Paris, for lack of a better title. (Photos from Paris)

Paris, for lack of a better title. (Photos from Paris)

It’s 6:15am in Amsterdam and I cannot sleep. Has been light since long before 5:00, and fun fact, the sun doesn’t set until almost 11pm. It was nearly the same in Paris, which we left just a few days ago, but I haven’t been able to sleep in since leaving that amazing city and for me that is a travesty, because above all else on this trip, we treasure the ability to SLEEP IN. ‘Don’t you hate sleeping away the day, not joining the world until everyone else is having lunch?’ NO. ‘Don’t you want to get a jump on your day (I don’t even know what that means) especially when you’re traveling to new places?’ NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST. I love sleeping in. So does the man. There is nothing we can see at 9am that we can’t also see at 1pm, and actually if it’s tourist crap we want to do, the lines are so much shorter after lunch. Before this trip, we never saw each other for more than a few hours at a time, let alone went to sleep or woke up together. Now that we do this together time-thing on a daily basis, we’ve settled into a routine, and for us, it’s a good one. Our days are simple, regardless of where we are in the world — wake up late, explore, relax, find good food, read, go to bed late, rinse and repeat. It hasn’t gotten old yet, I’m sure in large part because we are constantly seeing new things. Maybe check back with us down the road to gauge if we feel the same way. 

Our month in Paris was unbelievable: all of the friends, those who live in Paris and those who visited; the food and the wine and the food and the wine and the BREAD, I don’t even like bread but in Paris I LOVE BREAD; the gorgeous city and its beautiful streets with its Haussman buildings and the Seine and the month of June, with the sun setting at 10pm and not a second sooner… Good God. And maybe what made me happiest is that Anthony loved it too. We don’t have to love the same things and actually we rarely do. But in this case, it made the stay even better. Our first week, in Saint-Germaine (still and always my favorite neighborhood), we walked miles around the city each day, watched sunsets with a bottle of wine on the river and at night found restaurants nearby for a late drink. When we moved to an apartment up in Montmartre (his favorite – he is obsessed), we stayed up late most nights, til well past 3 or 4am, with more walks around the neighborhood or up to the church, then retreated to our apartment (I loved it so much, it reminded me of my old place on East 82nd), where we read or played guitar or just relaxed with the windows wide open, listening to the constant party on the streets below us. The soiree shut down around 2am every night, and the area didn’t come alive again until the next afternoon. It was perfect for us. 

Among the highlights of our four weeks: the Fete de la Musique, the giant music festival that takes over Paris on the first day of summer, was awesome (have you ever heard a choir of 100 gay Italian men sing Britney Spears in three different languages? I have. And it’s magic.) (Also I have a new favorite song, Homeless. Not because we are currently homeless – we are also unemployed – but because it’s really good and we saw Marina Kaye sing it live at the festival.) Dinner at Paul Bert’s is in my top five meals of all time. We did an amazing wine and cheese pairing class and the teacher was randomly enough from Kansas City, living in Paris for the past decade. Picasso, Orangerie and Pinacotheque 2 (with its Klimt exhibit) museums were new to me and I loved them. The Orsay had a huge gorgeous Bonnard exhibit, and for anyone who has been to our apartment, he’s responsible for the pictures of naked women on my walls. Crazy Horse cabaret, the new Louis Vuitton foundation museum, a picnic at the Eiffel Tower, picnics all over the city actually, visiting Versailles, laying in the grass at Place des Vosges and sitting by the fountains at Tuileries and Luxembourg Gardens… all of those things were wonderful. But the best was simply just being there. Someone asked me the other day why I love Paris as much as I do. I don’t have an answer to that any more than I do when someone asks why I love New York so much, even after living there for nearly 20 years. I just do. I feel at home there, I feel like My Best Me there and alive and excited and like part of something bigger. It’s cheesy, it’s probably non-sensical and sounds ridiculous but nothing about this trip is logical, it’s all for pure happiness, so I’m sticking with the reason that Paris just makes me happy. I’ll post about Amsterdam later this week but first, giving my (second) favorite city in the world its proper due (I live in my very favorite), here are le photos from Paris. Warning: THERE ARE ALOT and I don’t have the wifi power (or the will) to edit them. Hope you enjoy. I loved taking them. 

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13 Responses

  1. Pure love shot <3

  2. Alberto

    ooh la la, les americains a Paris. beau!! tres tres beau!

  3. Cheryl Mingrone

    Love!

  4. David Florez

    Omg u guys r too cute for words…the food, the wine, the cheese, the art, the people and the love! Super gel…i especially love how u guys still had time to make meatballs and red sauce in Paris, lol. B safe and have fun kitties

  5. Gina amaro

    You two look great and love the pictures. Keep safe and have a lot of fun. Love this in the air.

  6. J’adore!

  7. robtoscano

    Great mix and match of photos without trying, first utterance of unemployment by you, shame on you, and you forgetting your 4am lifestyle of work ready, proud you let that go. My daughter did two weeks of paris, loved when she was there, cant wait to spend a whole semester there. Im thinking maybe ill find work there while she schools there. Thanks for the Bonnard reference, now I have research to do.

  8. robtoscano

    Ahhh Bonnard, Pierre, distinctively french pointillistic, van gogh in essence. Yet he copied a Botero in a bathroom scene and yet I wonder if it was years before Botero or in honor of a retrospective in nature. Who did the pencil of the women with the brushed out hair, in between the two abstract Picasso me thinks?

  9. Judy Serrone

    your pics are incredible, wish I was there, WOW WOW WOW. LOVE LOVE LOVE, OMG, be safe, I could live in Paris all alone, & never to return, no kids, just me. I love U both, be safe!

  10. “SOMEONE” asked you why you loved Paris? I’ve got your SOMEONE right here. I’m going to spank you. xo

  11. Miss Paris and you guys! Love the pics!!!

  12. Gina Artese

    I didn’t think I could possibly love you two anymore. I lied.
    I seriously can’t get over the fact that we got to hang out twice in Paris and once in St. Emilion. We are truly blessed. Have fun in (H)amsterdam! xoxo

  13. These are priceless.
    des souvenirs pour toute une vie! ❤️ Xoxo
    (And of course I especially love the one of the cat on the balcony )

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