The sun really came out today and so it seemed rude not to go out and enjoy it. It feels like it's been a few weeks since I've been into town, so Lucy and I embarked on a 5 mile wander around the centre of Paris. It's so easy to just walk and walk here, that you don't realise how much you've done!
We walked from our apartment, around the Marais looking at a couple of art galleries, stopped for some lunch in a café, where I had the jazziest Croque Monsieur ever, then walked all the way down to the river.

The river is still pretty heavily flooded, so there are certain parts where you can't walk along the banks at the moment.

We crossed into St.Germain (south of the river!), which we haven't been to for a while. Saw a student march while we were there, but it was pretty low-key. Apparently The Sun has been telling it's readers that Paris is more dangerous that Bagdad at the moment with all the protests, but I don't think that any people are being killed here. It does feel like it's all being blown out of proportion somewhat!

We rested our legs on some book benches for a while, before heading home.

The weather has been really on/off the last couple of days. Rain, dries up, rain again....repeat - all day.

Lucy went out to meet a friend today, so I spent most of the day trying to work out how to get video onto my phone.
After many trials, mistakes and trawling of websites, I've eventually managed to make it work, although it could probably still do with a few tweaks!


I guess I'm just trying to make up for the fact that I don't have a video iPod!

When I got back from snowboarding, this had turned up in my mailbox. Many thanks to Bingo at Mischief. A prince amongst men!
I was stoked to check out all the skating that was going on in the North and some of the spots too. It was a surprise to see my old friend Brent in the friends section of the video and it reminded me of the times when we used to share a house and go skate Royal Oak in the freezing winter. As Scott Bourne once said to us as we were going out skating "You's some dedicated muthaf****!" (Brent now lives in sunny Los Angeles).
Defintely inspired me to get out there, regardless of the conditions and go skate. How they managed to finish this video through the winter is a mystery to me though!

Lucy and I went out to check the student and trade union march against the new law that the government has pushed through, which enables companies to sack young workers within 2 years for no reason.
The police had all the streets around our area cordoned off to stop the march from spreading, and some of the main boulevards were turned into massive carparks for all the coachloads of people who had been bussed into the city.


We walked from Republique to Bastille and came across the beginning of the march. It did seem that most of the people there had come just to protest the new law, but you could tell that some people were there just to cause trouble (the usual anti-establishment types and kids from the suburbs who had been fighting with the police during the riots last November).
We went home after we reached Bastille and then streamed BBC News 24 to hear and see what was going on. It did seem weird to be watching something over the internet to see what was happening just down the street from us, but it was probably the best option, although from what I could make out, the rioting was only in a small area and while it was all going on at one end of the Place De Republique people were sitting outside bars at the other end, drinking coffee and almost oblivious to what was going on!

This evening Lucy and I went along to check out a new language school. The other one was good, but a little too far and quite expensive, so we've found one within walking distance with a smaller number of people in the class.
It was good to get back into the classroom again. I guess it's all too easy to get by without learning too much language most of the time, and then when I really need it I come unstuck! This time we're trying out 2 evening classes for 2 hours each week, rather than the intensive 4 hours a day, 5 days a week which we did before.
I think this is going to work out better.

This morning I woke with one less hour of sleep inside me, which is always tough. Lee was leaving today, so we went to check out the local market and pick up some wine before he left. As I wandered down to the metro with him to catch his train I got a text from Tura which just read "skate Bastille, now". It seemed only fair to obey this, and the weather seemed reasonable, so I grabbed my board and went for a skate. The Bastille 3 stair aka Trois Marche is a fun little area to warm up and meet other skaters.
Afterwards we skated up to the canal skatepark, which is pretty much my local skatepark.

Not much to shout about. One quarterpipe, the block and rail on the slope. What you see is what you get, but it's pretty fun.

It seemed that the weather also heard that it was the first day of spring and adjusted itself accordingly. After a couple of hours of skating we grabbed a couple of beers and lounged by the side of the canal.

canalbeers.com?

At 10pm Fos and his teamrider, Rogie, arrived back in Paris after a couple of days in Lyon. We went to The Poppin bar and had a couple of jugs of beers to celebrate.
One guy, Franc, turned up with some marker pens and decided to give everyone tattoos.
Here's mine and Rogie's


and a portrait of me on Fos' arm.

Actually, Meribel wasn't as nice as the town we stayed in, which was Mottaret. A little further into the mountains than Meribel, but all part of the same ski area.
So, Lee turned up on Friday evening in Paris and we had a special meal laid on for him! Raclette!

Saturday morning we headed out on a not so bright but early morning to Gare De Lyon to catch our train. Then it was an hour coach journey and we were at our resort. It was a bit of an odd one, because the only real way to reach the hotel was via a funicular lift which ran up the mountainside.

Check the graffiti. Pimp My Funicular!

The mountains were amazing. We had a bit of snow most days, with a couple of heavier showers during the night, which meant that conditions were pretty good most days.

We did have a few whiteouts, when the clouds covered the valley and we had difficulty trying to work out exactly where the mountain was going, but it was all good fun.

We ate pretty good too. Managed to get most of the mountain foods at some point or another (mainly meat and cheese in different combinations!

Fondue

Raclette
(Tartaflette - not shown).

And finally, a couple of random photos...



The only other photo that really has a story is this one of the shed.

From the other side of the shed the snow had created a little transition into the roof top which meant that you could ride up the roof. The only difficulty was that half the roof wasn't covered with snow so you were riding up the bare roof, which was good fun and a challenge to ride up and back down again, like a quarter pipe (skate ramp). Earlier in the week Lee and I saw one guy on a snowboard ride straight up one side and down the other, dropping back onto the snow and riding away. I'd thought it possible but decided I was going to do it once I saw someone else do it. Anyways, we rode up and down the one side a few times and realised that you really didn't need too much speed to get to the top of the roof, so when I went for the same line as the other snowboarder I was careful not to carry too much speed, but I misjudged it somewhat and actually cleared the whole downslope side of the roof and landed in front of the door to the shed! I didn't actually ride out of the jump. It was kinda close, but I decided not to try it again! Still, I'm glad I gave it a go and it made my week!!

The only other strange thing that happened was bumping into Jim Harrison, who I used to skate with at Playstation Skatepark with on a Wednesday night. He was spending a week snowboarding with friends, saw the Slam City Skates stickers on my board and figured he might know the person. Small world!!

This week has been a bit quiet, hence the lack of things to write about.
On Wednesday Lucy and I went for a walk into town. We went to the river by Place De La Concorde and all the rain from last week seems to be making it's way into the Seine.

This is normally a pathway alongside the river! I think it must have risen at least 2 metres more than normal here!

Afterwards we went to lounge about in the Tulleries. Now that the sun is out it almost feels like Spring is in the air! Hopefully not too far away now.


Saw this boat on the river. I think it's the fanciest boat moored up on the Seine. It had amazing hanging chairs and loungers on the decking and the vintage car on the back just tops it off.


Yesterday I went with Mark to the place where he gets his painting frames done. Funny couple of Chinese guys who work there. Real characters. Even though there was a bit of a language barrier for me, we could still kinda communicate and have a laugh.
Tomorrow Lee arrives and then we go snowboarding on Saturday morning. Can't wait to get to the slopes. Apparently it's the best conditions at the moment for years!

Friday afternoon Newton and I went to meet up with Dennis at Thé Troc for some chai and caramel cake.


Saturday, the weather was really on and off. Woke up nice and sunny, but by the time I'd had breakfast and ready to go out the heavens had opened up and everywhere was wet. In the afternoon Lucy and I went out for a little walk around our neighbourhood to stretch our legs. We walked up the canal to the big lock. It looked like the canal is going to burst it banks anytime soon.





Sunday lived up to it's name and the sun finally came out after a week of rain! Met up with Tura and skated down to Bastille for a midday warm-up game of SKATE, then on to some spots along the river and finally ending up at Bercy, which is where everyone in Paris seems to skate/hangout and catch up with each other. Bumped into Soy, Jon Monie and Jean-Marc there, but by then we'd been skating for hours and pretty tired. Still it was nice to get a bit of rolling done.

The 3 stair at Bastille. One of my local skatespots and a good place to warm up. Sometimes this place can get pretty crowded, but I guess it was a little too early for a lot of people.


These bars run for a couple of hundred metres along the Seine. Good for skateboarding.


Finally, the block spot at Bercy. This is where everyone hangs out and skates. Kinda like South Bank in London (without the banks).

Next weekend Lee is coming over from England and heading to the mountains with Lucy and I. We're off to Meribel Motterat for a week of skiing (Lucy) and snowboarding (Lee and I).
Looking forward to hitting up the slopes on my new set-up. (Capita board, Union bindings, Forum boots).


Thanks to my friends at Slam City Skates for sorting me out.

Back to the batcave! The ramps are pretty much finished now. Just need to put some kind of protective coating on them, then the next step is to sort out the area in the garden where it'll be put back together.


The warehouse where we have been putting this all together is where Christophe and Joseph work. It's a special effects warehouse, that does animations, miniature models and all that kind of stop frame photo stuff. Pretty cool to see what they're up to there, but the bit where they work on the animations looks like a battery farm for animators! Row upon row of people sitting at huge computers beavering away in silence!

Today we finished off building the frames for the flat bottom of the ramp. I don't think I've ever built anything as sturdy as this before.


After we were finshed, the sun came out, and Newton played around for a while....

It's been raining a lot the past couple of days, so I've been going to help out a friend who's been building a miniramp to fit in his garden. The ramp is having to be built in 4ft sections to make it transportable to the house, and should be about 20ft wide when it's done. It's going to be a good summer!


The wood they're using for the surface is too thick that they've had to develop a special technique to bend the wood into place before they screw it to the surface. It seems to work, although I'm not sure what it's going to be like when it's finished!


While we were they, Mark tried out his new ride!!!!

I've just starting working with some bits and pieces in Photoshop and this is all I've managed so far.
Hopefully I'll get to grips with it in the next couple of days?

This photo original came from Ollie magazine in Japan, from a trip I took there to meet with Fos when he was starting Heroin Skateboards. I think Snowy broke his board ollieing down 14 stairs and they had to shoot photos of someone, so...

It's been quite cold recently. We've had some snow, but none of it has settled, which I guess is good because things tend to grind to a halt when there's even a small amount of snow (well, that's what always happened in England. It would be interesting to see if it's the same here).


While on the subject of snow, we've booked a week snowboarding/skiing in the Alps. Lee is coming over from England and we're all going to take the train to the mountains.

Mark and Eva are back from their trip to Hong Kong/Japan. They came back with all sorts of Japanese wonders, such as this miniture GameBoy Advance (I thought you'd like this Bruv Phil). Sounds like they had an amazing time. I think Mark has posted some photos from it on his blog (Newtblog, linked on the right).


That evening (Friday) Benjamin and Maria called up and I ended up skating down to Kitsch Bar which is close to their house. Nice little bar. After a while Tura and Ursula turned up too. We had the little room at the back to ourselves, although the place is so small, the back room is almost the same size as the other half of the bar.


Saturday morning Lucy and I met up with Mark and went to Thé Troc, which is an odd little comic book/tea shop not far from our house. It's owned by the person who publishes and distributes the old Robert Crumb comics, like The Famous Freak Brothers, which comes from the 1960's San Francisco vibes. The place is like walking into one of the old coffee shops on Haight Street, SF, but with 100's of teas to choose from rather than coffee. The walls are covered in all sorts of paraphernalia from 60's SF, like this poster...

(Brent, if you're reading this, Newt thought you'd appreciate this one!).


We sat there for a couple of hours and played Connect4 for quite a while.

Afterwards we took a walk up the street to Belleville, from the park there you have a pretty cool view of Paris. It wasn't quite the weather for it, but it was nice to stretch the legs and check it out.


Saturday evening we were just going to have a quiet evening but we ended up going to a crêperie about 5 mins walk away. It was really good and much crêpe was eaten.