It was Sunday yesterday so i thought i'd wander over to the street market at the Bastille. I was expecting something small with maybe some bric-a-brac, but this was a large street market selling all kinds of food and housewares and flowers, and it was very busy.

It was getting to be around lunchtime so i thought i'd better eat something before i turned grumpy. Fortunately there was lots to choose from. I didn't eat these mushrooms but i did have a crepe citron, made in two minutes right in front of me. Only 5 euros with a bottle of water, and delicious.

There was lots of fresh fish and produce, some of which did not look familiar and also this stall called Chevaline, which sells horse meat and seemed fairly busy. I've never eaten horse but i did have pigeon once in England. I'm sure there must have been a pigeon stall here somewhere.

Somehow i thought i was going to be over my jetlag after the first day but at 3am last night i realized that might not be the case. So the last couple of days i've been walking around in abit of a haze and here are some of the random things i've seen.

In front of Notre Dame Cathedral, in celebration of its 850 anniversary, they've built a large set of bleachers, for a light show on the facade. I spent a half hour sitting up there watching a street performer upstage the cathedral. He was wearing a sort of frightening pig mask and would sneak up beside people and slip his arm through theirs, then they'd turn and see his face and jump or shriek. The crowd ate it up.

This is an art installation at the Palais de Tokyo. Look how nicely that old lady is sleeping despite being in the middle of an art museum. I bet she doesn't have jet lag.

This is from the same exhibition, which actually was about contemporary artists re-imagining cemeteries. Look what you can acheive with just some tinsel and plaster cast of jugs. But this piece also made slightly sleepy.

This is also from the Palais de Tokyo. Baitgogo by Brazilian Henrique Oliveira. A very impressive room size installation which turns the structure of the room back into the wood it came from. Up close it was very woody. After this it was time for a nap.

This is my new roommate. I'm not sure that he's even french. In fact i'm not sure where he's from. But at least he's quiet.

I found him at a little store that sells acupuncture and medical supplies in the 6th arrondissment. He's going to be a model!

This morning, during a break in the rain i went out for abit of a walk around the neighbourhood and down by the river. I took some exterior shots of the Cite while i headed out...

and for those of you who like maps, voici le map.....

here's how the Cite International Studio looks upon arrival.(It's the Cartier Room!) it's actually abit larger than i expected though the layout is kinda odd. i'm on the second floor on the river side of the building. there is quite a busy road between the building and the river but there are a large group of plane trees that muffle the sound.  there is also a small kitchen alcove, a small bedroom and a good size bathroom. there is a large sort of utility closet by the entrance door contain the ghosts and debris of past Canadian occupants including a TV, a computer printer, 2 fans, a crutch, a box of tools, a box of maps of Paris and two of the saddest looking pillows i've ever seen. i've already broken a wineglass.

This is what i've been thinking about this summer as i get ready to visit the cemeteries of Paris. I've always been fascinated by graveyards. I can remember my family teasing me when i was a child and we'd be out for a Sunday drive i'd see a cemetery and get excited. It's always enjoyable and calming to walk through the green space of a graveyard and read the tombs and wonder about the people buried there. And it's something like an art gallery, with the quiet and the different sculptures. I've been trying to think of cemeteries as material rather than object, so to use them in some way other than depicting them.

This is the grave of Harold Foster who died January 18th, 1960 and is buried in Toronto's Saint James Cemetery. The shirt is my addition.

Here's my suitcase. For the next four months it is my studio, my wardrobe, my library. Hopefully it will be big enough. But not too heavy.

I bought this suitcase in a small town in Scotland at a charity shop called the Comrie Cancer Club. It cost about 5 pounds and seemed in pretty good condition for second hand. It also had a small round medallion on the zipper to distinguish it from all other sqaure black bags. On the rough cobbles of Comrie my previous bag, also a 'wheelie', had become a 'draggie'. Lets hope this one hangs in there.