techno parade de paris

craaazy weekend in paris, as thousands met at place de la république to kick off the annual "techno parade" (cue heavy french accent). it's been happening for the past thirteen years and is a huge event that parisians looove to celebrate. we had no idea it was even happening until the night before when the words david guetta, bob sinclar and free (!!) were shouted around...

we joined the crowds - walking, dancing, jumping, singing & laughing behind dozens of huge bus-floats that were blasting techno, electronic, dubstep and drum & bass out onto the street. such a crazy vibe with everyone dressed up, people not only on the ground - but also dancing on top of bus stops or climbing up traffic light poles. confetti, streamers & flares brought some of paris' oldest roads to life for the  festival.

the parade made its way through place de la bastille, where we saw hundreds of people sitting, dancing & climbing all over the colonne de juillet - the huge statue in the middle of the square. was so strange to see the place buzzing with so much life. i wonder if the people who inaugurated the column 170 years ago ever envisaged hundreds of people raving on it...was an awesome sight to see - unforgettable!

after the parade we made a beeline for the creperie, where we all ordered the best possible crêpe combination: nutella-banane. yum! i dread to think how many of these badboys i've consumed over the past five months... you only live once, right??? the same goes for baguettes, pain au chocolat's, cheese...

another day of new memories to lock away in my paris safe,

a+,

S.

♥

seine booksellers

lining the riverbank from pont neuf to pont des arts are the green, wooden boxes of the seine river booksellers. at night the little boxes lie dormant, but during the day they open up into a snaking line of miniature stalls overflowing with old books, new books, big books, miniature books, foreign-language  books, etc... 

although that part of the booksellers is self-explanatory, the little shops/stalls also sell prints of famous artworks, copies of famous magazine covers & iconic images dating back to the 20s, both new & pre-loved postcards (i bought an old print of the arc de triomphe with a barely legible love letter from the 70s written on the back. cute), old keychains made up of random recycled advertisements from previous decades, amongst a sea of other oddities.

the booksellers run right up to pont des arts - the "love-lock" bridge, so the stalls leading up to the pedestrian bridge sell locks of all shapes, colours & sizes that passers by can then attach to the bridge's railings. i somehow always seem to lose track of time while strolling along the banks of the seine...i get caught up rummaging through old prints of paris (of which there are literally thousands), flicking through the  impressionist prints dangling from the roofs of the little boxes & snapping the same photos time and time again - everywhere i look just seems to capture a new moment of the quaint little existence of the seine river booksellers...

à bientôt,

S.

looking across the seine to the musée du louvre

a street busker playing a piano-ish type of instrument i've never seen before