This week:

• I guess most people have heard about the wedding salon in Paris, but did you know there was one dedicated to divorce last week-end?
• Other than the concert mentioned last week, there were other ways to commemorate the fall of the Berlin wall on Monday, such as this mock wall destruction party in a parisian bar
• Also this week was the 11th festival of amateur theater, which was a good opportunity to enjoy live theater!
• Did you get any chocolates from the Galeries Lafayette on Thursday?
• Also, most of the week, traffic has been difficult first on both RER A and B and then mostly on RER B. Find out why the RER B was more affected

Coming up:

• This week-end, artists open their doors to you in Montmartre!
• Next week is the “festival de films gays, lesbiens, trans et +++” (do I need to translate?) at the Forum des Images in Les Halles
• Also next week is the science festival, mostly for schools during the week days and for everyone during the week-end

Various:

• A giant tunnel is being built along the Seine, in order to have a bigger storage capacity for rain water and avoid flooding in the city
• Now in Paris? Wish you could stroll around? Find out about virtual sightseeing of the city…

There are also a couple videos on youtube, which might give you a better idea (what with having sound and mouvement as well…).

• More fall foliage pictures in Paris
• An interesting way to walk around the city: Paris Movie Walks suggests 10 walks following different movies shot in the city of lights! (camera! action!). Sounds ideal for any movie buff looking for an excuse to walk around!
• Paris, the city that sleeps? A petition by artists seems to hint that Paris is indeed likely to become the European capital of sleep, after a number of laws make it harder to organise music events at night in the city. The petition (in French)
• Some three-star chefs have gone cooking in the metro, wish you were there no?
• So the French are slow to pick up on Twitter? But they get artsy about it: a graphic designer has made a poster of his 1000 first tweets and they are now visible on some street walls in Paris
• Apparently, ordering café is more complicated than I thought. Here are nine types of coffee you could order in Paris. I never drink coffee so I don’t know about this but I was definitely surprised to hear the basic coffee is made out of chicory…
• Up until the 10th of November, it’s National French week in the US and this led me to find this nice article explaining what is verlan
• An interesting view of what NOT to do when you come visiting Paris, which does make a number of good points
• An open air (free) concert on the place de la Concorde will take place next Monday in order to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall
• Also next week is the 11 novembre bank holiday commemorating the armistice of 1918. Check out all the events that have taken place on that day over the years on Wikipedia from a French point of view (differences with the English version are interesting as well)

L’autre soir, je suis allée voir “Les 39 marches” au théâtre de La Bruyère et c’était tout simplement fantastique !

Une adaptation singulière du film du même nom réalisé par Alfred Hitchcock (attention “spoilers” si vous suivez le lien) mise en scène par Eric Metayer (/swoon) : 4 acteurs pour ‘150 personnages’ (bon moi j’ai pas compté hein mais c’est crédible) et des accessoires impressionnants de simplicité et de réalisme.

La lande écossaise, ses cascades, ses paysans et ses petits hôtels 100% typiques, des courses folles à pied, en train ou en voiture, de l’action à couper le souffle… et ENORMEMENT d’humour ! ‘Tous les moments forts du film’, j’avoue que je sais pas (j’aimerai bien voir maintenant) mais en tout cas un condensé de moments forts en soi ! Malheureusement, on ne peut pas adopter le chat à la fin, snif, il était tellement adorable pourtant…

Superbes jeux d’acteurs, bravo à Eric Metayer et ses co-acteurs : Andréa Bescond, Christophe Laubion et Jean-Philippe Bèche.

A voir du 10 octobre au 20 décembre 2009. En plus les places sont à moitié prix il me semble jusqu’au 23 octobre… Merci à la rentrée des théâtres ;) Alors comment pourriez-vous résister ?

Quleques photos d’une visite passée au Palais du Luxembourg / Sénat…

Starting on Sept. 15th, the Festival d’Automne
Starting on Sept. 18th, a new exhibit at the Cernuschi museum “Les buddhas du Shandong”
On Sept. 19th, there’s the Techno Parade.
On Sept. 19th and 20th, there will be the Journées du Patrimoine.
From Sept. 18th to 20th, it’s Sud-Ouest sur Seine.
On Sept. 26th and 27th, it’s la Fête des Jardins.
Until Sept. 27th, go to the CLAMP manga exhibit.

So enjoy these last few days of peace and quiet ;)

See article in LeMonde.fr

It’s the same thing every year, I’m not sure why I keep noticing… Paris is empty (apart for the tourist centre): the market stalls are empty, the offices are empty, the shops and restaurants are closed… Well, not all of them, of course. But too many for any Parisian stuck in town for the time being! O well, time to try out new places ;)

But now archeologists have found new evidence in Nanterre (while digging to build a highway) that things may not have been this way: among the remains and items that were found, some hint that, at the location of modern day Nanterre, there might have been a big Gallic city, bigger then what might have been on the Ile de la Cité and around.

So now nobody can be sure of anything: were there 2 cities? Which one is the Lutetia mentioned by Cesar in his writings to the Senate? Etc. etc. There is still lots of mysteries to be solved for sure.

I wonder whether they’ll start digging like crazy around Nanterre now?

For all I know, the scientists have known these questions for a long time already, I’m only just finding out through an article in LeMonde…

The full story in French here.

On a slightly related note:
“Les grands monuments de Lutèce” is an exhibit at the Crypte archéologique du parvis de Notre-Dame until the 31st of January 2010 about the main Roman buildings in the city.