Le Soirée (The Party)

Last weekend, we were all very excited to be invited to a party at Gilles' home in Paris.  You may recall that Gilles is Christoher's boss here at CNRS and he was with us when we were in Denmark.  Gilles lives in Paris in a renovated factory with his lovely wife Anna and their three super cool kids, Karla, Simon and Nils.

Our drive to the party was our first venture out into the world in our brand new car.  Luckily, we had Jill (our GPS) to guide us on our way.  It has been suggested to me that we give our car a French name.  Any suggestions?  We were thinking "Megane" since that is actually the model name of the car.  But, we could probably get more creative than that.

Anyway, we drove our maiden voyage to Paris.  While driving along on the freeway, I looked out the window and thought, "Hey, that looks just like the Eiffel Tower."  And then I realized where I was, and that it WAS the actual Eiffel Tower, and it was a pretty thrilling moment for me.

Parking was very confusing.  We finally found an empty spot marked "reservé pour auto car."  Reserved for auto car.  We are an auto car, are we not?  As it turns out, no, we are NOT an auto car.  Lucky for us, it was after hours.  What the sign actually means is reserved for buses.  Why did they not just say that?  I actually know the word for buses.  Anyway, no complaints.  It was free parking and no ticket!

When we arrived at the address, I felt like we were at the entrance of an old fashioned speakeasy, or an underground club.

waiting with the secret password

We rang the bell and Nils, the youngest son opened the door and then ran away.  It was a little surreal, like following a white rabbit.  He led us into this garden patio that was just wonderful.  There was a fire pit, and at the back of the garden was the coolest house EVER.

It was very dark and I wasn't able to photograph the garden.  But, I did capture some photos of the fire pit area.  Sorry, I haven't figured out how to take pictures at night with this camera without having the flash wash out the photos.  Photographer-friends of mine, please chime in.

smoker's corner (these are kids - not smokers)

looking in the front of the house from the garden
that's Gilles, in the lower left

I believe the building used to be some sort of shop where they worked with metal.  I can't really remember what I was told.  But here is the inside, sorry for the photo quality.  I was trying to take pictures discreetly, so I didn't use a flash.

do you see the gymnastic rings in the foreground of the upper left?  cool!

some of the interesting people I met

Gilles' wife, Anna owns the Swedish Cafe in the Marais (an area of Paris).  Anna was very kind to give me a copy of her book, which has all of the recipes from the cafe!

I met a lot of interesting people at this party.  Fanny is a Swedish girl who works with Anna at the cafe.  She invited me to come to the cafe and learn how to make some pastries!  How cool is that???  I also met Marie, who plays the cello and is currently doing research on the role of urban art in architecture.  Marie's son was pretty cool.  I think he said he was 15 and he studies hip hop dancing.  He's been studying for 3 years and is supposedly really good.

In the picture above, in the lower right hand corner are Miles and his wife, Akiko.  Miles is American.  He knew Anna when she lived in Stockholm.  He works in commercials and his wife is a photographer.  She is going to give me the name of her hair stylist in Paris.  In the picture, they are talking to their friend in the pink drapey shirt who is a fashion designer and a stylist to the stars.

The food at the party was excellent.  You would not believe the size of the wedge of brie they had out on the table.  It was like the size of half of a large pizza!

Here are some more pictures of the house:

the loft

In the house, there is a loft built on top of the bedrooms.  You can just barely see Gaius on the other side of this ladder.  Pretty exciting place to play for a 5 year old.  Don't worry, there were bigger kids there making sure no one fell off!

the barbell looking thing in the center is from the original factory

the party was winding down, so I took a picture with the flash

Seriously, within one minute of our arrival, Gaius had disappeared.  He made so many new friends and had such a wonderful time.  He told me that Neils was teaching him to speak in French.  I was happy to see him so happy!  Gaius thought it was so cool that they projected the movie ET on the wall for the kids to watch.  He loved it!  

movie for kids (can you see Elliot?)

Here he is saying hello to me for a brief moment before going on his merry way:

party animal

We got home at about 1 in the morning.  Party animals, right?!  We actually left the party at about midnight, and then took a few wrong turns on the way home.  Luckily, we had Jill to set us straight, "Recalculating."

Tonight, I am going to a Girls Night Out with a group of women from this organization called Message Paris.  It's a group for English-Speaking parents in and around Paris.  It will be my first time meeting with them, and I'm hoping to make some new friends as well as have some of my newcomer questions answered.  I'll let you know how it goes!

A bientôt!

PS- I have forgotten how to type the accent over the "a."  Christopher reminded me of how to do it just last night, and it just escapes me.  I can still do the "ô" accent though.