Server Change for pretemoiparis.com

Hello all! As I warned… my server has been changed from WordPress to a different French company who is high up on the list of largest hosters in the world (3rd or 4th Chéri tells me) that provides servers and domain hosting.

I will still have the WordPress platform (that OVH kindly supports) so the functionality of the blog will not change. You will still be able to like and comment just as usual. My site : pretemoiparis.com will no longer appear on WordPress.com servers though and you will only get pretemoiparis.wordpress.com if you come here looking for me. This also means, new posts will not be uploaded here on WordPress. This ONE is the LAST one you will see on the WordPress server site. Most of you probably won’t notice though, since you are all pretty much used to heading to pretemoiparis.com for the past few years now.

At the moment, I am waiting for the internets to communicate, and pretemoiparis.com will be back up and running hopefully in a day or so.

The point of all this change, as I said in a previous post, is to allow me more control and flexibility. So perhaps some tweaks and changes in the near future!

See you all soon on pretemoiparis.com!!!

Delivery in Paris – “Moby” the Armoire

This was going to be a rant, but the situation became rather humorous to me, so I may include more dry irony than exclamation marks.

Since we moved, I have been frequently ordering things for the new home (ie. furniture, decorative elements etc.) Getting them delivered has proved to be quite the hassle. At first I thought it was because the intercom on the ground floor had not been changed to include our name and the deliveries were unable to include my detailed instructions on which name to buzz. I eventually scotch taped our name over the old occupants’. Six months after our entry in the building, the name was finally changed. But for some reason all these efforts didn’t help to make deliveries happen smoother.

So… regardless of all these difficulties in getting my purchases delivered, I still seem unhindered in ordering things to be delivered. Of course, i really don’t see any way around it, as I don’t have a ton of time to go from boutique to boutique looking for the perfect decorative item nor do I have a vehicle to be driving my furniture purchases around.

Oui love Paris!

I just wanted to post a quick little “billet” as we say in French, to share and spread the amour. :-) My fellow blogger Nathalie of The Parisienne was featered the other day in L’Express Styles and she was so generous to reference Prête-Moi Paris as one of her go-to blogs of Paris. I felt honored to be mentioned amongst just a few others, while there are so very many wonderful bloggers out there that love to pay hommage to this city that we love so much.

I love when people love Paris without hesitation. (This doesn’t mean they must love everything, because loving Paris also means accepting her with her unpleasant sides too even if we complain about them).

A Seat On Top of Paris

There are certain sunsets that happen over the city of Paris where I wish I could have a view over the rooftops…

Well, I do. I have a seat, and so do you!  On top of Le Printemps Haussman, on a café terrace with a beverage in hand, to enjoy the incredible panoramic view.

I randomly headed there to have a look one day after work, when I felt like having a little peek at this terrace that I had yet to explore. It’s not as exclusive as ones I have experience, so perhaps not as chic, but who cares, it’s open to all and it still has an amazing view that you JUST CAN’T BEAT.

Being Served

Just a quick post as an FYI…

I am transitioning my blog’s server in the next couple of days, so you may experience difficulty in accessing it. Not to worry, pretemoiparis.com should be running smoothly no later than a day after the transition. My hope is to have a little more creative freedom and an optimized control over my layout and structure of my blog, by hosting it on a server beyond the WordPress server…  although they have served me well over the past four years. :-)

So fingers crossed this won’t cause much of a disruption in my publishing, and your reading, and I will continue promptly to serve up all things Paris!!

Fashion Photo Shoot in Paris

I was strolling by the Eiffel Tower and Trocadéro the other day, and saw this lovely little group of young American women, all primped up and ready for their photo shoot in Paris. I couldn’t resist, and asked their permission to take a few shots. After annoying them for a couple minutes as I snapped a few images, I left a card with one of them, and tossed a cheery thank you as I sauntered off. I hope they had a delightful time being immortalized in their fashionable best in front of the iron lady.

Two Spots for Tea

I love tea. I drink a whole pot of it in the morning. Some of you got an insight into breakfast chez Chéri & moi this past winter. I find that it wakes me up gently, quenches my thirst and offers me a delightful indulgence for the papilles (taste buds in French…it sounds better). I do like to indulge in Mariage Frères teas, as you may have read about here before. But with the amount of tea that I consume, that could quickly become quite expensive. So I have scouted out some address in the city where I get high quality teas at a slightly lower price, and then I don’t feel the need to skimp on dosage.

Guiraud Pascal Torréfaction
21 Boulevard de Reuilly, 75012 Paris

Farm to Plate in Paris

Or as my twin sister often says : Farm to Fork!

When you live in a big city, and time for good food is short, it is so nice to know that the good food can come to us. And it was quite by surprise that I saw a farm stand at my local train station in the middle of Paris, on my way home from work one recent evening in April.

The store Les Poireaux de Marguerite, has branched out their activity to offer their products to people who are well out of the vicinity of their store (which is located at 51 rue Saint-Maur, 75011 Paris). The gruff yet charming Frenchman with the friendliest attitude attracted several of us passengers as we exited the train station. 10€ for what they call the “Vegetarien” basket which is a heap of season fruits and veggies from the farms they work with. The in-store price seems to be 14€, and I am not sure why the slight price drop at the train station stand, but I am not going to protest!

There was also a “Gourmand” basket also for 10€. I remained reasonable and stuck to the leafy stuff.

Springtime in Paris

I literally wrote “Sprintemps” in the title before correcting it to “Springtime”. I think my franglais has gotten a little out of hand. But that isn’t the subject of this post. Or is it….

If you listen closely in the beginning of Springtime in Paris, you can almost hear a collective sigh.. Aaaaaaaaahhhh! The light comes back and we all feel a release of pressure as we emerge from under the gray skies.

I wanted to illustrate Paris this Spring; not that it needs doing… for Pete’s sake, every blogger and their brother is posting pretty blossoming photos of Paris these days. But really, it cannot be helped when you live here. This isn’t to say that living in Paris is all cherry blossoms and pink sunsets…far from it. Paris also includes in the package : tired legs, aching feet, angry fellow metro passengers, (enjoy this funny parody about an “incident” on the metro), pushy people on buses, pushy people everywhere, umbrella wars when in rains, unreliable transportation, interminable lines at any public service office, insurmountable amounts of paperwork in order to get anything done… oh people, I could go on for at least 100 more of these… but that’s not the purpose of this blog post. Or is it….

Pretty Paris Pictures : Opera House Details

If you have been following this blog for some time, you most likely know that my FAVORITE Paris monument is the Opéra Garnier. I can’t pass by it without snapping an instagram at the very least.

It’s makes frequent appearances on this blog, as you can see here, here here and here and also here…oh yeah and here too.