Photo Challenge #7

We can't send you Parisian prizes anymore, but we can still test your knowledge of the city. And to make it interesting, if you guess right, we'll send you the address of one of the most interesting views of the city.

All you have to do is tell us 1) the name of the square and 2) what recent film features this square prominently*.

*This is exactly the kind of trivia you'd get on a walking tour with us - and knowing that probably makes you grateful you didn't visit!

Final Photo Challenge (#6)

In order to win our last prize of the year, name the painting, the painter, the museum where you'll find this, and your Zodiac sign.

This time, comments will be hidden while we collect responses. You have until midnight Wednesday to submit your guess. Good luck!

Photo Challenge #5

Name this medieval fortress located just outside the city limits of Paris, and win a prize!

We're only going to be able to send Parisian goodies for another few weeks, so get in on the action while you still can! (Ineligible for participation: Becky and Élodie).

Happy Birthday Louis!

Today is Louis's birthday! Yay!

It is also the start of our 6th month in Paris. Wow!

We've been really busy lately celebrating Louis's birthday, so you'll have to wait until all the festivities are finally over to hear all about it. We have just enough time to post this photo and ask you to guess where it was taken. Hint: we're NOT in a train station.

Photo Challenge #4/It's a Trick!

If you're walking around our neighborhood and really want to learn the first-person plural imperative form of the verb "to be," look down.

(Photo Challenge #4: name the guy who seems to be saying, "let's be subversive!")

I'm pretty sure this graffiti/street art/propaganda is a trick. If someone tells you to be subversive, and if you do something "subversive," then you're subordinating yourself/conforming to that someone's demands. On the other hand, if someone tells you to be subversive, the truly subversive thing to do is to ignore that order completely.

So when Panda and I walk over this stenciled command every morning, we do the subversive thing: we keep on walking.

Photo Challenge 3

Panda-à-Paris is pleased to present the newest collection of yet another brilliant young artist. Louis K's work responds to the fragility and ephemerality of contemporary life by focusing on the normally-unseen consequences of the consumption - and rejection - of quotidian objects. In this work, K (as he prefers to be called) transforms a residual into something beautiful, recreates the meaning of a container that once held information, but now imparts it.

Ok, so if this were a true photo challenge you'd be asked to guess the "medium" of this "art." I hope I'm not spoiling anything by telling you that these are newspaper bags, which are repurposed as receptacles for Panda's very own "works of art," which she "creates" at the park once or twice a day.

This photo challenge is actually a desperate plea: these are all the newspaper bags we have left. We need more. We originally thought we'd accumulate tons of little bags from grocery shopping here, but ever since I cut myself off from visiting every independent store in the neighborhood (boulangerie, boucherie, poissonerie, fromagerie, primeur, chocolaterie, you get the idea) once a day, our bag supply dropped quickly. So now we're asking for your help.

If you subscribe to a newspaper or if you know someone else who does, could you start saving up bags to eventually send to us? Believe it or not, no one here gets a newspaper delivered - at least, not that we've seen.

We thank you, and the people of Paris thank you.

We Have a Winner!!

Congratulations to Laurenmcw, who won our second photo challenge! She correctly identified that the photos from two previous posts (here and here) were taken at the Parc de Bercy, just across the river from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Two weeks ago, on a walk with our new friends Rachel and Adam, we discovered these random statues - and the artists who were slapping new coats of paint on them. We couldn't decide if they were "for real" or not. Who sculpts stereotypes of people from different cultures, and in bronze no less? Of course, for some of them the stereotypes are less obvious (maybe the next photo challenge is figuring out what culture each statue is supposed to represent):

Adam tries to guess the statue's native culture

Turns out they're just façades. Just like the message they seek to impart to society?

View of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France from the Parc de Bercy, over the Passarelle Simone de Beauvoir

As her prize for winning the photo challenge, Laurenmcw should look for something small, tasty, and typically Parisian to arrive in the mail within the next few weeks. Congrats!

No, Seriously. Guess Where!

A few days ago I posted a funny picture and challenged you to guess where it was taken. So far, no one has guessed, so I'm just going to add another clue or two to stimulate your interest/imagination:

And this next one may make it more obvious . . .

If you were with us when these pictures were taken, you're ineligible to guess. And if you don't live in Paris or have never been, I will accept guesses of general neighborhoods or even arrondissements. Go for it!

Packing Photo Challenge

This is all the stuff we're bringing. Everything you see in the next few shots has found its way into a bag.

Now, for a little fun. In the next few pictures, find the object that's out of place (something we're not bringing with us) and win a prize!* (Hint: If you click on the pictures, you can zoom in!)

* TBA upon arrival in France, but we'll be sure to make it worth your while!!