High Contrast Grey.

Parisien breakfast.

Whoever told the French that slicing a baguette in half and pairing it with a very light spread of butter and jam constitiues a breakfast should have been given a medal. At least three of those large desktop medals in boxes that I keep coming across at the antique markets.

A café that has replaced its barstools with swings hanging from the ceiling.

Doll parts littered every aspect of this café, which seemed to be more of a bar when looking at the menu. Still had a nice children’s section though, as they were the bigger draw for the swings.

Music from what sounded like the 30s played over the speaker system. Perfectly paired by the accordions hanging from the ceiling and on the wall.

I took my leave of trying to fight the heat of the sun and got a tea, pulled out my watercolor painting, and began to sketch in books.

The girl working the bar sported a flatcap and as she stood behind the bar with nothing to do she seemed to work on a crossword puzzle in the newspaper. An air of ennui that disappeared as she took orders for drinks.

If this was an option to wander to everyday and work on my art I think I would quickly become one of the fixtures on the wall. If I ever owned a café…

The same ‘crazy’ Breton café/bar.

The walls have all kinds of interesting little pictures on them and the only theme that I could find between any of them is that of cats dressed in people clothing looking depressed at bars.

I kind of wish I could find my own copy of this Lenin poster.

A day without tea is a day with me not being able to function properly.

I have still yet to find the perfect little old, cheap, tea cup, or a means of boiling water to make my own tea, but this was the first time I got a nice cup (bowl) of Earl Grey. From this point I could say that my residence began in this town.

I’ve never quite caught the name of this café/bar, but the owner told me that the name is the word ‘crazy’ in the local language of Breton.

As the foreigner hostel mates took cabs to some random part of town I wandered to a near by restaurant/bar that was calling itself a café. I was attracted by the bottle of absinthe in the window I noticed earlier in the day as I strolled by, back and forth, wandering this new city, but upon entering (as I attempted my best to disappear quietly into the dark of the night) I became captivated by the faux art nouveau decor.

There were only three choices of absinthe in the selection of the menu beautifully covered loosely bound cover of soft leather. Two of the options I had already tried in the past, but the third was local and worth a shot. St. Something-or-another of a masculine name. Robust. Served Moulin Rouge style and over filled.

The clock didn’t run on time, nor bar time, but a time of its own. It still proclaimed it was coming upon 21.30 as the hour of 23.00 loomed ahead.

A lady with pink hair to my right was flirting up a man that could easily be her grandfather. Tales of attempting to hallucinate with absinthe in Prague, but failing. Or perhaps all her life since that point was the hallucination, she jokingly ended the tale.
The man to my left spoke in Spanish to the bartenders, a regular with a driver’s license from Utah. He was showing off the car that his sugar daddy had bought him, but only in pictures because he didn’t even want to attempt to park it in the city.

Mispronouncing Hawaiian words.

The washroom showed that the decor was nothing but a façade. Sterile.

Part of the herb section of my new café haunt.

The café is in the back with booths and a bar and a paper maché dragon climbing up above the bar. The ‘punk rock kids’ who run the café also seem to be artists. Thin with tattoos and piercings and queer seems to be the image of the employees. Perhaps a job at a café one day?

I was told about an artist collective that put on an Alice in Wonderland themed burlesque show last Friday. A couple of the people involved were working at the café and hanging out at the café.

I have an assignment for my alternative process photography class to take five words and put pictures to them as representations. I bought a new dictionary to facilitate this assignment, but have become quite distracted by the dictionary and attempting to find esoteric words.

Grime. Of course my first word to attempt to create a photo for.

In my distraction I found grey water and thought it to have an interesting definition, but lacking a bathtub in this new apartment (long rant…) I think that I might pass it up for déshabillé. Still so jealous of the bathtub with feet that Dustin and Natasha have.

I have spent today living off cups of tea, a few cookies, and a croissant. The British saw an overall health improvement when tea became popular by around the 1750s due to having to boil the water for their tea.

This cup of Lapsang has steeped into a gritty color of olive green.