Our latest articles about life in Paris - Page 3 sur 27

Christmas in Paris – oh the lights!

Each year business associations get together with town halls to illuminate our holiday season evenings. A large portion of the budget comes from the businesses on the illuminated streets. On rue de Sevrès and Saint Placide this is quite clear as the names of the businesses are actually suspended in luminous red letters as part of the decoration. Most of the other displays however are simply for the beauty of the lights and the gaiety that they provide to shopping areas. Nearly all are done with LED technology to keep costs and energy use to a minimum. There are about 100 streets and many monuments which are illuminated in Paris, not to mention the newest displays which are the light trails. The lights will be on through the first week in January. Each year the offering gets better and better. Here’s a few of our favorite displays. Christmas in Paris Light Trails Jardin des Plantes Every year, the Jardin des Plantes presents a night time light festival in a magical setting…

Christmas Poem

A Christmas poem, how about two ! To wish our readers a “Merry Christmas to all et Bonne Année à tous!” One is two centuries old and the second a contemporary piece that shares the same rhythm.

The first is the famous Christmas poem thought to be written by Clement Clarke Moore "Twas the Night Before Christmas" in a bilingual version. Moore was a 19th century American writer and scholar and is mostly remembered for his Christmas poem which was originally title "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" which legend says he wrote on Christmas Eve in 1822 during a sleigh ride home from Greenwich Village (imagine riding in a sleigh in New York city!) after buying a turkey for his family (no doubt fresh from the farm). The poem is known for having defined our now timeless image of Santa Claus and for naming the eight reindeer! It was published (in English only and anonymously) the first time on December 23, 1823 by a New York newspaper, The Sentinel, one of t…

Anglo authors in Paris

Paris is inspiring! Did you notice? This fair city has inspired quite a few writers in the English-speaking Paris community and they have set their ideas into novels and stories. Since community is more important than ever, we are presenting recent fiction by Anglo authors in Paris, some quite well-known and some first books. The books below are not all set in Paris, but they are certainly inspired by the community here. Books are pretty much the easiest thing to choose and send for gifts! Keep an eye on Bill & Rosa's Book Room for 2024 events by these Anglo authors in Paris.

THE PARIS LIBRARY by Janet Skeslien Charles, a now Parisian who grew up in Montana down the street from a French war bride.

Paris, 1939: Young and ambitious Odile Souchet has it all: her handsome police officer beau and a dream job at the American Library in Paris. When the Nazis march into Paris, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her belov…

Do you know these French facts…

Do you know these French facts and tidbits…

the western most point in France is the Point du Raz at the tip of Brittany. The department is called the Finistère… do you hear it? Fini-terre? The end of the earth. these town names in France that will make an English speaker giggle: Plaisir, Bitche, Les Cars, Brainville, Contest, Le Sap, Stains, Dangers, Brest, Hompes, Bard, Félines, Linge, Facture, Le Barp, Condom, Anus, Ars, Seix, Tendon, Bard, Nevers, Grouchy, Le Bugue, Saint Hilaire-ious! this jingle by British Victorian poet Erskine, c.1850:

The French have taste in all they do,

Which we are quite without;

For Nature, that to them gave goût

To us gave only gout.

the Buttes-Chaumont were built on a mound of clay where …

A Quatre-quarts is a Pound cake

The French use the word "cake" or quatre-quarts (four quarters) or sometimes even fondant for what English speakers call a pound cake. Like muffins it can be either savory or sweet. The sweet version is in fact four ingredients (eggs, flour, butter and sugar) in equal quantities measured by weight (the French cook using weight not volume), so each is a quarter of the total, hence the name quatre-quarts. It is best to start with the eggs because you can't use just part of an egg! So whisk and weigh your eggs (4 - there's that number again - will make an average loaf) then weigh out the same amount of each of the other ingredients as you have eggs. Whisk the sugar into the eggs for 4 (!) minutes, then gently mix in the flour and lastly the melted but cooled butter. Some people like to add a sachet of levure chimique as well for a fluffier loaf. Add a bit of vanilla, rum, lemon peel, orange flower water to the batter... for extra style! Pour the batter into a loaf pan and pla…

A Visit to Paris’s Place des Etats-Unis

Visit the Place des Etats-Unis or "United States Square", a public space in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France, about 500 m south of the Place de l'Étoile and the Arc de Triomphe. It is a tree-lined, landscaped square, approximately 140 meters long and 30 meters wide which forms a pleasant and shady pocket park. The park in the center is officially named Square Thomas Jefferson, but buildings on three sides have Place-des-États-Unis addresses. Place des Etats-Unis contains several monuments to American participation in WWI and the American Revolution. The Place des États-Unis was originally called Place de Bitche to honor a town in the Moselle department in northeastern France that valiantly resisted Prussian invasion in 1870. Levi P. Morton, the American ambassador to France, established at number 3 Place de Bitche, his residence and the United States embassy in 1881. The square's name was changed after the similarity between the name of the Moselle city and the En…

Quintessential French Objects

In nearly every French household you’ll find these quintessential French Objects... LA CHARENTAISE A charentaise is a generic French word for slipper. It refers however to a speciﬁc pantouﬂe, usually plaid, which came from the area near Angouleme in the Charente area of France about 300 years ago. The area had many paper mills. At the time paper was made from rags and leftover felt pieces from the papermaking were used to line wooden shoes, making them warmer and softer. A bit later a shoemaker from the town of La Rochefoucaud in the Charente had the idea to add a rigid sole to the felt clog liners thus creating the pantouﬂe charentaise. In the late 1980s the slipper industry produced 60 million pairs per year – that works out to one pair per Français -- and exported them all over Europe. NUTELLA Originally made in Italy, starting in 1964 Nutella is in every French person’s core and on their bread. Sometimes it is eaten right oﬀ the spoon out of the jar. Crea…

Do you dream of moving to France?

Do you dream of moving to France? Profiles in Franceformation is a podcast where you hear from inspiring people who have pursued their dream of moving to France. You learn about why they moved, how they overcame the challenges they faced, and what they love - and hate - about living in France.

The podcast offers interviews with entrepreneurs, retirees, language teachers, editors, dancers, authors, organizers, psychologists, trailing spouses... people from the USA, Puerto Rico, the UK, Australia... stories of immigration, househunting, wine, culture shock, bureacracy... all of those who make up our rich and varied anglo community of expats in all corners of France.

Recently Profiles in Franceformation host Allison Grant Lounes posted her 67th interview. She spoke to Lisa Vanden Bos, who has been a pillar of the American community in France, since she arrived three decades ago. Lisa is the spouse and collaborator of John Vanden Bos who is the creator of FUSAC…

Ruth Orkin – Bike Trip USA – exhibition

Ruth Orkin - Bike Trip USA - exhibition We love bikes. We love photography. Having taken our own bike trip across the USA at age 20 this exhibition and book are particularly poignant, but you don't have to have crossed the USA on a bike to enjoy this show of the photographer Ruth Orkin's stunning work. In 1939, at the age of 17, Ruth Orkin, who grew up in Hollywood, crossed the United States, alone, with her bike, her camera (she received her first one at age 10) and only $25 in her pocket. This “bike trip” across the United States took her from Los Angeles to New York, where she planned to visit the World’s Fair. Her journey and her audacity, exceptional for the time, aroused the curiosity of the local press, which devoted numerous reports to her travels. She actually traveled less by bicycle than with a bicycle, crossing long distances by car, train, and bus, then using her bicycle to explore big cities: Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, New York, Boston and San Fr…

Gertrude Stein & Pablo Picasso

Pablo is doing abstract portraits in painting. I am trying to do abstract portraits in my medium, words. -- G. Stein, 1945

Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso The Invention of Language is the current exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg, organized as part of the celebrations marking 50 years since Picasso’s death. Curated by Cécile Debray, President of the Musée national Picasso Paris and Assia Quesnel, associate curator and art historian, the exhibition steers clear of the recent controversy surrounding the artist and focuses rather on Stein and Picasso’s close friendship and the way they influenced each other’s work and the American avant-garde. Gertrude Stein arrived in France in 1904, two years after Picasso. Bonding over their shared feelings of marginalization and their shoddy command of French, they quickly became friends. Stein and her brother collected Picass…

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