so this is the new year and i don't feel any different

From Neil Gaiman's blog:

It's a New Year and with it comes a fresh opportunity to shape our world.

So this is my wish, a wish for me as much as it is a wish for you: in the world to come, let us be brave – let us walk into the dark without fear, and step into the unknown with smiles on our faces, even if we're faking them.

And whatever happens to us, whatever we make, whatever we learn, let us take joy in it. We can find joy in the world if it's joy we're looking for, we can take joy in the act of creation.

So that is my wish for you, and for me. Bravery and joy.

Bravery and joy.
It's exactly what I wish for myself as well. Both have eluded me for so long.

Here's to a brighter year ahead.

pique-nique au Champs de Mars

After spending the day at the shops, we head to the neighborhood Monoprix and bought a few things for dinner. We decided to spend the rest of the evening at the Eiffel Tower grounds, at the Champs de Mars.

Our little spread.

It was such a fine evening, and I'm glad I took a few nice pictures at least.
Below is my favorite photo of the Eiffel; it actually gets more crowded as you get closer to the tower. People sat and lay on the grass, chatting, having picnics and drinks, celebrating birthdays, singing, cuddling, making music. A tall steel tower with twinkling lights, the sound of French chatter and pleasant, happy people all around, Dutch cheese and balsamique crisps, the cool grass and the neatly trimmed hedges, and an evening much warmer than the one prior. I am reminded of why I decided to come to this place.

the terrace view at Printemps

After visiting Galeries Lafayette, we walk to another department store called Printemps. The Printemps flagship store is by this area, and the top floor (9th) offers a pretty view of the city.

This is my favorite picture from this early evening.

The Haussmannian view, I cannot say it enough, that this city was designed so well. Haussmann probably destroyed whatever was unsightly during his time, redesigned buildings, and established certain standards on future constructions.
Not related to Paris, but the layout of the Eixample area in Barcelona (Spain) is also amazing!

Truth be told, the cafe with the unappealing sandwiches looked a bit sad. Glad there is beer from the tap! Ordered a blonde Leffe.

Enjoying the view and our drinks, people watching



City views: Pantheon area and the Montmartre area.


Printemps
64 Boulevard Haussmann
Paris
Metro: Havre Caumartin
http://departmentstoreparis.printemps.com

Galeries Lafayette

After almost a week of museums and touristy sights, we decided to take it a easier on our seventh day in France. We spent the morning at Forum des Halles, which is a shopping centre near our rented apartment. The Les Halles area used to be the belly of Paris, the central marketplace-- and it had been so for centuries, until the congestion had become so bad that they had to relocate the market elsewhere. It is now in Rungis, in the Southern suburbs of Paris, and it is said to be the largest food market in the world.

Had lunch at L'Entrecote des Halles and took the metro to Paris's iconic department store, Galeries Lafayette.

The grand Belle Epoque dome

Granted, the place mostly caters to tourists than locals and I'm quite sure most of the shoppers are just visiting. At some point, Chinese tourists asked if we could buy bags for them, using our passports. I've heard of this before because some friends already had the same experience. There is a limit of bag purchases for tourists of certain nationalities because of the widespread counterfeiting of the bags.


A closer photo of the dome


The Pierre Hermé store, apparently they have the best macarons, even better than Ladurée. I had quite a list of food shops / pâtisseries I wanted to try and I regret not even going to most of them. (Jean-Paul Hevin, Ladurée, Dalloyau, Poilane, Eric Kayser..) Moodiness get the best of me.

Galeries Lafayette Paris Haussmann
40, boulevard Haussmann, 75009 Paris
Metro: Chaussée d'Antin La Fayette, Opéra or
RER: (A) Auber or (E) Haussmann St Lazare

Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses

"There was this notion in my mind that somehow yoga was going to make me better. Better than I’d been, better than everyone else. More virtuous. I liked the idea of myself as a yoga person. (I could not bring myself to say yogi, or yogini.) Lithe, probably thin, with some kind of ineffable glow. And my back wouldn’t hurt."

I finished this book a month ago. As a person who has had an on and off yoga practice over the years, I loved the bits on yoga, I find myself relating to most of the writer's experiences and insights, it's the most highlighted book I read this year, in fact.
I loved Claire Dederer's idea of relating certain yoga poses to various points of her life, but the latter chapters I find were haphazard and quite confusing. I honestly didn't care about most of the other topics, except when she was talking about yoga. I lost interest halfway into it but I forced myself to finish because every now and then I stumbled upon 'gems'.
Claire wrote about having difficulties with chaturanga dandasana and the wheel, I struggled with the same and I am quite convinced my body is not meant to do these poses even if I try so hard. Chaturanga is an important transition pose as you move through the vinyasa flow, and I would always feel awkward not being able to stay in this pose with integrity, that is with the elbows bending at 45 degrees, my knees not resting on the floor, and the belly not dropping. When it is time to do inversions, I find the rest of the class opening up their chests with ease, meanwhile I lie in corpse pose unable to lift myself to do a wheel. It's a bit comforting to know some people have certain asanas they cannot do well.
Reading this book served as a reminder of how I needed yoga in my life and I need to get back on the mat real soon.

:
:
:
I thought I would do yoga all my life, and I thought that I would continue to improve at it, that I would penetrate its deepest mysteries and finally be able to perform a transition from scorpion directly into chaturanga. But here’s the truth: The longer I do yoga, the worse I get at it. I can’t tell you what a relief it is.

I did yoga because of an idea I had of who I wanted to be: serene, fit, spiritual.

For years, yoga had been the one place where I paid attention to how I was feeling. I did the poses and actually, right there in that moment, felt them.

Those of you who are really bad at yoga, you’re in the right place. I hope everyone will allow themselves to be really crappy today, to walk away from being perfect. The real yoga isn’t in the perfect pose; it’s in the crappy pose that you are really feeling. You want to feel it from the inside out, rather than make it perfect from the outside in.

When your teacher shows you how something is done, there’s a feeling of possibility, a transmittal of something like faith. Yes, this can be done. I’m seeing it right before my eyes.

t was easy to think of yoga as a cure, a program, a teleology. You were going to end up somewhere really great if you just stuck with it. I often thought about what yoga would give me: yoga butt, open hamstrings, equilibrium, a calm mind, that mysterious yoga glow. And it was true, a person would be more likely to have those things if she went to yoga than if she, say, played Tetris for hours on end. (Always an option.)
The idea was, you got better, looser, stronger while you were at yoga, and then you exported that excellence to the rest to life. You learned how to act right at yoga, and then you acted right, or righter, when you were in your car, or at the grocery store, or putting your children to bed.

I had discovered something; there was a pleasure in becoming something new. You could will yourself into a fresh shape. Now all I had to do was figure out how to do it out there, in my life.