Today I looked in the mirror
And what I saw was new
Not the wounds anymore
Not the past
But so many - infinite - possibilities.
Today…
Can I manage it this time?
Drop the bad habits
Step out of the spiral
Move forward
Just like this, without help,
If only it was as easy
As clear water on your face
Washing away the make up
And looking straight at yourself.
I really would like
To keep feeling this way
Always fresh and new…
There is no reason why
It shouldn’t work this time.
I just need to remember
How I felt today.

Contemplating the stones
At the sole of my feet
They look blurrier and blurrier
As the tears invade me
The evening lights perfect
And the silence is deep
What on Earth should I do
With this sadness inside me?
As far as I remember
Even in my childhood
It was always there somewhere
the sadness inside me
I’d walk away from people
And observe from afar
Contemplating the sky
Trying to comprehend…
Who on Earth should I become
Despite the sadness inside?
I hide it in a laughter
I hide it in a smile.

Lorsque la goutte d’eau du vase à ras bord
S’échappe et frappe avec violence le sol
Lorsque mes doigts fiévreux parcourant les touches
Du téléphone sans jamais y trouver
Un être humain voulant bien m’écouter
Quelques minutes de son temps me donner
Lorsque la douleur me hante
Ainsi que son visage qui m’oppresse par l’absence
Lorsque trop de pierres
Ont rempli mes poches
Elles qui ne voulaient que les fleurs…
Alors c’est l’heure
Il faut partir
Faire sa malle, sa valise. Pour aller où?
Peu importe.
Tant que c’est loin, que c’est ailleurs…
Tenter sa chance une fois de plus,
Heurter ses ailes aux vents marins
Sourire à de nouveaux visages
Plonger ses yeux dans d’autres paysages
Même sans force, avec pour seul moteur
Un désespoir, une rage, un refus du malheur.
Je prends un sac et j’abandonne le superflu
Je me retrouve seule face à la route.
Seule, oui. Mais vrai. Mais forte et vivante.

Bird enjoying the summer breeze and the view of Notre Dame…

I came back to my old Brighton and found it fresh, alive and kicking, full of festival energy.
Flash backs in the present…

And here are some images of the excellent comedy by Andy Thomas, “Carry on Drinking” at the Sanctuary Cafe (performed by Andy Thomas and Rob Maloney)

Coiffure: Cyril Costa. Maquillage: Mélanie Da Costa. Modele: Agathe Métaireau

One morning
Waking up… opening up the curtains… and being struck by colours.

Proche du Pont Neuf, le 13 Janvier 2009.

Frozen Canal

May your end of the year festivities shine in your memories Joy and happiness!

Who is a woman who can be every woman?
Only Nathalie Tetrel - …La Petite Ciguë…

Portrait of Frederic Vignal

I have a new roomate at home
He’s green and sings a lot
When I’m not around he walks around
When I’m there he’s more discrete
But then I go to bed and I hear him sing
Once I opened a box and he jumped in it
But I didn’t have the heart to throw him out the window
If he likes it here
He might as well stay
There is space enough for us both here.

I saw them first, then I got close, sat there… and started to get into the music, into the passion.

When I was there on this Miami beach, with my friend Roxxe I knew how happy I felt and how wonderful life was right there, right now, for this minute. I was feeding the seagulls and she was capturing it. Then she feed them and I started to shoot. This image was a perfect illustration of how I felt at that very moment, so free, so happy, in awe. Hand reaching to the sky, to the creatures of nature, to infinity, with a friend that meant the world to me. I remember, Roxxe. I miss you but I know, soon, we’ll meet again

I was in a perfect spot that evening - on the banks of the river Seine, just next to the Eiffel Tower, just in front of this marvelous display of fireworks… the sky lighting and banging in a rainbow of colours from red to blue and ending in gold…

For a moment I shot and shot and loved every single ones of my images. Then I stopped, I just sat there, and let the magic hit me, let the immensity of the sky swallow me whole and the sounds fill my head.

Just to be there, sharing in with the rest of the crowd, just be there, all alone.

Model: Christophe

Model: Christophe

Models: Philippe and Nathalie… Always hard to keep the camera steady with these two

Model: Mila

Model: Christophe

Night has come, the lights are on…

… zooming in on the lights …

Rainbow during the day

Il n’y a rien de plus beau dans la vie
Que les liens qui se tissent entre les êtres
Un départ, une absence, même la mort
Cela ne les efface pas
Lorsque des amis chers se retrouvent
Les yeux se reconnaissent
Les âmes s’emplissent de joie
Les mots coulent des lèvres
Les liens qui existent entre les êtres
C’est notre plus beau cadeau

(Thanks to my model, Damien)

This is what I am seeing right now from my window… I love living on the 6th floor. Who cares if there is no elevator

Showing the beauty of the world to a child.

View of Notre Dame from the Seine River.

What it is like living in Paris, everyday.

Whenever I feel down
I just need to look up
And the sky swallows me whole
Lifts me up
Where I belong.

I am 28 today
I am in my new place
Alone but not lonely
Cause I have my own company.
I have been in a similar place before
But I didn’t know as much as I do today.
I don’t need to please anybody
I don’t need to be what other people want from me
I can be just who I am
And be content.
Who I am is not what it seems anyways
Who I am is not what I do
Who I am only I know
And I like what I know.

There’s nothing like the sky especially when the sun is setting…

View during a walk in the National Park Les Ecrins, Soudern Alps.

A river running under an ice sheet

I was so happy to see Lyon again, where I had spent a very memorable 2 months 7 years ago! I love this city. I could definitely live there!

Birds flying over the lac.

Earlier that same day… a little montage. I am getting very found of making montages these days

This is the end of cruising for me, I am now back to France, in the beautiful fogs, in the lovely frost of the winter. I love feeling the fresh wind on my cheeks and the urge to go back to warmth when I walk outside. I love feeling my hands getting numb from holding my camera in the cold. I must be nuts

I will get back to my Caribbean photos but I just had to share some of the beautiful things I have captured this morning… I just wanted to share them with you right now, not later, and so much for the chronology I was trying to keep on this site!

Little girl with a pet monkey in the streets.

Piece of clothing drying on a barbed wire fence.

Man selling peeled oranges in the street.

Quite an ingenious machine to peel oranges!

A very sweet orange that the man insisted I take for free! Such nice people in this place

From the tender boat off to Playa del Carmen…

The Ruins…

… such a breathtaking place it’s hard to stop shooting!

I just love to see this amazing blue sea next to the old stone, and the perfect sky.

This is my happy place. Whenever I can go there, I am getting all my energies back… this is a little piece of paradise!

Our ship… I will never get tired of how it looks

Amazing Mayan Ruins in Belize…

Here goes… my third crossing of the Panama Canal… Of all the pictures I took, I like this one best because the water looks so peaceful, and the clouds are reflected on the water. It was taken from the back of the ship on the last lock.

Tiny, beautiful butterflies…

I took a cab to the other side of town to see this absolutely amazing view…

Fisher family near the sea side

He was happy to show me this huge lobster, which was trying to escape!

Sleepy cat

Noisy bird…

… Another beautiful day in Mexico!

Welcome back to Mexico… How I love this country!!!

This is coming into a hotel… a breathtaking view…. I tried to translate the feeling I got when I stepped into this cool building after being hot all day walking outside by making the inside black and white, and the outdoor colour…. To see the blue, blue sea from the window just made me feel so peaceful.

The beach….

Volcanic rocks in Hilo, Hawaii

Hilo is also the home of some unique orchids…. beautiful flowers…

This chapter will be updated shortly! Honolulu was absolutely fantastic and I will put more images under this chapter soon!!!

My first day in Hawaii, a bit of a disappointment! What did I see? Malls… shops… lines of people trying to get onto a free shuttle bus…

Oh but if I zoomed in on that hill over there! That’s kind of nice Photography is all about framing

Train crossing sign, and the town in the background.

The very famous white pass train stop and those lovely Alaskan mountains in the background.

Pionners discovering…. the end of season’s sales!

A very beautiful morning in Juneau just as the fog lifted…

Another ship docked…

The town…

I got to see this before going back on the ship… lucky girl

One last look at my “home town” before I fly back to my cruise ship tomorrow! Bye bye Paris…

After taking a long blog holiday, due to several reasons (mostly wanting to get away from the computer for a while) here is one little image that symbolises, for me, what we all love in our family. A most genuine of smile while the little girl runs towards her dad, full speed, fully trusting that he will hold her safely.

The musher camp…

Close up of an adorable sleeping puppy…

Carried away by a sledge…

Two of the dogs, ready to run…

The forest where they train.

Passing by Haines on our way to the Davidson Glacier…

This is the view that inspired the poem I wrote earlier…

On the way back… we saw some seals!

My trip on a small boat to Tracy Arm, off Juneau… As close to the Dowes glacier as we could get!

But the most amazing thing today was to see a humphback whale really close up for the first time in my life. It was amazing to watch… Whales have this power of just making you say wow and stare in amazement…

This is Alaska… as good as it gets!

I had a lot of fun going to see this interesting lumberjack competition in Ketchikan last week… Here are a few images:

Our hostess for the event

One of the contestants… Very muscular as you can see!

Close up of the seesaw…

One of the contest involved climbing all the way up this huge log and coming down again as fast as possible.

And the last piece involved rolling on some logs and trying to make the other contestant fall in the water (cold water of course!) without being allowed to touch him.

The most famous street in Ketchikan… All wooden, above the salmon filled river.

Native American Totem Poles on top of the Hill.

Skagway, the city at the northern most point of the Inside Passage, as we sail away from it.

Landscapes in Tracy Arm, near the Sawyer Glacier…

The very small pieces of iceberg in the water are called Berg Bits. I love this name! It sounds like a snack.

The Glacier… seen from the ship.

One more early morning stop before we start the Alaska season…

Signs from a little breakfast place I found…

And we got to spend overnight in San Francisco! So I was still there the following morning, the 1st of May. Here is what I saw when getting out one last time in this gorgeous town…

A man just outside the place where the Sun was docked.

Pier 39, full of sea lions, early in the morning.

Close up of a sea lion…

Arriving to San Francisco… view from the ship.

The port, also seen from the ship.

And off I am in the hills of the city!

From the moment I saw Cabo San Lucas, I fell in love with the place. This is now in my mind the most beautiful spot I have ever seen in my life… It took the place that Aruba had for the best beach I’ve seen in the world!

As we approach the city on a tender boat, in the morning haze.

Lover’s beach from afar…

Rocks emerging from the sea

Arriving at the dock, a pelican being chased by a dog

We took a water taxi to get to lover’s beach, the most beautiful beach I’ve seen in my life… No need for more words, just look at these pictures…

It was awsome being back in Acapulco 6 months after I first visited the city. This time I made sure to see things I hadn’t seen before. First I took a stroll by myself around town, randomly…

But what I was most impressed was going to see the show of the body jumpers. These mexican guys jump from a very high and dangerous rock into the sea without any protective equipment, thus risking their lives every single day for this show. It was fantastic to watch!

Here is a general view of the place where they jump from (look at the flag on the right side of the photograph for an idea)

And here is a close up of one of the jumps!

The beach view as we got off the ship…

A little lezard on the shore in Guatemala…

For the second time in my life, I have crossed the Panama Canal on the 20th of April…
Here are some of the shots I got while out on the decks…

We had to be up pretty early in the morning…

The locks…

For my last Cozumel, I made sure to go a bit further than usual, seeing some really nice beaches that I hadn’t seen before… What a beautiful island…

The oldest building in New Orleans, a pub called “Laffite’s Blacksmith Shop.”

This is the place where my friend Jeff plays every night.

This statue, the lovers, is at the back of the pub… in a fountain.

A fleur de lys, symbol of French Royalty and of New Orleans.

A crystal ball

My friend Joseph, a tarot reader.

Musician in a jazz band

Another New Orleans Musician!

Las Escobas Waterfalls, beautiful protected spot in the rain forest…

Close up of the water.

Butterfly on a leaf

A tiny little lezard stiking its head out…

And one last image of the waterfalls….

Aboard a truck, driving in Cozumel to go horseback riding…

My horse for the day, beautiful Vampiro…

The beautiful beach where we were riding…

All the kids, plus the actors, on the stage for a group shot.

After getting all the authorizations ready for them, we managed to allow all the orphans in our ship, the Sun, for a fun day visiting, watching the show, and having lunch with us on the ship. If not much, it is nice to have been able to do something for them, something they will remember and maybe who will open up their eyes to a world of possibilities.

The bus bringing them to the ship

Boy at the bus window

Eliza at the window

Kelly walking little baby Carlos through the ship’s photo gallery

Boy sitting in the luxurious stardust loundge, waiting for the show to start

The stage and the musicians

The show starts… Steve and Scott on stage

Harriet on stage… Needless to say, the orphans loved the show, it was funny to turn around once in a while and to see them all open mouthed and fascinated… they had never seen and heard such a thing in their lives before!

After the show, lunch time on the open deck. Tad here, who organized most of this event, is sitting with 3 of the orphans.

Tad and one of the boys.

On March 28th, a small group of staff from the NCL Sun decided to go and visit a local orphanage in Guatemala (in Puerto Barrios, just a bit further than Santo Tomas) in order to help out in any way they could. Among us, a few photographers, some youth counsellors, and cast members.

“La Esperanza” is an orphanage with 35 children, from 9 months to age 20 (the one 20 year old girl there, Eliza, has a mental problem that makes her still dependent on the mission). They are not funded by the government at all and rely entirely on donations.

Here are a couple of the boys, asleep in a hot afternoon.

Here is Carlos, the youngest orphan, 9 months old, in the arms of Kelly, one of our youth counsellor….

Eliza in the arms of Marianna, the woman running the orphanage.

One of the girl…

This little one wasn’t talking much but kept running into my arms… very energetic and friendly little thing!

Group shot of most of the orphanage girls.

Here is a site that deals with funding of this mission.

Victor is one of the local guys in Cozumel, Mexico, who dresses up for us in the traditional Mayan warrior outfit for us, so we can take his photos with the passengers. He is such a great, funny, happy guy - I’m going to miss him a lot when we leave the Carribeans. On his arm, the Mayan Rain God is tatooed.

Such a beautiful, peaceful setting…

Front of the tender boat - going to a small island…

The island…

And a nice drink… paradise!

From the ship, when leaving Costa Maya, Mexico, at sunset.

New Orleans is completely transformed the weeks preceding Mardi Gras, their biggest festival. I didn’t get to go out on the actual Mardi Gras week, but here is what I saw in the streets the week before…

Beads being sold at the French Market.

Also a funny T-shirt I thought I’d share with you guys…

This one is dedicated to my dear brother, who I miss very much! Love you Philippe

Guatemala bus

Woman

Shy little girl

School boy

This broken down house was on the other side of the school where I was taking photos, and when I saw this image of the child at the window I was so moved, I was drawn to the child, looking at me in all its youthfullness, surrounded by all this misery…. such a contrast…. a sight that I will never forget.

Boy in the street

Girls in a school

One more child that I met that day in Santo Tomas: Little 10 years old Luis on his bike…

Maria and her bike, 8 years old.

Mother and child

Puppy.

Guitare player.

Comments (0)

Before Dry Dock (The Sun, docked in Santo Thomas, Guatemala):

After Dry Dock (The Sun, docked in Cozumel, Mexico, on the 26th of January)

I have to say I love the new painting on the hull… it makes the ship look warmer!

This boat on the sea side seems to have been transformed into a house… unless the house was designed to look like a boat in the first place!

Car tires in the sea just off the port in Santo Thomas, Guatemala.

One of the restaurants, on the sea…

One more photo of Switzerland and then back to my current location! But I have to show you this view of the lake near Geneva from the French side …

During my 2 weeks break of the dry dock, I got to discover Geneva in Switzerland. Lovely place!

And around Geneva, on the French side, the country side …

Street show in New Orleans, with some serious acrobatics! Those guys were just great.

Carriage of New Orleans.

This is the view we had when having lunch outside the ship in Guatemala on the 15th. Such a beautiful, peaceful place!

Here is what I do when I have a couple of hours off in Costa Maya…

In Belize that day I was able to hop into a bus to go see some ancien Mayan ruins. These buildings there are remains of temples where sacrifices where being offered.

The guide explains that they have to keep the vegetation this way, otherwise the whole structure would scrumble.

View from the top of the temple.

And someone holding a baby crocodile in his hands on the site…

Images of my first outing into the French Quarter of New Orleans, very close to where the ship docks, on the 26th of October:

Cozumel is by far the richest and most americanized city we stop in - probably even richer than New Orleans - which is no surprise after the big hurricane they had. A very nice stop to shop for essentials…

Belize is a small country, an island, where we stop every week. The ship is too big to dock on its shore, so we have to tender there – which means a smaller boat is taking us back and forth from the ship to the shore. Upon arrival from the tender, colourful bars and shops are welcoming us, as well as lots of music…

Walking into the town, the pirate museum explains about real life as a pirate, as well as selling costumes, rhum (you get a free taster…) and all other kinds of souvenirs… a fun visit though!

And it’s always a real pleasure to look at the textures of the smaller boats around the ports…

After New Orleans, Costa Maya is our first stop in the Caribeans. Nice little island with not much to do except lay in the sun and relax…

Aruba, or the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. White warm sand, turquoise waters, palm trees… it’s a calendar perfect place!

After duty - enjoying the sunset on the Atlantic Ocean from deck 14!

My collegue Ferhat took this photo of me, that also shows one of the docks we were crossing in the background!

I was on duty all day during the Panama Canal crossing, taking photos of people instead of what was going on with the ship! So I don’t have many landscape photos to show. This one was taken in the morning, before entering the Canal. Bye Bye Pacific Ocean!

A little bird went flying into the ship and Vincent caught it - I took the picture just before he went out to release the poor little thing into the wild!

I forgot to mention about this port, very nice as well, which we reached after Acapulco and before Puntaneras: Zihuatanero.

Fish market on the beach… Fish doesn’t get any fresher than that!

Here is the tourist trap… but isn’t everything on this display beautiful? I wanted to grab everything! But when your cabin is so tiny, it’s simply impossible. (PS - in fact this photo is taken by a friend, and it’s me on the picture! With some very lovely braids which I only got to keep for a day, as it is against company policy to have braided hair!)

A Pelican driven boat!

And into town… very poor town… some lovely colors as well as political messages!

The Sun is docked…

Pelicans

Beautiful weather on the Mexican port on Sunday… it feels like I am on a holiday now even though I only have a few hours off !!!

How far from home…

View of the ship from a hotel swimming pool where we had a lovely time.

I had a blast on Thursday in Los Angeles because my friend Alex came to pick me up from the port and drove me around in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills. It was fantastic!!!! Lots of beautiful houses, lots of palm trees… but mostly, lots of traffic…

I had only a couple of hours to walk around San Francisco but I loved the place. The first deli I ran into was an organic one and I got some nice things from there for breakfast! I managed to get just close enough to the bridge to get this picture and then I had to go back to the ship and work.

… Beautiful Pelican flighing patterns …

This one is for my grandparents, Manou and Badou!

Our beautiful ship, docked.

I went to the top of this column…

And here was the view from up there!

I especially loved the various shades of blue of the sea… amazing view!

Alaska is done and over with now, and we are slowly going down South with the ship.

Here is a quick picture I took from deck 6: this is all I could see of Vancouver on Sunday as I was unable to leave the ship (work work work!)

A very sunny day in Prince Rupert last Thursday

Yesterday I had what is called a “wet drill” - a safety training during which you put in practice all you have learned about life rafts in case we had to abandon ship for real.

For the one and only time during the whole of this trip, I was allowed to go in the ship s swimming pool along with my fellow classmates!

I was obviously not able to do the class AND take pictures, but the staff captain who was passing by was kind enough to stay with us for most of the class and picked up my camera for us and took all of these amazing photographs!

The correct way to jump into the water with your life jacket on: feet together, pushing down on your life jacket with your arms so that it doesn’t hit your head when reaching the water.

Survival technic if many people are in the water without access to a life boat or life raft: chain together for warmth and to be more visible for rescuers. It also helps with moral not to be alone, which is the most important factor for survival.

Here is us inside the life raft. The boat has 16 life boats, where all the passengers and some crew will go to. Most of the rest of us crew are assigned to life rafts just like this one (the boat has 64 of them). They are inflatable and designed to hold 15 people.

Next was the hardest part of the training, learning to board a life raft that is the wrong way up. We first must climb on top and then turn it upside down, putting yourself underneath the raft. Then you need to swim out from underneath the raft of course! But climbing on top of this thing with the lifejacket on was probably the hardest part. I don’t want to think of how hard it would be in the middle of the stormy ocean!

Here is me, ready to let myself fall underneath the raft so as to turn it right side up.

I loved the training but it has really put it into perspective that this kind of catastrophe can happen on my ship, and I almost wish we had more intensive training… However I know that the training I did receive will help me a lot to help myself and others if anything of that kind was to happen.

Skagway historic train…

Rails…

Oups… I might be in trouble here!

Downtown Skagway looks a lot like a Western movie set…

What I saw early this morning when getting off the ship to get some train pictures…

On Wednesday, both the Norwegian Sun and the Norwegian Star are parked together in the port!

Alaska I-pod commercial

As you can see Ketchikan, Alaska is very proud of its drinking industry. Sorry, of its fishing industry.

Here is one of the lifeboats of The Sun as we learned how to lower it on to deck 6, so that we could board it and learn about how to survive inside it.

Here is the inside of the lifeboat, with room for 150 people. It also countains water, food, fishing gear, medical kits as well as many types of distress signals so that the people in there hopefully don’t have to survive in there for too long!

A wild Alaskian bird seen on the side of the street…

This bald Eagle was kept in captivity because it was found injured and was no longer able to survive on its own…

The forest in the mist…

Amazing Alaska view…

I went all the way up the Juneau mountain with a friend to hike yesterday morning but this is the only view we got… Juneau was in a cloud!

This is the kind of amazing landscapes that justify all the hard work I have to do in order to be here! Just gazing at this for a couple of hours was the most magical thing in the world.

I finally got to go on a little outing two days ago! I went to a tour called “Misty Fjords of Alaska” where we took a small boat into the deepness of the biggest protected wild park of the united states to see amazing landscapes, waterfalls, and I got to see some otters and bald eagles on the way.

I haven’t had the time to sort everything I have but here is one where you see Ketchikan in the background

Here is the more serious fire fighting equipment…

Gas Masks

The guys getting ready to go into the serious fire…

A really serious, if controlled, fire to put out…

After putting out the fire… a very exhausted new fire fighter!

Today, I got up really early in order to go and train to be a fire fighter. This is a training session that everybody working on a ship needs to go through. This was really a fun day, where we actually had to put out several fires in various situations and using different equipement… Up you can see a picture of two of my instructors, really nice guys who train figher fighters in their free time…

Fire fighting boots…

Jennifer with light fire fighting equipment

Demonstration of how to use a simple dry powder fire hydrant.

My all-girl fire team today we were great!

A dummy to be rescued from the fire in the smoke…

This is as close as the ship gets to the sawyer Glacier. It is quite impressive to be surrounded by these pieces of ice in the water…

Just in case you get home sick, you can just follow the signs to walk home…

A very nice coffee shop I stopped at this morning. It was nice to have real food here! Well at least food that’s not from the ship!

Juneau is a very small town that is only accessible from boat or air. No road connections whatsoever… In the summer of course it is full of tourists and the gift shops are full of things to buy, but I wonder what it must be like to live here through the winter!

Finally a photo of my whole ship! We are docking a bit far from Juneau city and then we are taking a bus to go into town. Far enough for me to give you a full view of my boat!

The only thing I saw from Ketchikan, Alaska today was this, as seen from deck 6…

This is the one deck where the crew is always allowed outside. We can jog too!

My bed is the one on top…

The desk - shared of course, and with a TV on it…

Here is my ship, this saturday when I was about to board!

Seattle as seen from my boat’s departure point…

This is not my cruise ship yet… mine will arrive tomorrow morning and I will be embarking then. However, this ship is about the same size as my cruise ship - the Norwegian Sun - will be.

I cannot begin to explain how impressive it is to look at this huge thing. None of my photographs came close to show how absolutely gigantic this boat is. It is a building on water. When I was any closer than this, there was no way any of my photographs would have made sense as the image field could not physically comprise even a significant part of it…

I am officially scared!

Seattle is very well known for its huge outdoor and indoor markets… I have to say the size of it is as impressive as the amount of stuff there is to sell in there! Not to mention the food looks delicious and there are so many things I had never seen before..

There is no way I can show you everything but here is a little selection:

Some jewelry sold in the outside market…

Fresh from Alaska…

Beautiful fruits!

Appart from being moving billboards, I find it’s really funny how those buses are attached to a line above the street… I wonder why?

That’s it - I have arrived in Seattle, after a very long journey - including about 16 hours in a plane… there were some delays…

It’s fun to be back in the US after 4 years… Lots of things are exactly the same as I remember. It’s the American feel in the air. Funny how difficult it is to describe what is so specific about a country! But I guess a lot of it is in the architecture, the streets, the cars, the parking lots, the street signs, and the way people talk to each other (so very friendly!)

And then there is Seattle itself, where I had never been, and that I started to discover today by walking a bit randomly. It’s really a fantastic city! I was especially impressed with the outdoor market and the Pine Street area, so many shops - so many original things… so many good things to eat!!! It requires complete self control in order not to buy everything there is to sell…

My hotel - probably the least atractive thing I have seen in Seattle…

The operation “Paris Plage” this year is attractive especially because of its water spraying in some areas! With the heat wave it is quite a relief.

But other people prefer just any fontain in order to freshen up. Here kids are playing in the Hotel de Ville fountain…

And to finish, the lovely colors of the sunset. These will be the last pictures of Paris I will be posting for quite a while, I hope you enjoy them!

The countryside outside of Paris: small, beautiful, quiet towns with rivers and trees… it felt wonderful to be out of the big city.

What I like about this image is that the contrast is making the landscape look almost black and white.

Night vision of the Seine and Notre Dame de Paris…

Contrebass player in front of the Beaubourg museum (also known as the Centre Pompidou) - it’s always something to see a music instrument bigger than its player! The drums were also quite intersting, looking like flying saucers…

Two high-school friends where getting married this Saturday, Olivier and Astrid. May the bubbles of their love never pop!

The cuttest baby girl of the evening

Yesterday was the “Fete de la Musique” - “Music Day” - in Paris in every street corner and cafe here is what you could see:

In the streets by Hotel de Ville…

In a cafe bar near Republique…

Each street had a different sound and walking across them you could travel musically as well as physically…

Ducks and their reflections on the lake.

All of them what to sleep in the letter “C” of the “Parc Floral” sign… Note that the letters “F” and “O” are already occupied!

Looking through the archades at the side of the castle…

The old Vincennes Castle, on a cloudless sky.

Yesterday evening I went to see what is probably the best modern dance show that I have ever seen. It was “Rough Cut” by the famous choreographer Pina Baush. I was lucky enough to have an invitation to the general rehearsal dance - some where not as lucky as you can see on this picture! (however you’ll be happy to hear someone ended up giving him his seat)

The danse was amazing, beautiful, full of life, joy, love, and humour. To be seen absolutely!

The entrance to the famous Louvre museum.

View from the Louvre’s entrance.

My favourite little monster, on the 5th of June, at home…

This 4 kilometres road is completely covered by the sea during half the day, when it is high tide, and is open to cars and pedestrian during low tide, like on this photo.

A flower in the hands of my friend Isabelle.

A tiny little green insect.

The speciality of the region is salt collection. The salt is collected naturally after the evaporation of the sea water.

A few strands of grass on a big dune of sand.

A small dune very close to the sea, at high tide.

Leaving the city for an “almost island” as beautiful as this… for a few days… that was a nice birthday present for me!

Red Roses in white box.

Live Jazz music - a moment of life, movement and emotions.

An unlikely juxtaposition

Friends by the Seine, Friday night, around a pique-nique.

The view.

City greenery.

A doctor’s waiting room…

The secret of happiness can sometimes be… a very pretty pair of shoes that make you feel like you are walking on a cloud.

Tulips viewed from my 5th floor window.

Pink flowers which fell on Paris’ streets.

I am not often impressed by street art but this one could have been in a museum or a gallery: it’s more than just a tag. There’s the collage of newspapers, the strange round figures with white eyes - and the materials surrounding the piece add to it like the best of frames.

Speeding inside a tunnel…

Alongside other scooters around the Arc de Triomphe

Les quais de la Seine - always a beautiful spot along the river!

Pinks and whites of baby flowers, green leaves… and the very blue sky of the South of France.

A beautiful flowering tree.

Such a wonderful feeling to walk bare feet in the warm sand… even when it is too cold for a swim.

To make everyone dream: this little house belongs to people my family knows. Their back yards shows a few salads being grown, and the sea a bit further.

Karine is watching the sun setting near Notre Dame de Paris, from the banks of the Seine on the other side.

My cousin, Karine, author of Dessein, les quais de la Seine.
I like the way her hair is being brushed on her face - it makes her look very mysterious, very parisian.

A mother and a child having a wonderful time together on this lovely spring evening.

My two favourite photos of people on the Republique statue:

People, the statue, the sky.

Fraternité = Brotherhood.

Seing the French group “Louise Attaque” on stage was a great moment for me!

Republique crowded with people.

My Place de la Republique - on a day of protest that, I am happy to say, has not turned sour. This time the protest was against the new laws aiming at making immigration to France more difficult.

It is hard to be in France at the moment and not react on the huge movement that is taking place against the CPE - contract of first employment. To sum things up, it is a new form of contract for employers that allows them to fire their employees as they wish during the 2-year period the contract lasts (now reduced by Chirac to 1 year) - this without having to justify why. The whole country has been holding regular strikes for months to stop this from happening, the biggest of which took place last Tuesday.

As a temp worker of course, I am in a state of employment that is even more precarious than if I had been employed through a CPE contract, which makes me not all that inclined to go out in the street to protest the new law. I think the law is not a great idea, just a way for the government to make it look like they are doing something to reduce unemployment. I think the new law will do nothing good to the country, however I don’t think this is that big of a deal since it already exists, in other forms. Of course this law has just become a symbol - people are not just protesting that law but the current government and all it represents.

Though I am against this new law, I must also say I am firmly against the fact that universities have been closed over the matter for two months - stopping students who want to study to do so - that all politicians and groups are trying to use the movement to their own ends, and that once more, trains, undergrounds, and lots more are immobilized, making the whole country hostage. This is a really bad habbit of this country: Striking is not just stopping work and putting your own employer in a difficult position, it is stopping other people from working and moving and putting the whole country in a difficult position. I think that goes against the idea of a democracy. Your own freedom to strike should not stop your neighboor’s freedom to go to work.

This is another reason why these movements make me angry sometimes: the fact that some people take this opportunity to become violent, break everything, steal and hurt others. Tuesday night I got back home to Republique as late as possible as I had heard that the demonstrations had gone especially violent near my home. Indeed, when I got back, I saw that every single shop window had been broken. Needless to say many people got injured and robbed. All this simply makes the whole movement look bad and undermines their message, which is a real shame.

I hadn’t been on Place de la Nation for quite a while and I had forgotten how grateful the statue was in it, compared to the one on Place de la Republique.

Couple kissing on the steps of the Sacre Coeur.

When I came out of the church and saw this couple, I immediately thought of Robert Doisneau - one of my favourite photographers, an inspiration always. Here is to you Monsieur Doisneau!

This taxi driver was very proud to pose next to his cab near Montmartre, and show off his very parisian tie.

Montmatre - La Boheme…

This building in the middle of the very famous shopping street Rue de Rivoli was extremely strangely decorated: a huge face, signs, plastic bottles and even what looked like a monkey on a cross…

Someone drew a smiley face on this lampost by the Canal St. Martin - and the light only seems warmer now.

In a tree of a little street corner in Paris, a sculpure of a tiny woman is balancing in the night…

Little pollen with the strenght to change winter into summer…

I also like the mysteries of the darker parts of the forest.

Spring is coming back, flowers are appearing all over my friends Claire and Marc’s garden

Thionville is a little town in the East of France, not very far from Metz.

I think it is quite stricking how the word “Photographie” is written on this wall, and also the fact that just one of the windows wooden blinds are open.

I left my soul there
Down by the sea

I lost control here
Living free
(Lyrics of “The Sea” - Morcheeba)

I cannot hear this song without thinking about Brighton - my dear, dear Brighton. This week-end, after 5 months away, I came back to this most perfect of town and I promised myself I will be back for good before long.

A street-art piece

A bike-parking piece

Has this become a new tradition? Remember how puzzled I was over these shoes back in August last year…

A quiet, sunny Sunday afternoon in front of the Hotel de Ville.

A lovely tiny little bird in the park next to the townhouse of the 3rd district of Paris. Today was a lovely day, it felt like spring was finally coming…

This alleyway belongs to a closed clothes market close by to where I live. (try to say “closed clothes market close” very fast several times in a row!) Personnally I would NEVER venture inside even if I could see the coat of my dreams in there! It looks way to scary and dangerous.

I still feel like black and white…
This is very close by from where I live. A very interesting structure in the middle of Paris!

I feel like black and white lately…
I think this building is at the same time very ugly and very impressive. The elephant in a rectangle is very representative of what it is like to live in a huge city like Paris.

A lot of colours in the gray city

These people had Bolivian flags - I am unsure what they were celebrating but the music was very beautiful.

Rainy, gray day in Paris - but with lots of beautiful things to make up for it!

It looks like the castle of the fairytale… but it’s in the middle of Paris, and countains not a princess but the national archives!

Walking more or less randomly in the streets I ended up in this really nice area…

The sculpted woman seems to be the queen (la reine) refered to on the stone building!

The reason we went to La Villette was in fact to see this salon of organic and natural products… here are some of the delicious things we got to see and taste

Nat & Flo at the salon…

There is this huge “map” of Paris made from satelite photographs on the floor of La Cite des Sciences at La Villette - a huge science and discovery museum just outside of Paris’ walls. It is quite something to be looking at just how huge this city really is… and to recognize all the places you know all the way from the sky! For instance on this photo the green parc is “Les Buttes Chaumonts” which I have taken several pictures of…

That was something to be right next to one of these! The noise, the dust everywhere… it felt like war was upon us!

The procession… not always appreciative of all the people lighting firecrackers after firecrackers as it went by!

And here comes, out of the cloud of dust, the very expected dragon… Happy Chinese New Year everybody!

Lots of pigeons trying to cope with the cold, and a lady at her window.

This little alleyway is a shortcut from my street to the Place de Republique, and I take it every morning to get to the underground. It countains various shops such as a shoe-repair and key maker, a chinese restaurant, a cafe, an estate agency, a school for languages… and it is open during the week and on Saturdays until about 8pm. The rest of the time I need to take the long way around to get home!

My very own Place de la Republique (well it feels like this now that I live here!)

As you can see from people’s dress - it is horribly cold these days… in fact I am ill! Hopefully I’ll be better after the week-end…

Sorry for not posting any photos in the last two weeks. I’m going to try and make up for it now that I have internet access at home!

Last week: A very peaceful walk by this canal in the evening. The Seine is much further from where I live!

View from my kitchen window, yesterday 11: 36 AM.
Yesterday was the first time I was seing my new flat during daytime! I love it, It is even nicer with daylight and I am starting to get organized.

The Arc de Triomphe by night.

Olga and little Mila are back from their holidays! I love the contrast between Mila’s face and Olga’s face

The Sacré Coeur, seen from la Place du Tertre by night.

Place du Tertre by night

Yesterday night - going up the stairs to see my favourite spot in Paris.

I am ashamed to say I don’t have any 2006 pictures yet! It’s been a bit rough starting work again right after the new year, on Monday the 2nd of January. Did not get much time to get my camera out!

But here are some photos of the end of 2005.

This is the view from my brother’s appartment, on the Friday 30th of December. We had quite some snow this day!

My brother and I went to visit a friend in the area of Montparnasse in Paris in the afternoon of Saturday, 31st of December. A lovely area with very nice cafes as you can see here…

… and some original places too!

And what did we do at my brother’s friends’ place?

An adventure game of course

Roses, stone, and snow.

This is my favourite grave, the one that belongs to the composer Chopin. The statue is so beautiful and there is always a fresh rose in its arms.

An old tomb stone.

The famous parisian cementery, Le Pere Lachaise, in which I decided to take a little walk yesterday in the quiet, cold afternoon.

The sky was just clearing when I took this picture.

“Place du Tertre” is a square full of painters selling their work or drawing your portrait for you. I think it’s the first time I came for a strol there on a snow day, but I see that they where well organized!

Though Montmatre is a very lively area, the street just behind the church of the Sacre Coeur was very quiet when I came by it. With the snow, the stone street and walls, it looks out of time’s bonds.

Though you cannot see it on the previous picture, there was a lot of snow today. Here is the view from the top of the hill on which the Sacre Coeur is built.

Here is a close up of what is probably my favorite building in Paris!

Paris also has some original gadget stores! This one is near one of the Chatelet underground exit, by “Les Halles.” I like the joke in its name.

I’ve had the best Christmas eve in many years, with an role playing adventure game on the theme of Harry Potter with my brother and a friend of his… A few dice, a map, and off you go to another world! We had a lot of fun…

The weather was really lovely yesterday, not as cold as the rest of december. I hope it’s going to stay this way during my whole week of holidays!

Translation: Beware of words.

Ice Skating in front of the “Hotel de Ville.”

Notre Dame de Noel

Lights from the cars and on the boat….

Here is the view from my office window, on the 20th floor of a huge building in the area “La Defense” in Paris, where I am working as of Monday. The sun sets very early now!

And here is a statue at the bottom of the tower I am working in - it looks surreal when you look at it with all the little office windows lit around it.

Yesterday (Sunday) I went to the Salon du vin, a great place to taste many different French wines - but it is not recommended to try ALL of them! (the picture shows the first floor, which was half as big as the second floor)

Here you can see the close up of one of the stands, where my brother bought a couple of bottles

Snow started to fall yesterday afternoon in Paris (and it was also snowing a lot in the morning!)

Going to Clichy yesterday morning (just on the outskirt of Paris) I passed by this beautiful statue in the middle of a park.

I like the bits of the Parisian metro which are overground

A beautiful little village from this region of the three borders - France, Belgium and Luxembourg.

I went to Metz this week-end to see one of my best friend who I hadn’t seen in 4 years. Here is a picture of the cathedral of Metz, coming out of the fog… (the weather was really cold!)

I love coming out of most metro stations. You see the sky as you go up the stairs, and in this case, a little piece of the opera house appearing in front of you.

Christmas illuminations in front of one of the biggest Parisian stores.

The light was hitting just one side of this square fountain…

A teddy bear and a chocolate brioche = a big smile from Mila!

This is one of the angles of the big underground shopping center “Forum des Halles” - the structure is very modern but all around it we have our old style cafés.

This is in front of the St. Lasare train station, just to make sure that people get to their trains on time….

I’m back to Paris now! The Seine is not quite the Brighton sea but it’s still nice to stroll next to it

More vineyards near where my mum lives.

There was a beautiful light coming from behind this white horse, while he was walking towards us, eager for attention.

This afternoon was especially beautiful and sunny - so me, my mum and my grandparents went for a walk by this artificial lake.

Here is a close up of the reflections on the water.

It’s been raining a lot in the past couple of days. My cat is not liking this

This is an avocado tree - of all things - that my mym has been growing from a seed in a pot in her kitchen. The morning light was reflecting very beautifully on the leaves.

My last gaze at the Brighton sky that has been mine for nearly a year, yesterday morning, at 7 AM.

I love how this imaginary crab is coming out of the frame…

My last day in Paris. The sun came out. At last!

I’ve never seen Paris so grey and polluted but thankfully we have the nice colours of the automn leaves to liven up things.

Two Pigeons by the fountain on La Place de L’Hotel de Ville.

The best thing for me about Paris is, of course, my family. Here is little 2 years old Mila washing her hands all by herself.

Looking up at a building and seeing a stone gargoyle laughing by some lovely red flowers.

I wonder if they got many applications!

The Duke of York Cinema looking all very young and vibrant, despite the fact that it is the oldest cinema in Britain to show films continuously, since its opening in 1910. I remember going to see a film there several months ago, but it didn’t look so pretty and yellow then - and there were no legs on the roof I will definitely check their program and make an effort to go there instead of the ugly Odeon next time - especially since they always show different films than the usual blockbusters. It’s worth a longer walk!

Here is their program. I think I’ll be off to see “Howl’s moving castle” very soon - I really loved “Spirited Away"!

This black dog coming out of nowhere was sprinting to the sea, took a dip, and then rushed back to wherever he had come from… The funniest sight I’ve seen in a long time! It’s a good thing I had my camera ready because the whole scene was over in just a couple of minutes…

Dark sky appart from this lovely pink outline of the horizon…

Family crossing a fence.

A lot of greenery…
We took the bus all the way up to Devil Dyke’s today, not too sure what we would find exept a bit of countryside. We were not disappointed: After a mere 20 minutes on the bus, we ended up in a lovely, green, breathtaking landscape full of paragliders flying and of people hiking or biking. I am definitely going to try a couple of these hikes some day.

Seagull landing

I love the tiny Elvis!

This is where I have been spending all my evenings for the last two weeks. I have been attending one of the excellent 2-weeks workshops held at the ACT school (Academy of Creative Training), and I had a fantastic time.

I know their website doesn’t look very serious, in fact let’s be honest, it is an eyesore, and so are their brochures; but don’t let that put you off, because the quality of the teaching is excellent, and the courses over the two weeks are varied and fun.

It is amazing how our group (we were 13 people from all walks of life - some wanting to become professional actors, some simply wanting to develop their confidence) managed to bond so quickly, due to the relaxed atmosphere, the excellent teachers, all those games and exercises that created a safe environement to explore different aspects of acting without ever feeling judged, an environement in which it was OK to make mistakes and have a good laugh about it.

I feel I have made a huge jump forward, and not only as an actress. The two weeks ended too quickly!

Meet Hugo, my friend Ocean’s dog, who had to have both his eyes removed a couple of years ago due to a very painful disease. Though blind, he is a very alert, friendly and happy dog, always eager to play. One could forget that he cannot see.

Flower in a bottle on a table in the street.
Another beautiful day, and on Saturday Gardinier street is closed to traffic so restaurants expand quite a bit into it! This flower and table belong to a new place, called Pokeno Pies - they have only one vegetarian pie, but it’s a very nice one so I do recommand it.

Having lunch in one of the places where you can eat outside in Gardinier street. How can you resist this cute little cat asking for its share?

This is a clothing store’s sign at night. I’ve always loved how original it looks! It is called Fruity and has very nice things that I usually cannot afford

When cropped like this the fountain really looks surreal… Like a cup floating in the sky. As to the birds, I really love the screaming one. You can almost hear it!

Perfect weather today: blue sky, sun, AND it was a bank holiday (how often do we get this lucky?) I took a walk by the sea in the morning and I thought those hanging, smiling dogs were just too funny.

There was a ray of sun illuminating this single flower out of the whole bush, while on my way to a friend’s house in Surbiton. It couldn’t have looked more beautiful even if it had been taken in a studio… I think this is my best flower picture to date!

Portrait of me at breakfast, taken by Aral Balkan

Getting up in the morning is always hard… but breakfast is one of the things I like most about the day!

The sun, the sky, a bird. There could be just this in the world and it would be beautiful.

I didn’t take any photos today, or yesterday (bad me! But I have been overworked AND it is raining all the time…) but here is an image I captured on Saturday. It’s all about the patterns of the tiles, and the colour… blue… my favourite colour (most days!)

Fluffed up pigeon in the cold, rainy night…

You have to imagine this model at work… the arrow seems to be speading towards the heart but of course it never reaches it… Very beautiful!

Here is the model maker!

Today was an amazing day - beautiful weather, low tide allowing you to walk far towards the horizon… A magical atmosphere, which is I think reflected in this photograph!

People have way too much fun in this town…

I don’t know why really, but I had a good laugh when I saw this photograph! I think it’s the smile, and the fact that you can barely see him emerge from the dark, contrasting sharply with the white wall

This place reminded me a bit of “La Place du Tertre” in Paris, with its cafes and restaurants surrounded by artists and painters. Of course this is a much smaller version of it, but still very nice!

Yesterday the weather was ideal to go visit the sea life center (pouring rain all day). We got to see the turtules being fed, and I must say I was completely touched by the story of this particular turtle:

After being used in a soap commercial, instead of being released in the wild again, this sea turtle, who in nature would spend its life swimming day and night, only on the ground in order to lay its eggs maybe once in its life time, was sent to the London Zoo where it spent 50 years without any water to swim in. It was only watered once or twice a day in order to be kept wet… I cannot imagine the suffering this poor animal had to endure! In addition, sea turtules are vegetarian, but she was fed only fish. When the sea life center rescued her, about two years ago, it was in a terrible state, its shell all damaged and soft. It is good to see that she has now recovered her old strenght, that her shell is once again hard and strong, and that she seems all fine again. But to think that this horrid treatment has lasted for 50 years! I have no words for it.

I love how surreal the shark is looking, a bit blurred as it was speeding in the aquarium… It looks almost like a painting.

I was walking on a residential street and I was stopped in my tracks by this very comical sight: it looks as if this bird is nesting on the doorstep! It seemed very annoyed at being stared at as well…

It is amazing to see that some seagulls become almost like pets. There is an old lady on our street who feeds the birds, and one of the seagulls seem to be following her around wherever she goes, and stays close to her house when she is in. I am pretty sure it is also the case of this one seagull.

I was playing around with moving the camera while taking the picture on a long exposure shot… I quite like how this one turned up!

How on Earth did these shoes get there?

What I like about this image is the pattern formed by the wooden flooring and how it contrasts with the smooth blue sky.

Amazing music coming from the most unlikely of instruments…

Orchard Street: a shopper’s paradise in Singapore. I love this city: it is clean, the sidewalks are wide with plenty of trees, the weather is troppical of course, the people are friendly… I am not much of a big-city fan but this one is an exception!

One of the food stands in the streets… those were delicious by the way!

There was an eating contest in the street, with about 6 people trying to eat a huge pile of spicy food as fast as possible… The woman drinking on the picture is the one who won… it was amazing to watch!

Monkey deep in thoughts

I used to only see these on calendars… I love the real thing!

Plenty of beautiful fishes in the sea…