My week: March 27 ed.

I put most of my plans on hold this week because of a work trip to Brussels. As I was driving there, I received a phone call from my boss and was directed to return to our office. There had been a terrorist attack at the airport and on the subway. It was sobering news.

During the rest of the workweek, I stayed home because I was really worn out. It's probably the pollen and allergy misery.

-I visited Karlsruhe with my friends C+K. Along the way, C had to stop by Kakteenland, which is a giant greenhouse full of cacti for sale. K and I watched in bemusement as he shopped for new cacti; his focus and determination was admirable and on par with athletes.


Since we were close to Wissembourg, which is just over the border in France, we stopped by for a visit. C was keen to visit a Flammkuchen restaurant that he had really enjoyed before. Unfortunately, it was closed so with trepidation, we tried the restaurant next door (9 Place de la République). It wasn't a good sign that their menu had pictures of the food and was not far from a tourist area; we should have known better. When our Flammkuchen arrived, it was barely cooked, with almost raw onions. How is it even possible to make bad Flammkuchen? Sheesh, it's not that hard to make.

We consoled ourselves with some delicious pastries from Patissier Rebert, just down the street. I chose a delicious cafe Éclair and a violet macaron. Both were lovely! C made very happy noises as he feasted on a delicate-looking petit four with layers of mouse, chocolate, and a bit of cake. K ate the chocolate foil to my cafe Éclair.

Following our sugary interlude, we walked through the town, trailing the city walls. From there we found the way back to the car and drove to Karlsruhe. Once there, we walked through the city, starting with the palace in the center, the Karlsruhe Schloss. From there, the city lays like a fan. I had wanted to see the city's pyramid, but it was covered up for construction and restoration. After our walk, we ate dinner at Shiraz, a Persian restaurant. Soon I said goodbye to C+K as they left for a concert and I went home.

-For Easter, I thought that I was going to attend a friend's BBQ and garden planting party, but I mixed up the dates and decided to just stay home instead since I was still tired. I did manage an enjoyable two hour stroll through town after the rain stopped. I finished Easter with a Skype call to my family.

My week: October 4 ed.

I realized I haven't written an update on my week for a while. I spent most of September preparing for, and conducing, another huge staff training. It took up so much of my time, energy, and mental effort that I didn't want to do a whole lot beyond that.

-Anyway, I had my regular tandem speaking meeting and was able to have my tandem partner explain Indirekte Rede a bit more, which was definitely appreciated. I've started up Volkshochschule classes again and had learned it there but didn't fully grasp it. It's wonderful to receive extra tutoring from my tandem partner!

-We had a going away dinner for one of our colleagues from another department and found it funny when we all showed up wearing black. It looked as if we were either mourning his leaving or we were part of some sort of mafia.

We then had a hilarious, bawdy conversation. If you get the vapors at such a thing, skip the next two paragraphs. We met J's friend, whose name also starts with a J and will be the focus of the story. J #2 has a pet hedgehog so of course I had tons of questions for him. He was sharing anecdotes about these unusual pets. There was a Youtube video of a new owner petting his new hedgehog. Suddenly J stopped the story, worried that it might offend us. Of course I had to hear the story then but I can appreciate his wanting to be polite with new acquaintances. Anyway, experienced hedgehog owners saw the video and just about died. The person in the video was surprised at how much the hedgehog liked having its belly rubbed. Well, a male hedgehog's, um, male bits are on his belly and the new owner was inadvertently petting everything, without realizing it. (That gave me pause but it makes sense, given all of the quills on the rest of the 'hog.)

J took a sip of his beer and peered at us, trying to ascertain if we were offended by the story. I asked, "So, did he at least give the hedgehog a cigarette afterward?" and J spit his beer out in surprise and laughter. Obviously the story didn't offend me and I learned an important thing: I don't want to pet any hedgehogs!

-On Saturday, I planned to attend a housewarming party that my friend was having in Saarbrücken. Since I wanted to maximize my time in the area, I also decided to visit Forbach, which is a French town on the border. I wanted to see the tourist sights, if any, and go shopping at Cora, a megastore with extensive grocery options.

I had a dickens of a time finding things to do in Forbach. Their tourist information website isn't translated very much and it wasn't playing along with Google Translate. I finally decided that I'd visit Schlossberg, a castle ruins and I'd decide on further sights after stopping by the tourist information center.

I was so bent on doing all of this because I've visited Forbach before and found it quite depressing. Since it's so close to my friends, I wanted to see if there were any redeeming features about the city for future visits. Considering that the city was damaged heavily during WWII, and it was a mining town that saw the major employer, the mine, close, it's not too surprising that the town isn't exactly beautiful with its out-of-place modern buildings, commercial area, and traffic-heavy vibe. Honestly, it reminds me of my visit to southern New Jersey.

My first stop was the tourist information center. I had researched its hours and thought it should be open. Well, if it were still September, it would have been, but it's not open on Saturdays in October. D'oh. I decided to walk around downtown and walk up to the castle hill.

Downtown is strange. The main road through town is congested and ugly. There are some abandoned-looking 60s buildings, the tourist office (in a worn out historical building - late Baroque, I think), and a hideous 60s-city administration building. I crossed into the downtown shopping district and it was a bit better but still a weird mix of the new and the old.

A prettier section of the pedestrian zone - unfortunately, not so much of it was this nice.

This guy was taking a nap in the window of the hair salon.

This guy was vacuuming up leaves with what amounted to a giant vacuum.

I continued up the hill to the Schlossberg, which is a city park located at the base of a castle ruins. Ah, this was more like it, with a forested area of paths leading up to the castle. For a two euro fee, one can climb the tower, which is the main section remaining of the castle that's been rebuilt multiple times (including the tower itself). I didn't do that but did pick up some tourist brochures.

Schlossberg, Forbach

After that, I fetched my car to join the madness of shopping at Cora. It was the German day of unity so all the Germans* left Germany since its stores were closed and headed to Cora in France for some groceries. It was complete madness there and I had not only my normal feelings of crankiness from shopping, but added crankiness because it was hard to move around. A German guy tried to cut in front of me in line at the cash register and I gave them a look that my horse would give before squealing and kicking at another pestering horse. The dude backed off ;)

It was a relief to load up the car and return to Germany. I met one friend for a decent TexMex dinner at Cafe Especial in Saarbrücken. I've eaten at this and the Cologne location. It's somewhat expensive but reasonably close to TexMex and it doesn't have any curry in it so that's a plus.

I then made my way to my friend's housewarming party that she was hosting with her boyfriend. I didn't bring them bread and salt, which is a traditional German housewarming gift. Instead, I bought her boxes of macaroni and cheese, Doritos, and peanut butter cups. There is flour and salt in the mac n' cheese so I figure that's close enough to the German gift. Plus, she really likes these American snacks, so why not? My good friend R and his girlfriend S showed up so it was a happy reunion for all of us. I drove home around 4 a.m. I haven't been out that late in ages. I must be getting old ;)


*well, not all of them, of course!

Dear weird statues:

Dear weird church statues:

I know from Art History class that for a very long period of time, the only acceptable subject of art of was religious themes. I also know that almost every object in the piece was meant to be symbolic. For example, the Virgin Mary's innocence and purity was often depicted by a white lily. During a visit to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, I was assaulted by the full force of religious symbolism in art.

So, weird church statues on the church's facade, with this in mind, I would like to ask you: what on earth (or the sky, for that matter) is going on with you? Why is there a nude dude on a horse stuck between some buildings and a guy sitting on top of more buildings? That's not beginning to take into account the pile o' demons to the left of him. Even the sculpted men below are really confused about what's happening.

If you could just explain yourself, that'd be great. I'm sure that you have quite the backstory.

Sincerely, Around the Wherever

Detail of statues, Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris

"Yeah, even we're not so sure what's happening!"

Get your Ball in Box

At Cora*, a French supermarket, C and I saw these "Ball in Box" in the frozen food section. They are little ham and potato balls, and, as the box notes, there are +/- 28 balls. It's strangely descriptive, isn't it?

*To read more about the shopping trip to Cora, click here.

Seen in Paris: Flavor Flav's inspiration

Remember Flavor Flav, an 80s rapper who wore a huge watch around his neck? Well, I think that his idea wasn't original. I saw this old clock in the museum in Paris and think maybe the Flav just took the idea in a different direction.

Published again in Germany Ja: A Visit to Cora

Germany Ja!, a blog for expats, recently published my article about shopping about the Cora supermarket chain in France.

Here's the article.

Some interesting English in Strasbourg

We saw this on a menu in Strasbourg, France and had to smile: "the softness of instant." It's a rather strange dessert (which was actually a sweet flammkuchen with seasonal fruit).

Visiting Cora Supermarket in Sarreguemines, France

It's almost like an expat rite of passage in this area: many a Kaiserslautern-area immigrant eventually finds herself making her way to Cora, a supermarket chain in France. Some might say that it's just a supermarket.

To that I say: it is a supermarket, with many "exotic" things. They're especially exotic since the offerings are different from what we have in Germany.

I visited the Sarreguemines store, but there's also one in Forbach too. They are about the same amount of time for me to reach. When I first entered the store, I was struck by just how pungent it was, even though I was incredibly congested from allergies. It was also rather warm with stale air, which didn't help the smell, which was probably from the seafood section. I was quite thankful that I was as congested as I was! I'm not sure if the store always smells like that but it was strong.

Despite the "aroma," I enjoyed looking at the store, which was quite busy. The store reminds me of something similar to a Super WalMart in that they had some inexpensive merchandise like cheap clothes and shoes. There is a more gourmet side to the store, though, and the grocery section is huge with something for everyone.

Want some "American" cookies that have French and Flemish writing on them? Or how about TexMex fixins'? How about something really French, like the snails below? (I'll be honest: I had a hard time taking a picture and looking at them, especially considering that I don't like meat. What the heck is the green stuff in them? Eek, don't answer that!)

I wandered around the grocery aisles, searching for something interesting and tasty to buy. It was a bit overwhelming to try to make out the French and Flemish; German had been on my mind so much. I put aside my confusion and started shopping.

Here are the things I bought:
-French hot chocolate,
-macarons (they were okay, but weren't as good as those fresh from a bakery),
-some mini frozen quiches (delicious and probably not remotely healthful); and
-some chestnut paste/spread stuff in a tube (I mostly bought it because I thought that the mascot, a dude made out of chestnuts, was adorable -- not really a good reason, I know, and I have no idea what to do with it).

I saw the baguette bag. How cute is that? I didn't buy one since I usually don't buy bread, but it would be great for someone who does!

Bread bag: a love of bread (or something close to that)

 I was ready to pay and leave. Whew, it was one last test! There are different lines based on how one is paying (as far as I could tell). For example, I think that one line was by Cora card only. It seemed as if finding the correct line to checkout and pay is almost as complicated as it is to sort one's trash/recycling in Germany! I lucked out and chose the correct line, trying to avoid speaking as much as possible, managing only to say "merci" as I took the receipt and my bags. It was a fun visit with some tasty French things to try, sans snails, of course!

Yet another reason the love locks are a bad idea

You know those obnoxious locks that litter bridges, as a supposed sign of people's love? I wrote a bit of a rant about them here.

Here is one more reason they are a bad idea: they just caused part of a railing on a Paris bridge to collapse. Read more here.

They also damage the bridges, causing them to rust faster. People need to start thinking about the consequences of their actions. If they feel some sort of need to make a spectacle of their affection, how about doing something productive? For example, when an organization is trying to raise funds, it will often sell engraved bricks. Buy one of those. Don't put other people at risk because of your actions.

Mexican food at Cora Supermarket in France

I found more Mexican food (okay, TexMex) for sale at the Cora Supermarket in Sarreguemines, France. It was the Old El Paso brand, which is also available in the US.

The "gratinado" thing was interesting. It was almost like a Mexican-style lasagne bake. I love that it's marked "sans piment," without pepper. Maybe the French are like (many of) the Germans in that they don't like spicy food?

Some Serious Spargel Cleaning!

It's Spragelzeit in Germay, but apparently Germany isn't the only country serious about Spargel, or white asparagus.

In April, I crossed the border into France and stopped at the Cora supermarket in Sarreguemines. Spargel was featured there, too, but the French took its care a step farther: they had this crazy machine that cleaned and peeled the Spargel!

American cookies at Cora in France

I saw these "American" cookies in Cora, a French supermarket. Having a backward American flag makes them authentic, right?

Maniacal French bunny

I saw this guy in Cora. I wonder if he's looking a bit crazy because he's jealous of the French Easter bells?*

*I highly recommend reading Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris. You'll laugh really hard and will gain a confused knowledge of what bells have to do with Easter in France.

December's Adventure: Day 3, Part 3, Strasbourg

Seeing the weird and abused mannequins earlier wasn't the end of seeing unusual store displays. As we continued visiting the Christmas market and strolling through Strasbourg, we came across an extremely odd window display in a pharmacy called Pharmacie de la Rose: gnomes who appeared to be attacking each other! No, seriously! They were bandaged and bloody.

 Are the gnomes in a battle?

 Oh my goodness! The gnome on the right has a broken leg and the one in the back has a knife.

 This poor guy has a bloodied foot and is about ready to be stung by a bee.

Dude has a head wound!

I'd love to know the backstory on this place. Does someone have it out for the gnomes? Did the gnomes get sick of Christmas cheer and go crazy on each other? If you know why this display is like this, leave a comment!

We found the display somewhat amusing, but definitely disturbing! To our relief, a sidestreet offered a window display that was charming and drew us in: bubbles were softly blowing and we stopped in front of the following window. The picture doesn't really do it justice. It's "La Maison de Hanssel & Gretel" and there were beautiful ornaments in the window.

It was a nice way to end our Strasbourg trip after the strange gnome window! Tired, we took the tram back to the car and then I drove us back to Kaiserslautern. However, next time I would definitely pick a better route home instead of where my GPS took me: we drove through narrow, winding roads literally in middle of the forest (Pfalz!).

December's Adventure: Day 3, Part 2, Strasbourg

Here's part one of our trip to Strasbourg.

After visiting the Cathedral, I took my cousins to see Petite-France, a lovely district in Strasbourg full of medieval half-timbered and Baroque architecture. It is truly worth a visit, even though the name of the area does not have such a charming provenance. According to Wikipedia (yeah, I know, not always the most authoritative of sources):

"The name Petite-France ("Little France") was not given for patriotic or architectural reasons. It comes from the "hospice of the syphilitic" (Hospice des Vérolés, in French), which was built in the late fifteenth century on this island, to cure persons with syphilis, then called the "French disease" in German, Franzosenkrankheit."

Preeeety.

 Well, even with that bit of not so pretty history, it's still possible to enjoy the very scenic neighborhoods. I wanted to visit the Square Louise Weiss, which is on a quay that forms a pleasant little island. There was some sort of official person and an open (removable) gate at the entrance to the island. I watched several other people walk in so we did too. Farther in the park we saw a crowd of people and some sort of elaborate set-up. Of course I was incredibly curious (nosy) so we drew closer and realized that some sort of tv show was being filmed! We joined the crowd (and thus probably ended up on French tv. Hi, mom!) and watched the hosts cooking something.

There was another segment being filmed in a different area and a guy was holding some sort of chicken. I could see the writing on the wall for the chicken! I just hoped he wasn't going to off the poor bird where we could see it. 

We left to walk around the neighborhood some more, then have dinner. My cousins chose a restaurant in the tourist area and they had cheese, wine, and snails (!). My cousin had finished the snails and left the butter sauce. With hand signals, the French waiter showed him the importance of eating the leftover butter with bread since I'm assuming that one who would like the taste of snails would also like the remaining butter on bread. Oh goodness. 

I let go of the thought of snails when we left to find my dinner: I wanted to have a burrito at La Cocina, a Mexican restaurant near Petite-France. I ate here last time I came to Strasbourg. The burritos aren't bad but they're a little bit bland. However, the ingredients still taste good and it's adequate for someone needing a Mexican food fix (which I pretty much need all the time. sigh). Plus, I wanted to show my cousins the crazy steep stairs to the bathroom. Seriously, I feel as if I should crawl up them instead of walking up them. The tread is also narrow so I kind of walked sideways since my boots make my feet seem even bigger. 

This picture doesn't do the steepness justice!

As we left the restaurant we saw yet another Santa Claus attempting to break into someone's house. Naughty Santa!

Even better yet was a store's display farther down the road. There were the weirdest mannequins inside and we spent five minutes examining them and giggling furiously (while being a little weirded out by them, too!). The clothes were odd as well.

Bald mannequin, poorly painted on facial hair.

Uh...dude's face is broken, and why on earth does he have super long girly eyelashes?

This sweater is ridiculous.

Leather shirt, anyone?

The jeans were really the worse: ruched, distressed, and weird. So is his facial hair: it's shaped like an anchor!

That wasn't the last of weird mannequins, either. Another nearby store had mannequins who were taped back together. How weird! Maybe the mannequins from the two stores got into a fight with each other when the humans had gone to bed?

Her arm is held on with tape. Why??

This wasn't the last store with a strange display. Tomorrow I'll write about the gnomes who had met misfortune.

December's Adventure: Day 3, Strasbourg, France

On our third day of our trip, we hopped into the car for a two hour drive to Strasbourg, France, which is south of Kaiserslautern. I've visited Strasbourg once before this spring but never did get to writing about it (oops!). The nice thing about my prior visit was that it saved me some research for this visit since I basically already knew the layout of town. In other words, I knew exactly where to go since I had already bumbled through some wrong turns during the previous visit. Yay for learning!


From my last visit, I knew that the wise thing to do with my car was leave it in the Park and Ride lot on the edge of the downtown. I chose the Rotonde parking garage which is just west of downtown. It's super convenient because the tram is just outside the parking lot and it's a quick journey into town. Even better yet? It's super cheap! To park in the garage and ride the tram into downtown and back is only 4 euros for up to seven passengers. It's sooo much cheaper and less stressful than parking in the city (more P+R Strasbourg info available here).

We didn't have a set plan other than visiting the cathedral and the Christmas market. After we took the tram into town, we came across the first Christmas Market at Place Kléber, a square. There were just a few booths and they were all non-profit organizations. We decided this would be an excellent place to drink some vin chaud ("hot wine"), the French version of glühwein. After all, once must drink hot, spiced wine at Christmas markets and supporting non-profits by purchasing it from them is even better!

Lovely vin chaud. Now, how to get the deposit back?

My cousins both speak a bit of French from learning it in high school so they ordered successfully. I tried to order some wine using French and it was a mess. Some of it came out in German and instead of 3 glasses of wine we received 2 glasses instead. Eep. We finally got everything sorted out and my cousins had their glasses of red wine and I had white. It was tasty and similar to glühwein. Finishing our glasses, we were then left to figure out how to get our deposit back. We even had to figure out if we had paid a deposit for the cups. It's pretty standard practice if the cups aren't the cheap disposable ones. We spent a while watching other people to see what they were doing and finally just took the cups back to the stand and handed them back. We were rewarded with our deposit being returned. Success!

We learned that each year, there is a special guest country to the market. This year, the guest was Croatia, being honored for recently joining the EU (as of 1 July 2013). There were some stalls in the Place Gutenberg set up with Croatian food, crafts, and information.

Then we moved on to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, a major landmark of the city. Part of the building was started in 1015,  but the Gothic spire was not completed until 1439, according to Strasbourg's Tourism website. We marveled at the amazing church, noting the astronomical clock inside and the elaborately decorated facade.

I made special note of the super creepy stained glass window showing scenes from Hell. I was especially alarmed by the white devil (? I think that's what it is) that bears some resemblance to Bumble the Abominable Snow Monster from the children's film Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Freaky.

Creepy creepy! Bumble, is that you?

Beautiful church facade, evil gnome poisoning the vin chaud outside (maybe not).

That was enough of creepy stained glass windows. As we toured the rest of the town, we found something else that I've since seen repeated in other European towns: Santa Claus in various stages of breaking into people's homes. More pictures of this phenomenon will follow, of course.

There is more to the visit to Strasbourg but that will be another entry since this one is super long as it is. The next entry will be full of additional excitement (! maybe): how we ended up (sort of) on French television in Petite France; saw gnomes gone bad (and it was bloody!); went mountain climbing in the French burrito restaurant; and went into giggling hysterics over weird mannequins. I'm sure you can't wait.

December's Adventure: a Christmas market trip

Two weeks ago, my cousins from the US visited me in Germany. I was excited to see them; after all, they're always fun travel companions and they're my first visitors of family/friends from the US!

I arrange a whirlwind 8-day tour for us. Below is our itinerary. Most of our focus was on visiting Christmas markets in each town. As I get time, I'll blog about what we did in each city and add pictures.

Saturday: Since they arrived in Frankfurt am Main, that was our first stop. Without giving them pause to catch their breath, I drove us back to Kaiserslautern and went to the House of Sustainability's fantastic Christmas market in the woods.

Sunday: we took a trip to Heidelberg. Though I've been quite a few times in the last year, this time I played tourist, too. My friend lives there so normally I play the role of semi-local.

Monday: we took a trip to Strasbourg, France. It's less than two hours away from where I live and is quite pretty, too!

Tuesday: we made our way to Cologne and stayed there until Thursday morning. Our main focus was the cathedral, or Dom.

Thursday: we stopped in what I call the "chicken strip" part of the Netherlands (seriously, it's just a small strip of land!) to see the Valkenburg caves and the Christmas market inside. We then continued to Brussels and stayed there until Friday night.

Friday: we continued to Liège and stayed at a ridiculously bad hotel. On Saturday, we wandered around town and then concluded the trip with dropping my cousins off at the airport so they could fly home.

After all of this, I came home and slept for 10 hours on the evening of my return. I was tired!

Hotel Review: Victory Galou, Paris, France

I think this review really should be called: Why It's Important to Either Book Ahead or to Spend More Time Looking for a Hotel Instead of Taking the First Available.

In February (! ha, it feels weird writing about a trip where we were so cold when it's hot now), friends and I took a trip to Paris. It was somewhat of a last-minute thing. The problem with last-minute trips is that they can be quite expensive and even difficult to book.

I was charged with finding us accommodations. I tried various hotel bookings sites and even tried Airbnb. I had about 3 days to find a place. Airbnb didn't work; all three people I tried said their places were not available, even though on their calendars noted that their places were available. I'm wondering if it was an issue that I was a new user on Airbnb and didn't have any references yet.

I then ended up booking a hotel. We wanted something close to the train station, where we'd be arriving via high speed train. I ended up booking at the Victory Galou.

Saggy bed, blankets of a questionable clealinesss.

Bathroom: complete with sewer smells and visible mold.

Hotel Reviewed: Victory Galou
15 Passage Industrie, Paris
http://www.victory-hotel-galou.com/

The Victory Galou is indeed near gare l'Est, where our ICE high speed train from Germany arrived. It took about 10 minutes to walk to the hotel from the train station. Some other reviewers had commented that they felt uneasy about the route between the hotel and the train station. I didn't feel uneasy at all, but did find it to be hopping at 9 pm on a Friday. As in any place, I kept my head up and paid attention to the surroundings and I felt fine. It was kind of cool, in a way; there were a ton of hair and barber shops along the way and people were getting their hair done at 9 pm. Having lived in Germany for more than a month, I felt quite shocked to see people actually able to get stuff done after 8 pm (when most things usually close up in Germany).

I arrived at the hotel and found the staff to be very pleasant. I had called ahead of time to let them know that I would be coming in later; they have reception until 6 pm and if one will arrive after that time, one must call ahead to make arrangements. The lobby was cramped and the "front reception desk" was literally just a desk shoved into the lobby, with papers strewn all over it. The reservation was written in a book.

The room was, to be blunt, awful. It was very smoky and beneath that smell lingered the smell of mold. My eyes instantly started watering and the sneezing followed it. I aired out the room to no avail. The faux wood baseboards around the floor were made of some sort of cardboard material and at some points it looked spongy from moisture. The comforters on the beds didn't look particularly clean, either. I crossed my fingers and hoped there weren't any critters in the room.

As if the smell of cigarette smoke and mold wasn't bad enough, to add to the fun was the smell of sewer AND mold in the bathroom. The mold was actually visible in the shower. We kept the window cracked the whole time we were there.

The walls are also paper thin. We were treated to the sound of a couple arguing in the adjacent bedroom. In addition, the hotel lacks an elevator and has very narrow, winding stairs in which some of the treads seem spongy.

I would not recommend the hotel. I was dumb enough to book it and pay 100 euros a night (well, the three of us split the amount). This experience just goes to prove that it is better to book ahead for trips...or to be really good at finding a last minute deal, which I'm not. Thankfully, we didn't find any bedbugs, but my allergies were thrown into a tizzy with the mold and cigarette smoke. I'm just glad that we were out and about most of the time and spent very little time at the hotel.

 Talk about creeeeepy! This guy was staring out at us from the wardrobe.
 

Seen in Paris

From our February trip to Paris:

You say tarte flambée; I say Flammkuchen. Seen at Lidl.

 Seen at a furniture store. Don't the footstools like like something out of a Dr. Seuss book? I half expected eyes to pop out through the fur and the stools to start running around.

Un chien!

Look! Un chien!

I love that it's a French Bulldog and that this picture is from Paris. It's perfect.

Also, I love street posters. There so  many interesting, odd, and even funny ones.