I decided to share a Valentine's gift with all of you. It's not a huge holiday here, but it's becoming more popular. And so-I purchased this from Pascal Pinaud on vendredi (Friday):
le coeur de Saint-Valentin arabica
aka: café-flavoured deliciousness
Alas, shipping proved too much of a difficulty, and so I helped you to enjoy:
HAPPY jour de Saint-Valentin!
Later this holiday afternoon, I braved the cold to find the Carnaval de Paris - basically a parade. It was filled with mostly homemade costumes and painted faces, with drumming bands, a Chinese Dragon celebrating today also being Chinese New Year, and with crowds of cold Parisians dancing and following the procession down the street; most of the time I wasn't sure who was actually a part of the parade, and who had just joined the throbbing mass as it danced past them.
My vantage point for the affair was beneath the Place de la République and this towering monument, and someone's lost pink zebra balloon:
Later this holiday afternoon, I braved the cold to find the Carnaval de Paris - basically a parade. It was filled with mostly homemade costumes and painted faces, with drumming bands, a Chinese Dragon celebrating today also being Chinese New Year, and with crowds of cold Parisians dancing and following the procession down the street; most of the time I wasn't sure who was actually a part of the parade, and who had just joined the throbbing mass as it danced past them.
My vantage point for the affair was beneath the Place de la République and this towering monument, and someone's lost pink zebra balloon:
I went by myself, but apparently I made friends with one little girl riding on her dad's shoulders, because she began throwing confetti into my hair. Another brave participant gave up on the actual parade to climb partially up the monument and throw confetti from there. I also saw a few costumed-folk duck out of the parade to grab a beer or a cigarette, and there were plenty who just smoked while marching along and playing their drums.
It was an odd afternoon of bizarre costumes (see right) and giant puppets and fake people on stilts (see left).
But it didn't leave the commercial taste of Macy's in my mouth, and it seemed that people couldn't help but join in with the hearth-thumping grooves as the bands surged past.
But it didn't leave the commercial taste of Macy's in my mouth, and it seemed that people couldn't help but join in with the hearth-thumping grooves as the bands surged past.
Like everything in this ville, the carnaval has a history several centuries old, though the weeks of feasting and festivities have apparently faded with time. The carnaval disappeared in 1952, but was revived in 1997 and re-established as the "Mardi Gras" of Paris. I'm not sure this family-friendly parade felt like Mardi Gras, but it did show me a little more about the streets of Paris, and the people dancing down them.
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