost 10,99€ 

Portable mini hand fan

Sun-dried tomatoes 🍅 

Tube of anchovie paste

Jar of anchovie oil

Not shown: a slice of ricotta cheese cake from formagio. 

Small pizza

2-dips of noisette/cafe gelato

A bowl of sliced watermelon. 

2 hours is enough to do Ventimiglia. The train ride back to Cannes took longer. Plus on the same day the 5 1/2 hours on the non-stop Grand Vitesse TGV back to Paris = about 10+ hrs non-stop sitting. Upshot? Last Friday I was hit with sciatica. The same day I got mild food poisoning (I lost 8 pounds in 4 days..since all returned). And because things come in 3s, my French bank called. They were canceling my credit card. Suspicious online fraud activity; 5€ for car service and 10€ for bike rental. How does my bank know I don't rent bikes or hire cars? They know me better than I do 😳 This is why I've been rather quiet of late. Don't worry. I'm drawing 🎨 standing up and on the mend. PLEASE do not email me. Put any comments on the blog svp 🙏🏻 Still Ventimiglia was worth it...almost. Stay COOL PBers.TMI.Thanks for reading Parisbreakfasts. Feel free to share. If you'd like a personalized cat 😺 watercolor or Paris letters let me know🥂🍾🍒. Love❤️ from Carolg in Paris

Broken, Xray in Centre Medical, Angels of Paris

It's a good idea to have the French Larousse App on your iPhone so you can tell the Doc exactly what's wrong with you in Paris. It's also a good idea to have an Angel 😇 in Paris.

Where to go if something goes wrong, but not too terribly wrong that requires a hospital?  Every arrondissement has several Centre Medical. Just Google and add the arrondissement - 75004,75019 etc. Et voila, Google provides addresses, hours and a map. My Angel 😇 in Paris, author Rosemary FLANNERY, told me this. She suggested if I come to the Centre Medical she went to, she could give me a 'canne Anglais'  🦯 to walk with afterwards.

Rosemary lives in 75009. I am in 75004. Two buses later I was there. Or rather another, swankier clinic, Centre Medical Auber at 9, rue Boudreau since it was a tad closer I waltzed in like I owned the place. I had no appointment by the way. Believe me at 8:15am I pretty much had the place to myself. 

I waited only 10 minutes. Then showed my passport & insurance papers(not good for anything but hospitalization). I explained/read the words above that my cheville/ankle was sprained and paid 23 euros.

Then I saw an adorably, funny doctor who made endless jokes. He gave me the paper below to get an ex-ray downstairs in the radiologie department. Et voila! Easy peasy!!

Aside from the sex change, tout va bien. NYC was never like this bebe!

I took the l’encenser, rather than the stairs with my sprained ankle. It helps, in a French elevator to know that -1 is sous sol/downstairs. 

The Green button is the ground floor or exit.

I was told to wait for reception to open at 9:00 am. I was warned I would have to wait 15 minutes? Come to NYC folks & find out what waiting is like in a doctor's office.

Do all radiologie offices have faux pink 🌸 cherry blossoms on the ceilings? 

They had cherry blossoms 🌸 at St.Vincent's when I got a cat scan for sciatica. 

Is everyone getting cherry blossoms from the same source? French girl recently went to Japan to see the cherry blossoms🌸She could have stayed home and visited rue Boudreau.

At 9:05 reception called my name, looked at my papers and asked me to pay 24 euros for the x-ray. A woman got me shortly after, helped me on the table, took shots of my ankle & told me to come back Saturday morning for results. Tomorrow is a public holiday. THAT WAS IT. 

I was out of there by 9:15 am!

A short hobble over to the Illy café to meet my angel 😇 Rosemary. Admittedly some of the décor would have looked quite cheery after spartan Centre Medical Auber. No snacks were offered at the Centre as I recall but nothing is perfect.

Meet my angel, Rosemary FLANNERY. Don't ask me why she spells her last name all in caps. This woman can do no wrong.

I wrote about her book 📕 here. Please take a look. It's a heavenly book in my humble opinion.

I would like to say I hopped onto the bus 🚌 but that ain't so. Still having the crutch (from darling Rosemary😇 ) gets you a seat fast.

A pit stop at Monoprix Opera to stock up on fav salad (right) for the holiday. I bought 3.

Waiting for the next bus, I wanted to yell at this French girl (putting on her new baskets 👟 ). 

"Get HIGHTOPS for goodness sakes", 

but you can't do that in Paris. In New York you could. I went home to make tea for my afternoon guests at the Salon Parisbreakfast. 

A mini tea 🫖 

C'est comme ca. 

Onsite Sketching!

I finally bought my ticket for Paris last night - YAHOO
I'm the world's worse procrastinator when it comes to purchasing plane tickets - toujours les meme choise

It hit me I better get out there and warm up sketching onsite. This is the News Cafe - rue Vavin 75006...
'Course the last time I went out sketching I came down with a rotten case of sciatica so I better be careful (Mariage Freres)

Onsite sketching can be deleterious to your health :(

Le Pain Quotidien is the perfect place to sketch onsite since you're surrounded by lovely subject matter...

Angelina is nothing to sniff at either...mais oui

Yes I am doing back my exercises!!

Basically this is a 'nudge' post to get me cracking...

A nice thing about having a blog is you can post a visual reminder to yourself...

Then you've got your subscribers (Hi PBers!) to give you the occasional petit kick dans le derriere in case you forget...

I have never drawn onsite like this! I seek refuge in a cafe/salon de the. I am not so fearless. Perhaps I should try in October? Oui o non? Ok I'm going sketching now...

BONJOUR ONSITE SKETCHING!

Sciatica Report

Iris Printemps, 9" x 11"

OK on to BACKS 1st thank you PBers for sharing your personal experiences with sciatica /bad backs. BEAR and I are grateful for your kind tips, and advice.

 You might like to see the exercises we do now everyday.

2 X a day. 

Probably forever if we want to stay pain-free. We just started using 3-pound weights to strengthen the left leg a bit so it doesn't wobble. This stuff is tuff love.

 For Victor or Justine who mentioned the TENS Unit in an email. I'm getting electrical treatment with this at physical therapy.They said it would be fine to self-treat at home whenever I have pain.  Another PBer mentioned the McKenzie Method. I asked about it at PT and they said, That's what you're getting.

I'll look for this Paris a Nous book when I get there mid-March.
I don't know how much dancing I'll do but a mild jump for joy couldn't hurt thanks to your kind thoughts.

BONJOUR BACK to Paris!