Today in France, those who are fooled on April 1 are called the “Poisson d’Avril” (the April Fish). A common prank (especially among school-aged children) is to place a paper fish on the back of an unsuspecting person. When the paper fish is discovered, the victim is declared a “Poisson d’Avril.” It is also a time when you see chocolate fish in the windows of Chocolatiers.

I liked these chocolate scallops the best.

I’m always ending up with photos without a theme but, what the heck, here they are anyway.

One of the love locks found on the Pont des Arts. Some of them, like this one, are really individualized.

People enjoying the warm weather and sunshine along the Seine below Pont des Arts.

These were for sale at a marche selling food from around France. These are a cheesecake and, as it looks like, the top is burned. They are called Tourteau Fromage and are only baked in a certain area of France. I bought one out of curiosity and it was basically a sweet vanilla cake and that black topping, which is said to keep the cake moist, gives it a slightly burned taste, not my cup of tea.

I saw this grafitti not far from where we live. It isn’t painted on the wall, but pasted.

This door is nearby that grafitti. Isn’t it great?

I was in the Carrousel de Louvre the other morning, the underground shopping mall that that leads to the Louvre Museum, before the crowds arrived. Since it was even a Tuesday morning the Louvre was closed so that meant it was quieter than usual. I was there to take a quick free course offered by the Apple store there before it was opened for business for new Mac owners. It was about the photography section of the MAC which is fairly new to me. I can’t say I learned much not because it was all in French, which it was, but it turned out that I already knew everything just from searching around on my own.

It’s hard to get a photo of the inverted pyramid with no people in it.

A closeup.

The Apple Store. These stores are always just packed with people. When my class ended at 10 AM people poured in.

There is also a Marriage Freres across the way. I went in and bought some tea. They always have the nicest windows.

They don’t usually allow photos inside these stores but when I asked a man working there if I could take a photo because it looked so nice he said, just for me exceptionally, I could take a photo. Upstairs looked like a Japanese tea room. I only got this rather ordinary photo and now wish I had gone upstairs for a closer look. I think it’s one of the nicest tea rooms around.

We had a fabulous sunny day in Paris. Here are some more photos around the Palais Royal, one of my favorite places for photos.

This restaurant is at the entrance to the Palais Royal. If you saw the rather ordinary movie called The Tourist, the movie opens with the character played by Angelina Jolie sitting here at a table outside.

The fountain/pond in the middle of the gardens. All the chairs were full of people sitting in the sun, a favorite thing of Parisians when the sun comes out.

The Grand Vefour, a famous restaurant in the Palais Royal. I wanted a photo of the flowers inside and had my camera up when a waiter stuck his head around the door. He invited me in to take a photo if I wanted. Colette and Napoleon both ate here in past times.

The sun shining through the columns there.

I took a quick walk into Palais Royal with a friend and had a wonderful surprise as we rounded a corner and saw all sorts of color.

Pink tulip trees were in bloom.

I loved the bright pink against the blue sky.

Purple hyacinths were in bloom and the fragrance was fabulous. Can you see the butterfly? I didn’t when I took this photo.

This girl in her go go boots was blooming too. She was having her photo taken by what looked like a professional photographer. The men were salivating all over the place.

I guess I could have titled this The Paris Apartment like a blog I read. I wish I had the money to buy fabulous French antiques-and we do have a couple-but mostly our furniture is a mix of his and hers from our former lives. One of these days I will put up photos of our kitchen but I haven’t reached the point where it is all clean and I remember to take a photo. Right now there is something cooking on the stove and the sink is full of dirty dishes, not the most photogenic of rooms. I am happy with how it came out though.

This room is what we call the living room. There are two rooms side by side that have a door between and the other one is our dining room although there is a couch in it that can be made into a bed, thus we have two bedrooms in a way. As you can see, we bought a piece from IKEA for the TV and some of our many books. The rug was in our bedroom in Provence.

The dining room with the couch. I brought the framed scarf and couch cover back from Provence.

This is what you see when you come in the front door-a very typical set up for a Paris apartment. On the right are the two doors which lead to the living room and the dining room. There is a door on the left that goes into the kitchen. Our bedroom is at the end of the hall.

Our bedroom with the rug that was once in the living room under the bed. To the right is our armoire which takes up a lot of room and doesn’t leave enough room on the other side of the bed for a bedside table. We are still trying to decide how to rig one up. When Maurice’s daughter came to see our apartment she said we should get rid of the armoire and put in floor to ceiling, wall to wall storage in our bedroom which I would love to do but Maurice doesn’t want to get rid of it so we are going to try and find matching armoires for either side with cabinets also up above. We discovered that they don’t seem to make this size anymore, they are an inch shorter and and inch less deep so I’m not sure what we will do. We have to do it though.

We have a fireplace in our bedroom. I don’t know if it works or not. I like it but it is one more thing, along with the armoire, which limits where furniture can be placed. I’m sure one of these days we will get it all worked out.