Another week, oh how time flies. January went by in no time, and there are signs of spring in the air. Maybe a tad too much red and pink for the upcoming Valentine’s Day, maybe a combination of red from the festivities of upcoming Chinese New Year. Do you know, this year, both these days are on 14 February?

February’s Special

• Dana Boulé pays hommage to Paris in February.
• Chinese New Year festivities in Paris begins today with an exhibition at the Centre Culturel de Chine until the end of the month. There will also be other events including parades to look out for. We’ll also keep you posted.
• The Freemasons Museum is reopening next week on Thursday 11 February. This museum is bound to be fascinating, if my visit to a Masonic Lodge in Dublin was any indication.

Events in Paris

• Daniel Rose has got everyone – well, at least the foodies – excited with the opening of Spring Boutique and according to their blog, happy hour Little Saturday runs every Thursday from 5.00pm to 9.00pm. And as a bonus, there’s free event Voyage en Saveurs this Saturday 6 February, from 11.30am to 8.00pm.
• Something fun, especially for kids, and a chance to get to know the sharks better. Dans le sillage de requins is running at the Porte Dorée Aquarium until 6 March 2011, so plenty of chance to get there.
• Big into manga? Here’s a trade show that’s just for you this weekend!

Other Interesting Tit-Bits

• TEDx Paris 2010 took place at the end of last month but you can catch the videos online now.
• Do you know there is a fish spa in the city now? You know, where you sit there and let little fish gnom their way through dead skin. I was told it’d be a wee bit ticklish.
• Oh, there’s also brand new Brunch Bazar which seems fun-packed, with food, lessons and workshops.
• Ann Mah’s first novel, Kitchen Chinese, will be released next week on Tuesday 9 February and this honorary Parisian is embarking on a book tour which will come along to Paris by Wednesday 10 March 2010.

Ok, I have to grant you this picture was definitely not taken this week: such clear blue skies… Also, when would I have had the time to go to La Vilette? Still I thought it was a nice picture.

Last week

• A recap of Fashion Week on Mademoiselle’s blog

This week

• Ponies running wild along the motorway and the périphérique? It happened last Saturday! Fortunately, there were no casualties, just an impressive scene.
• A short recap of the President’s show on TF1 on Monday
• Last days to enjoy a special deduction for Versailles: 2 “passports” for 1! Until the end of the month, for visits in Frebruary
• This week is also the stage debut of Eric Cantona, with “Face au Paradis” at the Marigny theater co-starring Laurent Deutsch!
• Towards a ban of the niqab/burqa in public service areas? At least that’s what came out of the Parliamentary Commission on the topic

Next week

• Some Chandeleur guidelines! Happy crêpes day next Tuesday…

Later on

• Calais wants to be British? Well, at least they’re trying to profit from the 2012 Olympics in London… I hope it works out for them. Paris is not the only worthy place in France! (Even though I’m personally o so happy the JO are not in Paris, phwew!)

Random

• A NY Times paper on 2 famous Parisian “family” restaurants: La Tour d’Argent and Taillevent, both led by a third-generation family member.
• A very moving paper about Haitians in Paris trying to cope with the earthquake from afar.

Wow, this is my first metlinks for 2010! Doesn’t it feel weird to write 2010? Well, I’ll get used to it soon enough I hope… Anyhow, here are some things that caught my attention this week, in a completely random order.

• For the past few months, a group has been living illegally in a luxurious mansion off place des Vosges as a way to demonstrate against the difficulties of students and others to find decent and affordable places to live in Paris. A sentence has recently been passed by justice that they will be forced out of the building. You can follow the whole story on the press review of this group’s website
• A lovely shot illustrating this week’s weather: Eiffel tower shrouded in mist…
• The possibility of a public transport strike on Feb. 3rd is looming…
• Watch for all the closing exhibits at the end of the week! Among others, Teotihuacan at Quai Branly will stay open every day until midnight before it ends on Sunday…
• But of course there are many more to come. Here is a proposed recap of upcoming exhibits!
• Three concerts are organised in Paris in order to support victims of the earthquake in Haiti.
• What about the soldes? Did you go crazy? Here’s the Figaro’s take on their success for this year.
• Neat post by David Lebovitz about mistakes onemight make while ordering in a Parisian restaurant.
• A funny mistake or maybe we should indeed make line 14 doubly automatic??

Two weeks into the new year, and nearly a month since the blanket of white snow descended Europe-wide, the Arctic chill is finally going to ease off a little. We’re starting to see temperature around 1-3°C (yay it’s greater than 0) but there’s no telling exactly how long will this reprieve be. Brrr…

In The News

• Is the nightlife of Paris heading towards extinction? New York Times argues it is so.
• Pal Sarkozy (that’s the papa of Nicolas Sarkozy) has landed an one-man Surrealist art show in Espace Pierre Cardin in April. And the centrepiece of the show? A large canvas featuring his daughter-in-law, Carla.
• All the kerfuffle over Christmas attempted terrorist attack on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit has now seen rippling security tightening worldwide. The French civil aviation authority will begin implementing the body scanner in Paris at the end of the month on an experimental basis.

Lifestyle

• What is the favourite word used incessantly by Parisians? “Putain!“, claimed Olivier Magny.
• Are you a creature of habit when it comes to eating out? Or are you the adventurous kind who are constantly in search of some place new, you’re trying to challenge François Simon for his job?
• In the mean time, is wine bar the new trend for dining out? Here are a few of the best wine bars that you could check out next.
• Looking to pamper yourself a little in the new year with some Chinese foot massage session in your own home? At €40 an hour, it’s not too bad a deal and quite nicely, you have no need to go out in the cold!

Exhibitions

• Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson (not to be confused with Fondation Cartier) is hosting an exhibition of the works by the renowned photographer Robert Doisneau from 13 January to 18 April. Not to be missed!
• “Au détour de Jourdain” is a photography exhibition by Farida Hamak, and will be open to all (free of charge!) at the Centre Culturel Algérien. It runs from 13 January to 6 February.
• When children become the young models in which their parents try to capture their essence of lives in paintings – “Les Enfants Modèles, de Claude Renoir à Pierre Arditi” is currently on exhibit at Musée de l’Orangerie until 8 March.

Happy New Year! We trust you had had a good winter holiday, and tell us, did you become a king/queen yesterday? And how have your first week of the year pan out so far?

New Year

• Did you make any new year’s resolution(s) for 2010? Penelope felt hers look rather familiar…
• January means winter sales! Les soldes officially started yesterday, and if you need a little navigation help, check out its official website. By the way, there’s extraordinary opening hours until 9 January.
• Zeva of Paris BAO, featuring Sharon Bowman, introduces 10 great champagnes for the new year. Who says champagne is dead?

Special Requests

• Adam took on a special request from one of his readers, featuring photographs of a location dear to a New Hampshire man. Adam has also generously offered to research and feature similar requests.
• Don’t just chuck them – recycle your Christmas trees instead. There are 95 collection points around the city, and get them in before 24 January.

Culture

• A few days before Christmas, the catacombes of Paris have reopened after a few months of closure, to deal with the aftermath of vandalism. Hurrah for the reopening! That place is spooky but cool spooky.
• From 13 January to 21 February, the Monumenta Project at the Grand Palais will feature an exhibition of the works by Christian Boltanski.
• The 260 black and white columns by Buren at Palais Royal took approximately €1.5 million to install, and to restore them, another €4 million was put through! The restored columns will be inaugurated tomorrow, Friday 8 January.

In The News

• The folks from UK are chiming in on Sarkozy’s call for les grandes écoles to admit more students from low-income families.
• What defines “Frenchness”? The motto of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité? As the debate of French national identity continues, foreign press including BBC, The Guardian, LA Times, Huffington Post and Sydney Morning Herald publish their pieces on the issue. The most curious article, in my personal opinion, is that from The Independent, which admittedly is not all about the identity debate but touches on Sarkozy’s remark on the meaning of fraternité – then promptly blames Parisians of the ills of society in the form of rudeness.

Tis the week between xmas and the new year and things should be pretty quiet in the city. But are they really that quiet? Let’s see…

This week

• Disappointed by the xmas presents? Why not sell them on the web?
• The end of the RER A strike last week-end and some traffic on RER C between Paris and Juvisy should also be noted.
• Yves Rocher, founder of the brand that wears his name, died last saturday at 79.

This year

• Taking it easy with our 3-year-old smoking ban? This article mentions growing numbers of people starting to ignore the ban…
• The tradi to overthrow the baguette?

New year!

• Details on what metro will be running at what time on New Year’s Eve. And for free!
• Did you check out the Eiffel Tower light show? It runs up until 31th so don’t miss it!

Next year…

• New rules to liven up Parisian dance scene?
• 2010 in Paris means it’s been 100 years since the last major flooding (floodings that used to appear on a 100-year cycle basis…) To commemorate this event, an exhibit will begin on January 20th at the Pavillon de l’eau
• Prices will be on the rise as well… SNCF trains for example, but also taxi rides and many more things I guess…

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone has got some holidays to enjoy now… I’ve tried to keep up the metlinks but this week will be a “short edition” as I’m late to head over to my mum’s place already!

This week

• Pictures of the snow last week in Paris
• A recap of the train issues in Paris this week: Eurostar, RER A and C… I’m glad I was staying home under the duvet!
• Eurostar vs. Eurotunnel, who’s at fault? A recap of what was going on in the tunnel last week.

Misc

• A picture of the city’s oldest tree apparently planted under Henry IV! I must go have a look!
• A take on Parisian macarons. While there may be some truth in this post, as a Parisian woman, I’m not sure I agree. I may be fat (depends on your point of view I guess) but I don’t care and I eat my macaron from any number of places… But maybe that’s just a “subversive act”?

Next week

• A few suggestions on how to spend New Year’s Eve in Paris

A slightly early edition of Metlinks for this week, because I want to give a special shout-out to Bij, who has a big big day ahead of her today. No, not a wedding, silly. Nonetheless, good luck home girl!!

Winter Activities

• It’s winter wonderland for the kids between 3 and 17 years old at Charléty Stadium, from 19 to 31 December. Charléty sur neige opens daily (except Christmas Day, of course) between 1.30pm (1.00pm during weekends) and 6.00pm. Note though, the last entry time is 4.30pm. And oh, this is completely free!
• Christmas in Paris is not the same without a stint of ice-skating in front of Hôtel de Ville and/or by Gare Montparnasse. From 18 December to 6 March 2010, it opens daily between 12.00pm and 10.00pm during the week, and between 9.00am and 10.00pm during weekend and public holidays.

Delicious Goodies

• A short list of chocolatiers in Paris, including Patrick Roger, Jean-Paul Hévin, Patrice Chapon and Michel Cluizel.
• Have you seen Pierre Hermé’s Christmas Specials? Oh what I wouldn’t give to have one of the buches de Noël, or the flocons, or the limited winter edition macarons. Check out this PDF of their festive offerings.
• This is perhaps the most sumptuous pastry feast video that I’ve ever seen.

Menu For Hope

• Food bloggers worldwide come together at this time of year to make Menu For Hope a success year after year. David Lebovitz is hosting the edition for Europe and UK, and many Paris-based food bloggers are offering amazing items for bidding.

Unfortunately, Les Grèves

• This month has been a barrage of strike actions one after another, not to mention the on-going ones among the museum workers. The foreign press weighs in on the issue too.
• On the other hand, Anne discovered while the strike may be taking place, the entry may also be free and the ticket requirement waived. (I don’t know though if this is the case every time such an action takes place, so don’t quote me on it!)

Do You Know..?

• Many of the metro stations in Paris are culturally rich, and adorned accordingly to the stops or to the history behind the names of the stops. Have a read at this very interesting article.
• Let’s learn some French expressions with podcasts by Katia and Kylie Mac. The girls are fun and sassy, often accompanied by “Frog”.

Here are the various bits and pieces for this week. There is so much going on at the moment! Which means there is lots of stuff to talk about but also little time to do so…

Influenza A (H1N1)

• All about the vaccination centres in Paris
• Blood donation suffers from the flu as well: numbers are in decline compared to last year’s. This might be caused both by less donors and also by less personel available.
• The nurse students are also affected by the conscriptions for the vaccination centres: long hours and maybe no pay in this holiday season… I also heard they had little time to prepare their exams coming up.
• Tired of all the jazz around the ful? Relieve your stress with the vaccinator game!

Miscellaneous

• France to hand back some Egyptian treasures during Mubarak visit next week.
• We think this piece of advice is really quite terrible and is bound to get the poor fellow to miss his flight! Alternate possibility could be, if things go well in Charles de Gaulle and you see there are no problems on the RER B, to get out of the RER in Saint Michel Notre Dame station, take a look around especially towards Notre Dame and then head back down and to Orly airport.
• Will there be an SNCF strike this week-end? Most unions have removed their call to strike! They warn about possible strikes in January though…
• Christmas decorations at La Fayette: lovely set of pictures

I wanna ride the poney mommy!

• From 5th to 13th December, it’s time for “Salon du Cheval“. I hear the mean interest is for the horse shows (I know nothing about horses myself). Be careful because it’s in Villepinte this year, not Porte de Versailles!
• This event also leads to new campaigns from “Le cheval ça ne se mange pas“, more info on their website. Maybe you’ve noticed the ads in the metro as well?

We’re back with another week’s edition of Metlinks, and it seems Bij and I are playing tag-team on this lately. It’s kinda fun. But you know what’s not quite so much fun? The escalating strike among museums workers, which now see other major museums joining in the labour strike, including Musée d’Orsay, Rodin Museum, Arc de Triomphe, Sainte-Chapelle, Versailles and (the tower of) Notre Dame. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for speedy resolution. (Must stay positive, right?)

Culture

• O noes! The rest of the tour by Mando Diao has been cancelled! This means they will not be in Paris next week… Another reminder not to overwork and pamper yourself with some nice holidays! I hope they get better soon.
• A dark Eiffel Tower at night? This Tuesday, it was no power cut but a part of the 22ème journée mondiale de lutte contre le SIDA.
• Law regarding the Grand Paris has been passed this week. So, automatic métro for an additional 130km of tracks. Let’s hope the works won’t be too disruptive.
• Viral film festival was also held this week in Paris.

Fashion

• A fashion show in the Grand Palais? Sonia Rickel brought a défilé for H&M, entitled Le Tout Paris. So now that H&M has scored Jimmy Choo and Sonia Rykel, who’s next?
• Audrey Hepburn dresses were in Paris, on their way for auction at Sotheby’s in London. Some of the pieces were simply stunning. If only I had some spare cash lying around…
• Christian Lacroix had gone bust. The couture house filed for bankruptcy a few months ago, running at losses at about €10 million in 2008 alone. Ouch.

Other news

• Only 10 day left to apply for the job as a 1-month international shopping consultant. Touted as The (Second) Best Job in the World, you can still be in the hunt if you take the little quiz, submit a video resumé and start getting your friends to vote for you, fighting against some 170 other candidates. Bonne chance!
• Meg Zimbeck is running the most entertaining foodie competition at the moment, called the Edible Advent Calender. I dare not take part since everyone seem so good at it I’ll just end up making a fool of myself…
• La Semaine du Fooding is currently underway (until Monday 7 December), themed Les Incorrects to challenge you to dine on what many may appear taboo/politically incorrect today. Do you have a reservation for the dégustations and the clandestine bar?