Wednesday, March 18, 2009

I am a Left Bank kinda girl

from google.com (Hemingway old apt) 5th arrondissement.

I love this area of Paris. La Rive Gauche. Where Picasso to Satre to American writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller and Gertrude Stein used to hang out. Just after Montparnasse to the commercially saturated Rue Rennes to the three pyramides of Les Deux Magots - Cafe de Flore and Brasserie Lipp. To artsy-busy blvd St Michel to the calm feeling you get entering the 5th arrondissement that housed the Institut du Monde Arabe and where Hemingway used to live in 1922 at 74 Rue de Cardinal Lemoine. I love it.

I just found out that all this time I was walking past Rue de Fleurus that Gertrude Stein used to live on number 27. Ah no wonder I felt like even though it's a quiet street, it feels very deep in history. She collected major paintings by Matisse, Picasso and many more that would become masterpieces and said to Hemingway that one should only buy paintings and forgo expensive food and clothing (at that time).

Yves Saint Laurent named his collection in 1996 Rive Gauche as a tribute for the supposedly lower classes of the left bank to high fashion and voila! it succeeded didn't it?

The Latin quartier, the romantic past, the rich literature spaces from Shakespeare & Co, Abbey Bookshop to San Francisco Book where all I have entered and begone. The other side of Paris...whichever you would classify it...It is my area and I would not consider living anywhere else in Paris.
street vendors along the seine. classic.
Sorbonne University is right around the corner

Alliance Francais centre at Rue de Fleurus where I will attend classes






Infront of Abbey Bookshop. Seems like all the English bookshops in Paris has this tattered, over condensed feel...but I love it anyway. I feel like a hermit inside.
Ironically sad but the green kermit is so cute. He was singing American songs. I had to give some of my coins. Too sad.

2 comments:

Natalie said...

i notice that studying in melb has profounded u, while ur determination to go to paris is polishing u...but must continue to live in wonder,not wander.

Natalie said...

glad that we r connected, at least, to d blog, so i can get a glance of what u 'see' everyday..keep it up ok.