travel

 
Hello friends! It’s been a while! Happily for you, I’m currently on a two month sabbatical from work and intend to use it to blog up a whole bunch of things around here, both Eichler-related and otherwise. I’m traveling for the first four weeks, so I’ll kick this off with a few finds from London where David and I got to spend a lovely week and a half. Things are about to get rather floral and pastel-y in here. Prepare!

Drink, Shop & Do is an adorable shop and crafting space near King’s Cross. We stopped in here for tea and cake one afternoon to take a break from the London crowds.

I think if I lived in this city I’d be guilty of secretly hanging out here all the time. In addition to crafty activities AND tea (my idea of heaven, right there), they host a variety of dance classes and social events. I saw posters for reggae night, a list-making night, and a ‘speed listening’ event for singles. Listening to peoples’ personal music players as a way to meet new friends sounds like great fun. And list-making as a social activity might be a bit scary but in a totally good way, right? You know who you are, fellow compulsive list-makers.

The main space houses a café and bar, with bright white walls and the most perfectly twee décor. A giant pink airplane, glittery fish, and colourful beach balls hang from the ceiling. The tables and chairs are midcentury atomic diner style.  I’m talking formica tops and vinyl upholstered seats.  Tea is served in mismatched vintage teacups.  I could have spent a very, very long time there.

You too can be this happy.  Matching your shirt to the decor is highly recommended, but not required.

Check it out if you’re in London:

Drink, Shop & Do
9 Caledonia Road
London N1 9DX

This is not a sponsored post.

dear house,
if you were by a lake,
– or, better yet, on an island in the middle of a lake –
that wouldn’t be so bad, would it?
xo
karolina

Hi friends!  I just got back from a nice, quiet vacation in Ontario, Canada.  Oh my goodness, it was nice just to exhale for a while.  A lot of time was spent reading, exploring, and just taking in our surroundings.  We managed to get every type of weather:  hot days, cool days, freezing nights, warm nights, sun, gloom, downpours, morning mist, and thunderstorms (my favourite).  I love going at this time of year as the fall colours are almost at their peak.

 
We spent most of our time in the northerly part of southern Ontario known as Muskoka, or Cottage Country.

Now, I thought I’d take some time to explain what a cottage is in these parts.  It’s not exactly a cabin.  Summer house?  Lake house?  It’s some combination of these.  I believe use of the word itself must be a carry-over from Canada’s British roots, where you can find holiday cottages in the countryside, for example, in the Lake District of England.

In Muskoka, cottages are usually situated on lakes.  And there are thousands of lakes in this region.  I would say that nearly all cottage inhabitants don’t live in their cottages year round.  Instead they come up for weekends and holidays from the south, mostly from Toronto.  It is of course possible to rent a cottage, though a lot them are private and shared by families.  This situation makes for glorious quiet on the smaller lakes, especially in the off season.

One tip for any cottage-curious out there:  go in late August, September, or even early October.  Yes, it’s cooler and you probably won’t want to swim, BUT the bugs (mosquitoes and the infamous blackflies) are mostly dead.  Go in May or June and you may be eaten alive.  You’ve been warned.

We happen to be so lucky to have a cottage in the family, owned by David’s parents.  They have put an incredible amount of work into renovating it from a poorly-insulated little house to its current much more stately form.

Isn’t it adorable?  The answer is yes, and I may have had a hand in choosing those exterior lights.

I’ll be posting more from the trip over the next week or so – stay tuned!

For those in need of more entertainment in the meantime, please consider:

1. Nuances of the phrase ‘cottage country’, according to Wikipedia; and
2. Canadian House & Home editor Suzanne Dimma’s amazing modern cottage.

I was going to wrap up this week’s Paris posts with more design-oriented things I looked at, but it didn’t feel right.  I may save that for later. 

When looking back on this trip, I think of our last day:  I was trying to make the most of the time we had left, and feeling overwhelmed by the choices (more shopping?  for what?  more sights?  museums?  where to eat?)  After a week of taking in so much (work, the conference, sights, shops, deciding. where. to. go), I needed my brain to stop for once.  Anything involving the indoors seemed a waste at this point.  The weather was gorgeous, so we decided to go to the Jardin du Luxembourg, where we’d gone earlier in the week.

On the way there, we passed the David Hicks gallery, which had this canvas in the window.  The quote is by Diane Arbus, though sadly I don’t know who the artist is.  I think it inspired us, on some subconscious level, to do just that.  We wandered.  We grabbed tea for me and macarons to share and sat in the park for a while, with no particular goal in mind.

By the way, I’m pretty convinced that the French have perfected some sort of weed killer that leaves only perfect grass and daisies behind.  That, or they hand-tend these lawns.

The park was quite busy since it was a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon.  The one section of the lawns where you are allowed to sit reminded me of Dolores Park on a hot day.  People seemed to really be into the togetherness, and apparent novelty of sitting on grass, here.  (Everywhere else there are little chairs to sit upon.)

And then we wandered outside of the park, in pursuit of a fountain we spied off in the distance.  It was much quieter on the way there.  People were strolling, playing petanque, playing table tennis, even setting up a slack-line between a statue and a tree.  I love how Parisians enjoy their parks and public spaces so very thoroughly.  That walk was my favourite part of our visit.  Don’t you find that this sort of thing always happens on the last day of a trip?

 
It’s not entirely clear from the picture, but on the left, with the number 10 t-shirt, is a young girl who was playing an accordian.  Strains of the Amelie soundtrack if I’m not mistaken.  I kid you not.  Only in Paris.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this excursion with me.  Maybe I’ll go wandering somewhere this weekend.

Where will you go that you’ve never been?

I spent a lot of time on our trip across the table from this guy, eating at various bistros and cafes, some of which were excellent, some of which were average.  My husband, David, is vegetarian, so it’s always a bit of a challenge to find someplace interesting where there is an option or two that works for him, especially when traveling.  I thought I’d share two of the best spots we ate at in Paris, which you may find helpful if you are also of the vegetarian persuasion.

As you might expect, the interiors of restaurants are how I remember them.  The food at both of these places was excellent, but the vibe added so much to the experience that the interiors alone are blog-worthy.  I generally feel too self-conscious to take pictures of my food, so sorry, no food porn here.  However, doors, walls, floors, art, and lighting are all fair game!

First up:

(OK fine.  Some mild food porn managed to slip into this post.)

And next:

I had originally learned about Coutume on the Hindsvik blog.  In case you’re not familiar with Hindsvik, they’re a husband and wife team living in Canada (in Port Colborne, Ontario, very near where I grew up!) who run a gorgeous Etsy shop selling their mid-century finds — lots of great Scandinavian teak to be had there.

We came here with our friend Michael as part of our epic walking tour which took us from the Eiffel tower all the way to the left bank and St. Germain.  It was a Sunday and we were quite worried as we walked down rue Babylone to Coutume – all the shops were shut tight.  Coutume was both open and packed with people.

Both Dave and I had the vegetable ‘detox’ brunch of ricotta with radish, polenta, and steamed veggies.  It was a nice change from our otherwise steady diet of pastries and cheese in Paris.  Also:  the best cafe latte I’ve ever had.  So smooth.  Even Michael, who drinks a lot more coffee than Dave and I together, agreed that it was excellent.

I definitely recommend this place for anyone who is into coffee.  As a bonus, in the back, they sell all manner of coffee-making apparatus:  presses, syphons, Chemexes, filters.  You name it.  Made me want to break out the Chemex and try my hand at brewing again!

Here’s where to find them:

Soya
20 rue de la Pierre Levée
75011 Paris

Coutume
47 rue de Babylone
75007 Paris