desire on heels - passion enleatherated

fantasy shopping at L'Eclaireur

Shoes by Gianni Barbato 

.. and in black

These stores are fantastic and the sales girl was so lovely. 

Usually you get a rather stand-off-ish attitude from the staff of the Parisian shops to the point where you suspect that it is part of their training to make you feel minuscule, especially in the area around Rue de Faubourg Saint Honoré, but in both this L´Eclaireur off Honoré, and the other one I visited in Marais, they were warm and welcoming.

thank you for this beautiful day in denmark!

warm autumn winds make me happy and giddy and remind me of all things nice, golden brown red and yellow forests and hot chocolate and sweaters and layers and my birthday and baked things.

coming home from paris didn't mean too much of an anti-climax with weather like this and five'o'clock tea with the girls on top of that.

another thing I love about this time of the year is that everyone is on to something new and exciting or get tucked into what they usually do with renewed energy and enthusiasm. Or else people party and spend quality time together as if for dear life to prolong summer and postpone the everyday, which also renders a certain vitality to it all. 

I never feel sad that summer is coming to an end. It means so many good things are to come, and nature can celebrate a blooming and flowering season well done by curling up and hibernate a little till we can enjoy everything all over again.

For all us voyeurs

nothing like the selby for a sneak peak into someone's amazing home or studio

tonsils schmonsils..

We had planned to go and look at a small lot of land not to far from Copenhagen today, on which we might build a summer getaway of some nifty sort together with some good friends.

But then I woke up with tonsillitis, and D had to go alone. Such a shame and really annoying. I really wanted to go and have a look. And spend my sunday with lovely people instead of lying around trying to stay awake with a throbbing head. And I'm going to Paris tomorrow night.. 

At least D had a fantastic sunday, he just came home with rosy cheeks and in high spirits, really inspiring. Next time I'll go!

Lots of people have shown interest in the area as well, so it just might turn out to become a little colony, that would be lovely! 

there are no stupid questions

Via hifly

warm and comforting light

The weather is making sure that I stay home tonight. Which is nice.

I'm still jet lagged, amazingly, but now stocked up on sleep inducing herbs and warm milk with honey, I feel prepared to avoid another long frustrating night of not shutting an eye.

If all else fails, we just got a stack of classic films by Jim Jarmusch, Roman Polanski and others, that can help wile away the hours if need be. 

image via shitthreadsnofriends

Witty writing and beautiful ladies.

excited would be an understatement

CO2penhagen

This will be big!

A few posts ago I mentioned the worlds first co2 neutral festival- co2penhagen - that is to take place in august 2009.

Today a colleague and I interviewed one of the two girls who originally took the initiative to make this happen - a third has just joined the force. The three of them are supported and aided by a whole horde of event makers, researchers, scientists, artists, musicians, politicians, journalists, PR-people etc.

Today I spoke to Katrine Vejby, and she was so enthusiastic, inspiring and smart, I have great faith in this!

The concept is all about great initiatives and ideas spawned by ordinary people and students. About bringing them out in the open to show that you do not have to be Al Gore or Ghandi to make a real difference. 

An important point for them, and certainly for me as well, is that they do not just buy co2-quotas, call themselves neutral and go right on consuming and polluting, business as usual, as too many others do these days. That is the sad part of sustainability suddenly being hip and commercial.

But not this lot! No quotas in sight, only creative minds and a wish to make a difference while still reaching even the most sceptic out there. 

Just go for the music and atmosphere, then! And the heated spa!  

Canada - random extra pictures

An exhibition a saw at Vancouver Art Gallery. Not immensely interesting, but fun. On the top floor, on the other hand, was an exhibition of works by Zhang Huan, the 'inventor' of performance art in China, who I have wanted to see more of for ages. Perhaps a separate post on him later..
Yes, there is a dolfhin there in the air!


Vancouver
Well what do you know. 

In the rest of Canada it is prohibited to put up ads like this along the road, but the first nation areas have their own set of rules, so you can always tell when you enter one.
Whale skeleton at Pearson College, Victoria. The school is one of the United World Colleges spread located in many parts of the world, and my aunt and uncle have volunteered as a contact family for at least ten years, so that the students have a homely place for getting away a little.   

I just learned tonight that my boyfriend's sister's boyfrind's brother helped clean the washed up whale, when he was at the school a few years back.

The world is tiny. 
House boats in Victoria harbour. In Danish prices not incredibly dear, though you will apparently have a need for a small yacht (!) to get ashore. 

okay, you can get scared now

Talking to Canadians about the upcoming presidential election made me acutely aware of things that I haven't given much thought before.

I now more than ever hope for Obama to win the race.

If McCain is to be president of the United States, one of the first things he will likely do, is what the Bushes have been stacking up to, namely eradicating the last liberal in the supreme court clearing the passage to a nationwide prohibition of abortion. 

Pro-life as they call it.

Makes me shudder.

Canada part four

Museum of Anthropology, University of Vancouver. Totem portal used in indigenous villages.
 These cedars are thousands of years old. Incredible. I wanted to pat their bark saying "well done!". They survived forest fires, storms and people, to stand there proud and majestic, giving the forest a ceremonious and dome like feel. I felt so insignificant.Rain forest. I never knew I would find that in Canada. Breathtaking, damp and fantastic. The board walks made me feel like an elf living in a magical village in the forest.

Whale watching near Tofino, a little town on the edge of the world where I stayed for a few days with my aunt enjoying life nature and lots of wine and chocolate.

The sea lions are so funny. You could smell them all the way out to the boat. Fish, rot, fart and general life enjoyment oozed out toward us.
We were very lucky on the whale account that day, lots of sightings but alas, no good pictures.

This is the tail of a hunchback.


The view from our cabin.
Back in Victoria. Taken from a harbour tour on a little put-put ferry.

These penthouse apartments can be yours to own for the nice round number of 6 MILLION Canadian dollars.    
Victoria harbour is a designated airport with between 200-400 departures and landings a day.

Visiting the small organic farm of a couple of my aunt and uncle's friends. They were both in their 80's but still did everyhting by hand! Look at those blueberries. They cost nothing compared to Danish prices and are massive.
Back home.. Pun intended.

Canada part three

I met the nicest scottish lady on the bus back from Vancouver. I adore that accent. I could just sit and listen all day, asking her questions at strategic points to keep her going. It added to it all that she was really funny and clever. 

She cracked me up several times. For instance she told me that she had recently been to Amsterdam.

"The rred light distrrict, urgh, luvd' it! I'm wicked, baad lassie!" 

I told her that I had seen a totem at the Museum of Anthropology at Vancouver University that in a first nations language was called 'Wee Git' which meant 'great man'. I found that really funny, but I guess it wouldn't occur to someone speaking American/Canadian that there was anything amusing in that, at least not the ones I tried it out on, so I was glad that this lady appreciated it as much as I did.

Vancouver Aquarium. This is Erik in the middle. He also has the coolest way of talking. He can't say 'r', which makes him sound very gangsta 'Noo Yuork'. "Mawee, where's my buother?"
The one month old baby Beluga, a little lump of joy, with it's just as blubbery mother. 

Their survival rate when born in zoos is not high, so they were very cautious and we could only talk in a whisper while watching her.

In the wild they'll travel up to Alaska to feed, bringing all that lard to good use, but to have their calves they have to come back down to the warmer waters near the island.

Can you believe the size of that fish?? It was like a leftover from the time of legends!

Canada part deuce

At a bug zoo with my aunt and her three delightful grandsons.

I held a tarantula in my not too trembling hands. 

I thought she was such a trooper, having had that unnerving job for ten tears and being held be screaming or nervously sweating i.e. obnoxious people all day, every day.

Why didn't we have cool things like that in Denmark when I was smallz? 

I mean a BUG ZOO for crying out loud. 

Having said that, I am sure I enjoyed it at least as much as the little ones, it was the coolest thing and the guy who was guiding us around, pictured below, was a bug WIZ. He clearly thoroughly enjoyed his job which, my aunt told me, he has had for years. 


There you go, sour cream and onion flavoured bugs. No? Bacon and cheese then, for your enjoyment while watching the olympics or somefink? 
Beautiful, airy and suspiciously clean Vancouver.

Canada

This has been the best holiday in every way. 

So many great experiences, beautiful nature, interesting (although not always my kind of) art, breathtaking nature and very very lovely people.

I don't know where to start, so thought I would let the pictures do the talking.

View over Victoria and Vancouver Island
The Empress Hotel in Victoria is almost as old as the city itself and absolutely stunning on both the in- and outside.

I keep forgetting the name of these trees. They grow like this naturally and reminded me of two lazy fairytale dragon slash dachshound-like creatures, guarding the entrance.
My uncle and I took a trip to Duncan, a small town that at the time hosted the N.A.I.G - North American Indigenous Games - and we got to see the parade initiating the games.

Every tribe would play their trademark instruments and wear their customary clothes.

I was really glad to see how supportive the non-indigenous Canadians were, standing along the road in great numbers, so that we even had trouble finding a spot with a good view of the parade, cheering the contestants on, clapping and shouting. 

The Canadians love their golf. 

This was a massive new course including a residential area that actually had an age-limit for people who could live there. 

You have to have a certain age, families with small children are not welcome.
Sorry, wrong order. This is another Duncan picture. The balloon reads "welcome to Duncan, city of totems". 

Duncan has a large percentage of first nation inhabitants, which for instance means that there is a Casino. 

Gambling is otherwise prohibited in Canada, but because of the special rules for first nations, they can do as they like, so casinos are an important source of income to the first nation communities and reservations.
From the stunning ferry trip from Vancouver Island to Vancouver. The picture of course doesn't even do it justice. The whole ride was like this. 

When I wasn't on the sun-deck, I was reading some articles about the caricature-crisis that my uncle had given me to read on the way to Vancouver.

He has been following the whole farce closely and with great interest, and to me, a Dane having been in the very midst of it all, it was very interesting to read a Canadian view on the matter, which would sum it up nicely and then give a sober and thought provoking opinion. As in Denmark, there were several very different stands.

I still find it hard to form a definite opinion. The whole thing is so contested, misunderstandings and mis-handlings in abundance causing it to fester on even now. Depressing.