If I remember correctly, CHM had loaned me his Kodak digital camera for the trip. He was spending the summer in California, and he said he didn't need the camera. Generous as always, he said all he wanted was a copy of the photos I took with the camera in Paris.
Walt and I had meals and drinks several times at this place, the Brassserie de l'Île Saint-Louis, with great views of the flying buttresses of the Cathédrale de Notre-Dame de Paris.
These photos were mostly taken on the Île Saint-Louis, except the one of the Bazar, which was, and maybe still is, on the rue des Écoles in the Latin Quarter. That's Walt strolling past the shop.
This winter, I'm spending a lot of time going through photos and other files that I copied onto CDs back in the 1990s, trying to sort them all out and, in some cases, enlarging the photos and processing them to make them look better.
Back in '98, some friends of ours in San Francisco had recently come back from a trip to Paris, and one day they had tried to explain to us where a certain Paris café they had liked a lot was located. Or what the name of it was. They couldn't remember — all they could tell us was that it was the café with the red awning! So I had red awnings on my mind I think.
Cameras have improved so much in 21 years. Even if these are not up to 21st century standards, I'm glad to have these digital photos to jog my memory about trips we took to France back then. The apartment we had rented on the Île Saint-Louis turned out to be a tiny one-windowed studio with a sleeping loft up over the kitchen. The weather was really hot, and the window faced south. The sun beat in.
It was smotheringly hot up at ceiling level, where we were sleeping. If we opened the window, we just let more noise than cool air into the apartment, since all the other residents around the courtyard we faced had their windows open as well. I think we had an electric fan, but all it did was blow the hot air around. No matter... we had a great time on that trip.
The name of this place is a pun. Rougets are fish — red mullets — and this shop must be a fish market. But Rouget de Lisle is also the author of the French national anthem, La Marseillaise.
Wow! I remember the Bazar de la rue des Ecoles very well. It's where I bought my first "filet de courses" the net shopping bags that are coming back into fashion. They were cheap, then, and they wore out. The netting would break if you overloaded them or put something with a sharp corner or edge into them. The ones I've seen more recently look sturdier, but they are more bulky and don't bundle into tiny nothings in your pocket or handbag. They are also outrageously expensive.
ReplyDeleteThat is also where I got a little wash basin to pre-soak my laundry before washing my clothes in the sink at the Pierwige. Across the street was a wholesale kitchen supply shop, where Paul and I got our first pot and pan when we set up housekeeping at the Hotel Arco (?) when we left the Pierwige. We had a room, but Paul got a campinggaz canister with the folding platform for the pot or pan and we could make our breakfast coffee and even a steak and salad dinner.
Up that street, from that corner - rue de la Montagne Ste. Genviève - were some really cheap restaurants.
We still have one of those camping gaz canisters from a camping trip we took in '69- they were so handy.
DeleteHi Ellen, it's hard for me to remember what I did for pots and pans back in the 70s, when I lived in a small apartment in Rouen and then in one out in Asnières. I must have bought some somewhere, but not at the Bazar de la rue des Ecoles. I think the first time I went there was soon after W. and I moved here in 2003. We used to drive up to Paris at the drpo of a hat back then. From Asnières('74-'76), I remember taking the train to the gigantic construction zone that was La Défense back then, and where there was some kind of hypermarché. Maybe that's where I bought kitchen things. At the time, I had a bathroom (salle d'eau) and a kitchen — stove, sink, but no refrigerator. Those were the days.
DeleteOh, I love that pun :)
ReplyDelete"The red mullets of the island"...
Delete"L'Ilot Vache" is a pun too, I think. The Île Saint-Louis, before being so named, was called « l'île aux vaches ».
If you still have some photos with the .KDC extension you can open them with Graphic Converter. That's what have been doing with mine. It works great. It is in '98 you came to get me in Carteret, we went to Pirou, and we drove back to Paris through Bayeux and Rouen (Jumièges, St. Martin de Boscherville).
ReplyDeleteI'm looking right now at my old photos, but GraphicConverter won't open them. I'll have to use Gimp! Life is not simple!
Can you get the Fotor app for Mac or iPad? It opens kdc files and you can save them in jpg format — but one by one. These photos today are from June 1998. I came back to France in August 1998 and met up with you in Carteret.
DeleteIt is not the original KDC that I cannot open, but those converted from KDC into a format (TIFF?) that GraphicConverter or Photoshop do not recognize. But I could open them with Gimp.
DeleteI just found a photo that I took of you, Walt and Collette at the Borrego Springs Museum on 29 March 1998.
On this photo you seem to hold what looks like your first Kodak digital camera. Sending it to you.
My old version of Photoshop Elements will open TIFF files, no problem. Maybe your converted files are in PICT format. That was a standard Mac format 20 or more years ago.
DeleteNo, they seem to be some kind of Tiff. I can read without problem with Photoshop Elements those KDC photos converted into Pict at the time.
DeleteLove these old photos. Was the camera a bulky Kodak? That was our first digital camera.
ReplyDeleteHi, Evelyn. The camera was the Kodak DC50 camera. Yes, it was bulky, but about the same as the Apple Quicktake camera and better.
DeleteMy personal first digital camera was the DC260. I'll have to post some photos I took with it.
Delete