Paris 2017

We left San Jose for Paris on May 9 and arrived in Charles DeGaulle airport the morning of May 10 by way of Dallas airport. We had arranged a taxi to meet us at CDG and take us to the door of our AirBnB apartment in the Marais district in the middle of Paris.  Since the apartment is quite isolated from any Metro stations, and anticipating stairs to our fifth floor apartment with no elevator, this was a good decision.

This is was what faced us as we began the climb. The rest of the stairs were a spiral and quite a lot narrower, after 84 steps we were at our new front door. The apartment was  spacious, unusual for Paris, and had great views over the roof tops and many old chimney pots.

France had just held their Presidential election the weekend before we arrived and everyone we met seemed happy that France had elected Macron, who is quite young (39). We were amused to see this poster.  Our plan was to meet with our friends Marcy and Katherine Tilton later in the week, but walking near our apartment, we saw them having lunch in a sidewalk cafe, quite a coincidence in a city as large as Paris!

Our stay in Paris was for two weeks where I planned to participate in a "Streets of Paris" photography workshop, but before that began, we explored and wandered those wonderful Paris streets.

Walking past Notre Dame, a view from the bridge that avoids the crowds.

We found our way to the Museum of Natural History, surrounded by beautiful botanic gardens. Inside was an amazing space with very well-arranged exhibits. I was impressed that the high glass roof had variable lighting and a super sound system. This was used to simulate the changing light over an African savanna, which was exhibited below. We experienced the light and sound of a thunderstorm and heard torrential rain, which brought another dimension to the exhibit.

There are many street markets in Paris with an abundance of fruit, vegetables, fish and meat, and let's not forget the bread and pastries.

And fresh oysters.

An amazing assortment of fish.

Fish filleted while you wait.

And, of course, the flowers.

 We played tourist in the Palais Royal.

 Listened to an orchestra playing in the street

Met our friends from Oregon for dinner at Chez Janou

Had our cafe creme and croissants.

Lusted over pastries.......

It is a pleasure to view the streets of the city without skyscrapers. The workshop with Peter Turnley was a wonderful experience and an opportunity to meet fellow photographers from around the world. The workshop was quite challenging and a good learning experience.
Peter invited guest speakers on several occasions, who added another dimension to the workshop.

One of these guests was Voya Mitrovic, on left with Peter, holding one of Peter's black and white prints. Voya was the printer for many great photographers including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Josef Koudelka, as well as Perer Turnley. Voya is now retired and the print he is holding is one of his last. I really enjoyed Voya's talk as he showed many  prints from his own collection and described the process he used to finish prints as they are seen in galleries.

The goal of the workshop was to capture street scenes of Paris with a wide angle lens.

This man was quite a character and a delight to chat with.

Our friend Pat took me to the petanque court where he plays five nights a week.

Paris has a lot of street art and I came across these two artists, surrounded by wonderful graffiti.

 A fellow photographer, Marcy, showing images we took of this highly-decorated and pierced young woman.

A happy couple......

These guys were hilarious when I tried to take candid photographs, they all wanted to "be" in a picture!

We came across this scene with a model being photographed on a bridge over the Seine.

We did spend some time sitting outside cafes having coffee and pastries and were fortunate to have good weather for the majority of our days in Paris.
Next adventure, a train ride to Normandy to spend time with my brother, Jeff and sister-in- law, Oriana.
Stay tuned.

Mexico

After our visit to CODEX, the subject of the last post, we took a flight from San Jose, California to Guadalajara, Mexico on our way to meet our friends Janie and Norman on the shores of Lake Chapala. They had spent some time there in December of last year and liked it so much, they decided to return for the month of February and invited us to join them.  We stayed at an AirBnB in the town of Ajijic.  It's location allowed us to walk almost everywhere we wanted to visit. The weather was very pleasant, in the mid 70's to low 80's every day, with cool nights.  A nice change from snowy Oregon.

A typical narrow street in the old section of Ajijic. Notice the cobbled streets and narrow sidewalks. Sidewalks were not always present and walking the cobbled streets could present the occasional challenge.  Good walking shoes do help!

The town is nestled between the hills and Lake Chapala, the largest lake in Mexico.

I was impressed by the large number of murals on many streets and a refreshing lack of graffiti.

This mural was on the bathrooms in the children's playground. Ajijic is home to many talented artists.

 Before leaving Oregon, we had been given an introduction to Efren Gonzalez by our friend Elaine Frenett. Efren is a very successful artist who lives in Ajijic and has many murals and art installations throughout Mexico. He was very generous with his time and we were fortunate to visit him in his studio and get a tour.

This is one of Efren's installations, a commemorative wall on a local school in the middle of town.

Streets are closed off, (I think fairly often).  This was a typical scene on a Sunday when many families go to the park along the lake to picnic and "hang out".

 Hanging out, no worries!!

I think it was someones birthday celebration.

Lots of decorations everywhere.

The central plaza gardens, and below, the coffee cafe where we spent quite a lot of time watching the world go by.

This fellow was around everyday selling his hats and baskets.  He had quite a system of carrying everything in a way that he could walk everywhere.

This little girl was just beautiful.  She was helping her mother sell potted plants.

 The Malecon and park along the lake was a lovely place to walk at any time of the day.

Again, artwork everywhere.

This evening there were even waves on the lake. This lake, as I said earlier, is the largest in Mexico, some 50 miles long and 10 miles wide at some  points.

Pretty nice sunsets as well.

There was a three-day Chili Cook-off event taking place just as we arrived, so we had to explore. It was quite a walk to the area where the event was taking place, but well worth it. There were many stage performers, bands and dancers, with the music system turned up to 11.  Boy was it loud!!

There were also a large number of vendor booths selling food, clothing, jewelry, tequila and all manner of crafts and fine art.

Even horse dancing.

After a long day at the Chili Cook-off, these hammocks for sale along the highway were very tempting.

 We took the local bus to the town of Chapala, which was about five miles away, to visit their weekly street market. Again a lovely day with a lot of bright artwork everywhere. A ten cent bus fare each way.

This was a big market with many stalls of fresh fruit and vegetables, fresh meat and fish, as well as stalls selling clothes and imported goods.

For lunch we headed to this restaurant on the lakefront in Chapala.  It had a very large open dining area, which was fairly quiet.   Hard to imagine what it would be like when full.

This large group of pelicans kept us company.

We had not seen any evidence of police since arriving in the area, but these two showed up when we stopped at what seemed to be City Hall and/or the Office of Tourism. They were all pretty friendly, I think they were picking up lunch!

Another lovely meal with Norman and Janie at The Peacock Garden.

Hence the name!

I haven't mentioned our dining experience, but every meal was absolutely delicious, from breakfast at Jimmy D's to lunch of ceviche (above) at Charala's, to dinner at Go Bistro, owned and operated by Pedro, a Cordon Bleu trained chef.

We usually ended our day walking back to our lodging along the Malecon.

Past more works of art on the way. Another one of Efren's amazing murals.

Beautiful doorways.

The "beacon" on the local church.

Our neighborhood grocery store.  Fortunately, a few are open late so we could pick up breakfast for the next morning.

And we met the local dog walker upon arriving back at our lodging.

 Sadly, it was time to head home. We allowed quite a lot of time to check in at the Guadalajara Airport, but were a bit concerned when we ended up in this long line at the Volaris check in area. Luckily, the line moved along briskly and security was quick, allowing time for something to eat before boarding our flight back to San Jose.
Adios Mexico!