On the way to the Olympic Ceremony, the torch will makes its way all over the world. For what it’s worth, it’ll be in Paris on April 7. Mark your calendars.

I don’t believe it’s going to be an eventless moment in history because 1) this is France; and 2) the most awesome Reporters sans frontières / Reporters without Borders will surely make an appearance. If you were able to see the initial ceremony in Greece a week or so ago, you’ll remember that some fearless reporters without borders crashed the party to demonstrate against China, which is the largest world prison for freedom of expression and human rights, among other things.

Stay tuned. And in the meantime, get a T-shirt to show your support of Reporters Without Borders – and please sign the petition.

Links: Torch Cities

Though I haven’t heard about any cities in France participating, I think there are people who are making an effort to be part of this dark 60 minutes called Earth Hour…

From earth hour:

“On Saturday, March 29, 2008, Earth Hour invites people around the world to turn off their lights for one hour – from 8:00pm to 9:00pm in their local time zone. On this day, cities around the world, including Copenhagen, Chicago, Melbourne, Dubai, and Tel Aviv, will hold events to acknowledge their commitment to energy conservation [and thus lower carbon emissions]. Given our company’s commitment to environmental awareness and energy efficiency, we strongly support the Earth Hour campaign, and have darkened our homepage today to help spread awareness of what we hope will be a highly successful global event.”

More about it

From Forbes:

“From April 1 to June 15, Air France frequent flier members will receive double miles for flying a new route from Los Angeles’ LAX to Heathrow. Northwest/KLM WorldPerks members can receive up to 15,000 bonus miles for flying any of its three new routes by June 15, 2008. Members must register for the promotion before purchasing a ticket.”

Those opposing the new Eiffel Tower “hat” can breathe a sigh of relief. The new hat for the Eiffel Tower is a No-Go. Not only that, it was never a GO, nor part of a design competition; it was never approved for restructuring the famous landmark. WHO invented THAT story??

From nyt:

“David Serero, principal of Serero Architects, said in a telephone interview that his firm’s proposal was merely a spontaneous design it had submitted to the Eiffel Tower management group in view of the tower’s approaching 120th anniversary and, he said, was neither a response to a design competition nor solicited by the tower’s management.

The Guardian’s Web site reported Monday that the Eiffel Tower’s management group, the Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, had approved a temporary restructuring of the observation platform, which would alter the tower’s overall shape. After the report was picked up by other news organizations, the management group said that it had never solicited a redesign and that it envisaged no changes to the tower’s appearance.

Mr. Serero said his firm submitted unsolicited designs and put them on the Web, where they were later seen by news organizations.”

Definitely, don’t take your horse across this bridge.

From AP:

“SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — At first listen, the grainy high-pitched warble doesn’t sound like much, but scientists say the French recording from 1860 is the oldest known recorded human voice.
The 10-second clip of a woman singing “Au Clair de la Lune,” taken from a so-called phonautogram, was recently discovered by audio historian David Giovannoni. The recording predates Thomas Edison’s “Mary had a little lamb” — previously credited as the oldest recorded voice — by 17 years.

The tune was captured using a phonautograph, a device created by Parisian inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville that created visual recordings of sound waves.

Using a needle that moved in response to sound, the phonautograph etched sound waves into paper coated with soot from an oil lamp.

(more…)

From decanter:

“For the first time in their history, Paris pawn shops have agreed to take bottles of wine in exchange for cash.

More than 350 bottles with a total value of €60,000 (£45,000) have been pawned – inlcuding a €5,000 Domaine de la Romanee Conti.

The initiative was launched by Crédit Municipal de Paris, the local authority pawnshop – which usually deals in family heirlooms and pieces of jewellery – last week.

The wine is to be stored in the 18th-century cellars under the Crédit Municipal building…”

Read the whole article

[via]

I don’t know why I enjoying spying on other people’s wedding registries, but I do. Here’s what (previously) Cecilia Sarkozy now Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz Attias requested at Le Bon Marche:

List (a pdf file)

Or you can check on Le Bon Marche’s registry directly (Groom name: Richard Attias, Bride’s name Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz, Marriage Date: March 23, 2008)

[via]

I HATE when they do that. Supermarket giants, Carrefour and Monoprix (110 stores in total) have announced a 2.5 ton recall of E-coli contaminated meat.

The thing is, they always wait until most of the meat has already been consumed (unless it was frozen by consumers). In any case, they really are evil.

If you bought packaged ground beef at Carrefour or Monoprix last week, please return the contaminated meat to the store (see store list below).

Information
Meat: steaks hachés / ground beef
Dates issued: between March 10 and March 18
Originating company: Socopa
List of stores selling the contaminated meat: Click here
Hotline: 0.800.773.800

An added important NOTE: Though the store, ED, is not listed, please be aware that it is owned by Carrefour, so the likelihood of contaminated meat at ED, is very high.

[source: france 2, le monde]

Cute Chocolate Chick (that disappeared quick(ly))
Bernigaud
Chocolaterie/Pâtisserie
18, rue de la République
58170 Luzy (Burgundy) France
Tel: 03.86.30.04.70

This is a recent television spot (commercial) that cracked me up a little but I won’t spoil it by telling you what it’s advertising. Watch it here (only 20 seconds). It’s not as funny as this one, though.

More television commercials I featured:

My mom said I could!
Become a replacement smoker
Road Safety Campaign 1
Road Safety Campaign 2
Fun AIDS Awareness Commercials
Funny Ad from Renault
Orangina’s Animal Orgy
Deceptive Commercial in France
Setting bad examples on French television commercials
Keep your spit for tonight
French ads including posters

What do you get when you take my preferred computer platform, Macintosh – and mix it up with Vietnamese cuisine, a postcard perfect medieval French village and friendly service? Answer: My new favorite restaurant/Mac store in Sarlat!

I’m not kidding. This is a Mac Store AND a Vietnamese restaurant; yes, all in the same place. (Not an official Apple store, but a reseller.) What could be a better combination?

The awesome collective power of Mac and Southeast Asian food beckoned us to give Ma Pomme Tao a try and now a mention because it was one of those awesome and unique finds when wandering around France. Actually, I probably wouldn’t have mentioned it if the food was bad, which it wasn’t. In fact, the food was exquisite.

Most of the restaurants in Sarlat cater to the tourist looking for regional specialties like cassoulet, confit de canard, foie gras and other heavy yet yummy dishes from the southwest, but the beauty of Ma Pomme Tao, is that if you are in Sarlat for more than a few days, once in a while you will need something different: say, a store that sells Macs and iPods, oh and meal-wise, something other than meat slowly cooked and drenched in goose fat. Ma Pomme Tao was the refreshing alternative and offers all that, even vegetarian dishes; what a concept! Seriously. Vegetarian dishes are hard to find here.

We couldn’t wrangle our entire party of 6 to the restaurant, so we had to order out. More points go to Ma Pomme Tao for having take out! Everything we ordered was really excellent even the xung-xa (jelly) desserts they offered us for free. (What we ate: Vegetarian nems, shrimp nems, bo-bun, beef lemon lemongrass salad, crispy noodles and vegetables, the luc-lac beef, 5 spice pork meatballs, beef sate skewers, shrimp wrapped around sugar cane.)

Highly recommended.

Ma Pomme Tao
37, avenue Thiers
24200 Sarlat-la-Canéda France
+33 5 53 59 71 88
*reservations are required*
email: tao-la-cantine@orange.fr (restaurant)
email: postmaster@ma-pomme-tao.com (store)

Related: hotels in sarlat

We wondered if people walking down rue de la Sagesse (Street of Wisdom) in Perigeux realize there are words of wisdom at their disposal right under their noses.
To be more accurate, the words are right under their feet as they stroll down this tiny ruelle. If you see this statue of a very plump woman (actually, her face looks a lot like Jar Jar Banks with shorter ears from Star Wars), then you can take a walk down wisdom lane.
This was the only street in Perigeux that had these cute tiles.

Liberté = Freedom
Sagesse = Wisdom
Paroles en l’air = Idle Talk
Tout est Poésie = Everything is poetry
Nu comme un vers = Nude like a verse (which is more poetic than using the real saying of nu comme un ver / nude as a worm )
A vous de jouer = Your turn / It’s up to you.

Good thing we stumbled up them. The tile messages give you something to think about. (especially worms) So now we’re wiser. Maybe.

tags: france travel dordogne perigeux perigord hotels in dordogne

From core77:

“Paris-based Architects Serero have won an open competition to redesign any of the Eiffel Tower’s public reception and access areas. Serero’s proposal is a temporary addition to celebrate the Eiffel Towers 120th Anniversary by extending the top floor without any modification to the existing structure. It will expand the usable floor area from 280m2 to 580m2.

The Eiffel tower in Paris suffers from its success. Since its creation the amount of visitors coming to reach its top has increased to reach its limit capacity. 6.5 millions People wait between 35 minutes to 1H10 to reach the elevators. The floor area of each level decreases with the height because of the tower geometry resulting in very long waiting lines and crowd management problems.”

The highly successful (in France) film, Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis / Welcome to the land of Shtis – will be playing at the film festival, City of Lights, City of Angels in my hometown of L.A. on April 19th!The festival features a week (April 14 – 19) of French films. All screenings take place at the Directors Guild Theater Complex.City of Lights, City of Angels French Film FestivalThe Directors Guild Theater Complex7920 Sunset Blvd.,Los Angeles, CA 90046More info

From AP:

“Nantes — About 3,000 barrels of fuel oil leaked in and along the Loire River after a pipe ruptured while a tanker was being loaded at a Total refinery, the company said Monday.

Rescue teams used floating dams and Total mobilized a 200-person cleanup team to cope with the 400-ton spill at the Donges refinery in western France that began late Sunday, the company said in a statement.

Local officials said chunks of solidified oil were spotted on Atlantic Ocean estuary beaches, and fuel was seen floating along 12 miles of river Monday evening.

Total spokesman Burkhard Reuss said the cause of the rupture was not immediately clear. The company was trying to determine how long it took for the leakage of oil to be stopped, he said.

The Donges refinery produces about 230,000 barrels per day, he said.”

Just ignore my silly, rhyming title; I couldn’t resist.

There’s a cute boutique dedicated to our favorite French, Les Ch’ti (pronounced SHTEE) from the very north of France.

We were surprised while visiting the city of Périgueux (southwest France) when we saw this timely boutique, “La Ch’ti Boutic,” with all things Ch’ti. Since the Ch’tis are la tendance, this business-minded shtorekeeper shtepped up to the ch’plate to tempt his luck at Ch’ti Shtuff.

It’s filled with goodies like chuques (coffee candies filled with caramel), pardon bonbons sucrés au caramel (caramel candies), bière de Lens (beer from Lens), sac de charbon (sack of coal, which is actually candy), les bêtises de Cambrai (mints), spéculoos (gingerbread cookies) and more.

The boutique has only been in business for a few months, so I hope it lasts, even after all the Ch’ti madness had died down.

La Ch’ti Boutic
25, rue Limogeanne
24000 Périgueux France
Telephone: +33 5.53.03.22.59

Growing up in SoCal meant living a life where I rarely experienced gray weather days. Southern Californians don’t realize how LUCKY they are, in terms of getting lots of bright light. They take it for granted.

If you ever leave, like I did, you soon discover that living in a place with LOTS of gray days – does something weird to you. The lack of real sunshine over an extended period of time makes me feel BLAH. I don’t get depressed and certainly not a full on seasonal affective disorder (SAD) like many people get, but I do feel lethargic and feel like I’m lacking in some nutrition! (probably vitamin D)

You don’t have to worry about that crappy feeling, I’ve found, if you have full spectrum lightbulbs installed in your home, and luckily they exist here in France. They’re called, Les ampoules à spectre complet, and they closely mimick the sun’s natural light. They’re safe, and energy-efficient and some are also ampoules ionisantes, which are full spectrum bulbs that also purify the air and even eliminate odors from rooms. (I have some of these and they really work.)

They take just a little while to get used to, but you’ll realize that your eyes don’t tire as quickly and you can actually see better. It’s a strange, but pleasant sensation, and you’ll never go back to traditional bulbs or halogen lights ever again. Your electricity bills will go way down and your plants will love the bulb, too.

These bulbs are excellent for artists, too, because with them, they will see a truer color on whatever they are working on.

A Note: Full spectrum energy saving bulbs are not to be confused with regular energy-saving bulbs out there that are not necessarily full-spectrum. Some of these latter bulbs (the cheap ones, usually) are not very safe (because the glass is not protected), and contain mercury (which is hazardous in the home especially if they break, and later become an environmental nightmare).

Last Note: You might find cheaper full-spectrum bulbs elsewhere but please make sure the glass has the necessary protective coating against harmful rays. The bulbs from Espace Ampoules are coated and tested to be safe.

If you’re interested and live in France, here’s where I order my bulbs online:

Espace Ampoules
Vignerux
71550 Cussy en Morvan
France
Telephone : 08.77.13.70.38

Website: Espace Ampoules (in English and French)

For about a week now, we’ve been back in the land of foie gras, confit de canard and truffles, at our favorite accommodations in Sarlat, which is in the southwest region of France called, Dordogne (in Perigord Noir) and – a couple of days ago, FINALLY, the sun was out!

Today is different, though, and there’s grisailles galore but since we’re here to work, the gray weather couldn’t be better.

It occurred to me that Au pre de l’arbre (independent fully equipped (self-catering) chalets in a forest) is a great place to escape to – from where ever you happen to be, and if absolutely necessary, (like us) take your work with you. On days like these you can be very productive.

Also worth noting is that it’s a great place to base yourself if you’re house hunting in the Dordogne area. Each of the rental houses here is fully equipped with high speed DSL and if you don’t want to bring your computer, you can use one provided by Au pre de l’arbre. They even have a list of real estate agents for you. That’s service if you ask me.

You don’t have to be workaholics like us, to stay here. Most of the people who come to Au pre de l’arbre are here to vacation: to explore the prehistoric drawings (Lascaux), to visit the wonderful villages (La Roque Gageac, Rocamadour, etc.) nearby, to participate in outdoor sports like rock climbing, horseback riding and canoeing – all within the unique backdrop of Dordogne’s signature stunning scenery. After a full day of travel, it’s a sigh of relief to come back to your comfortable chalet at Au pre de l’arbre. And then, take a swim in the gigantic pool that overlooks a forest.

The beautiful thing about Au pre de l’arbre is that it’s open all year ’round. We like to come outside of the busy season, but if you want to come during the summer, make sure to secure your reservations right about….NOW.

A note: You can stay for as short as a weekend or even longer term. And here’s a little secret: if you come during the low season, feel free to barter a bit with Marc to lower your rent. (I swear, he likes that!)

Au pre de l’arbre – Open all year
Website: Au pre de l’arbre (in English and French)

Nathalie et Marc Pinta-Tourret
Rue Lino Ventura, “Le Mas Cavaillé”
24200 Sarlat-la-Canéda
E-mail: sarlat@aupredelarbre.com
Phone / Fax : +33 5 53 59 33 33
Mobile: +33 6 73 79 12 87

Related to Dordgone: Sarlat, Terrasson, Plum Village, Beynac, Cassoulet, Big Door, Gourdon

tags: france, dordogne, dordogne holiday cottages, sarlat

Though a tiny, sleepy village in Provence, it’s a perfect place to stay while exploring the region. Make sure you go to the bakery in the morning. You’ll have to wait in line but you won’t be bored and you’ll actually wish the line would go slower. The villagers are friendly and will strike up a conversation with you. Additionally, one of the bakers, a perky and cheerful woman, keeps the crowd serenaded and entertained. She’s not a bad singer, either!

From IHT:

“Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France and a longtime humanitarian, diplomatic and political activist on the international scene, says that whoever succeeds President George W. Bush in the White House may restore something of America’s battered image and standing overseas, but “the magic is over.”

In a wide-ranging conversation Tuesday with Roger Cohen of the International Herald Tribune at the Forum for New Diplomacy in Paris, Kouchner also held out the eventual hope of talking with Hamas, the Palestinian movement that controls the Gaza Strip but has been ostracized by the West and by its Palestinian rival, Fatah.

Asked whether the United States could repair the damage it has suffered to its reputation during the Bush presidency and especially since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Kouchner replied, “It will never be as…”

Read the full article

Since our friends from the U.S. were visiting, we thought it would be fun to meet in Provence and go wine tasting. Some of France’s finest wines come from Chateauneuf du pape and everyone was up for that, so off we (three Americans and one French guy) went.

We stumbled upon a wine cellar that produced award-winning wine and received an informative presentation from the vintner, who spoke fluent English. We tasted 4 wines, and thought about buying a few bottles. They were excellent wines. While discussing what we would get amongst ourselves, the vintner blurts out that he expected we buy CASES of wine. He said something like, “Hey, I’m not a reseller, you know; I’m the producer.”

Me: “So!??”

Ok, I didn’t say that but wanted to. Yes, he’s the producer but he’s still selling it.

This, of course, made no sense anyway since he knew very well that Americans cannot take much wine back to the U.S. And because our friends just brought carry-on luggage, they wouldn’t be able to take any bottles at all with them. He began to annoy me with his greed. Still, we decided to buy ONE case (6 bottles): all the wines we sampled, including a gold medal awarded wine from 1999.

Things were rolling along and we paid our 104 euros ($159) for the six bottles until the vintner began filling the box with our order. He made sure we saw what he put in the case, then says, “and lastly, here’s the 1998 bottle.”

My sweetie says LOUDLY, “we bought the 1999 bottle, you know, the one that costs 26 euros (about $40). Not 1998.”

The guy tried to rip us off!

Anyway, I found that to be so rude, greedy and annoying, but ultimately pathetic. I mean, I could be recommending his little “domaine” right now but instead I simply can not.

How many Americans did he trick?

That just isn’t right.

The French documentary, “Le Monde Selon Monsanto / The world according to Monsanto,” directed by independent filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin, airs tonight on ARTE.

The film paints a grim picture of a no-holds-barred evil corporation with a decades-long track record of environmental crimes, health scandals and endangering the population of the entire world.

It will open your eyes to many things and you’ll never look at food the same way again.

Read about it at ARTE (in French) More about it here (in English)

See the movie trailer here

Yes. If this isn’t THE reason to visit Avignon, I dunno what is. Alright, I do and there are gobs of fabulous things to do and see here but this cuppa hot chocolate at the Salon de Thé in La Mirande Hotel is amazing. It is so silk-chocolaty and heavenly that you can see heaven in its reflection.

Ok, that’s really the reflection of the sky. We were sitting outside in their beautiful garden patio.

I think I may have to say that this hot chocolate is MUCH better than the one at Angelina in Paris. GASP! There, I said it.

Of course, while the waiting staff at La Mirande is great, they might not be as colorful in personality as the staff at Angelina.

La Mirande
(Hotel, Salon de Thé, Cooking School, Award-winning Restaurant)
4, place de la Mirande
84000 Avignon France
Telephone: +33 4 90 14 20 20