Nancy

On the fifteenth, my dad & Helen arrived. My dad & I left immediately the next day for Nancy (city in Lorraine...as in the quiche...not too far from Luxembourg). My dad went for a conference and I wanted to check out the town since I had never been. Very interesting architecture. A little bit of the medieval town survived; and most of the newer center of town had buildings from the 17th/18th centuries. What attracted me most was all the art nouveau architecture scattered around town. I'm a big fan of art nouveau and had not even made the connection with Nancy until we got there. It turns out Nancy was one of the great centers. The Musee de l'ecole de Nancy had a very impressive collection of art nouveau artists from Nancy, especially Emile Gallé, Victor Prouvé, and Louis Majorelle. There were several entire rooms preserved, with matching furniture, walls, ceilings, etc.:





(Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera with me to Nancy, so these photos are taken from a museum catalog that we purchased).

Here's a ceramic cat by Emile Gallé:



The museum also had an amazing collection of glassware, lamps, furniture, etc. This was a great discovery for me.

The next morning, before boarding the train back to Paris, we took a quick walk around town to look for art nouveau houses. We found a couple of very interesting ones, with the typical organic patterns, vegetative chimneys, etc. I wish I had my camera...

Maman

My mom visited from Nov 5 to Nov 10! It was a while ago, but I never posted anything. I was actually working a lot of the time she was here, and Gina took her around town. One the first day, they went to see the wallabies in the Jardin des plantes:



The next day was the first Sunday of the month, when many museums, etc. have free admission. First, the three of us went to the Sainte-Chapelle:



It was a sunny day, so the windows were particularly glorious:



We also went to the conciergerie and the museum of medieval art. No pictures though.

Everybody (except me) left on the tenth: my mom went back to California; Gina went back to China (to pick up her visa for the U.S.). This meant several days of canned food for me.

Breakfast

FYI, here's what breakfast looked like on October 31:



One of us ate basil omelette with steak hache and one of us ate instant noodles with laoganma (a spicy black bean sauce).