Among other funky features of the really cool boutique hotel we stayed
at in Barcelona: a couple recommendations posted on the bathroom wall…

Buying novelty lighters off Lin, whenever going for drinks at La
Perle, has become sort of a tradition. This week’s incredibly tasteful
edition: a built-in flashlight, projecting very cheesy depictions of
ladies in lascivious pose on the nearest plain surface you point it at
(a version featuring nubile young men instead of mammary-enhanced
Eastern European models is also available, Lin informs us). An instant
success with our sophisticated lot, of course.

Harold and Loïse, popping by for tea. Here seen demonstrating the,
erm, impressive floor-to-ceiling space of my apartment…

Jacques took us on a guided tour of Paris’ Christmas lights
(as well as some not so christmassy ones)…
Exceptionally, we pushed it to the farther suburban fiefdom of Nicolas
Sarkozy’s best pal ever: Patrick Balkany, mayor of Levalois-Perret (about
10 minutes East of Paris). Definitely worth the trip, if only to see
the deserted city hall of a posh suburban town, turned into something
straight out of Disneyland Electric Parade (which I’m pretty sure
wasn’t the original intent).

Rie, standing in the middle of the Nympheas room at the Orangerie
museum, taking it all in…

On New Year’s Eve, shortly after our dinner party and before heading
out our separate way for the second half of the night, Pierre and I
opted to take a bottle to the roof for countdown (an old tradition).
Thus failing by very little to make New Year’s Day news as the two
drunken idiots who fell down 6 floors to their death a few seconds
into 2008 (another old tradition). The view is still totally worth it,
though.

Who ever said the French didn’t bathe? In Paris, even birds hop in
their bathtub (or nearby rain puddle near the central fountain of the
Luco) at least once a day…

Of course, no Parisian christmas would be complete without the traditional lighting of the candles on Jacques’ authentic Swiss
christmas tree…