Luis & Monet's Garden

Meet Luis.

And Luis mascot - the random kangaroo.  

Bottom line:  I finally got a bike.  It is the most wonderful thing that has happened to me.  A) I have stopped riding the metro completely.  I ride my bike all over Paris (yay googlemaps), and I even ride up the hill to Montmartre.  Road bikes are the best thing ever... even though this one needs some minor surgery (you may notice that the handlebars are facing the wrong way).  But I will say that it allows me to see more of the city.  (Not to mention Luis already has a secret admirer... she's a precious bike named Magenta who parks next to her sometimes at the shop.  Magenta even left Luis a love note one day... via her crazy owner, Billy.)  

Meet Jackson and Paul.  

We had a picnic on the Pont des Arts.  Behind the bike is the Louvre.  It was beautiful, but still a little cold.  I'm waiting for next week and it should be perfect picnic-ing weather.
I also went to Monet's Gardens a couple weeks ago with Paul, Devin, and Adam.  I cannot explain how beautiful the flowers were.  These pictures do not do them justice.
This was his Japanese style garden.  All the flowers are grouped by color - Monet's idea.  Not the Japanese's idea.
Some of his famous water lilies.

I definitely see a similarity (the photo below, I took last summer at the Orangerie - this is one of Monet's panels in his water lily series.)

Devin and Adam are taking some inspiration from the gardens in drawings of their own.

The other half of the garden was very traditional - and had every color of tulip I could possibly imagine including dark, DARK purple which looked almost black.

This was the house itself.  Inside were reproductions of Monet's most famous works including a lot of the Japanese art that he was also inspired by and collected.  After the death of his children who took care of his estate, all the original pieces  were taken back to Paris and put in either the Orangerie, the Orsay, or the Marmatton.

So... that was my trip.  

Van gets here in 3 days.  BAH!  I'm calling his time here the "Food Tour of Paris."  We're just going to cruise Paris based on where our next meal is taking place.

And I've started reading a book called Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts.  If you're looking for something to read, look no further.  Its a almost true story about the author who escapes from a maximum security prison in Australia and flees to India where he falls in love with the people and the city and ends up becoming a gun runner for the Indian mafia.  Does it really get much better than that?!  Read it.  Don't think about it.  Just do it.