Fabrics heaven in Paris : Marché St Pierre

Many Parisiens (or maybe French) are into home/interior decoration.  It's big business here. Many also like to decorate their home themselves. My friends actually go to fabric stores either to make their own curtains, cover their aging sofa or chairs (or have them done by a professional after choosing the fabric) etc. So, I got the bug too. When my sofa started looking rather tired, I decided that rather than buying a standard sofa cover I would get one that is my own. So, off I went to the most known place to get fabrics and other things I imagine one needs for sewing (there are stores on zippers, ribbons, buttons etc !). This area is located just next to the park at the foot of Sacré Cœurs.

But the most known and the biggest fabric store is le Marché Saint Pierre.  You may bump here into people (men and women) who just like sewing or decorating, interior designers or stylists alike. This shop is huge and has six stories and is supposedly the biggest fabric store in the world.  You could find any kind of fabrics that catch your fancy here (A floor for curtains, another for interior decorating, another for your sofas and chairs etc. Silk, velvet, cotton you name it). The building is old and it looks ancient. When you enter the store, don't expect a spanking interior...everything looks kind of old and the wooden floor creaks loudly as you walk. Even the people working there seem to belong to a diferent and more ancient era. But you would probably end up spending hours here admiring the different fabrics whose prices may surprise you (from extremely cheap to extremely expensive, never knew that fabric could be that expensive !). The people working there are also experts in their trade. They can give you really great advice when asked. I learn to appreciate the sensuality, the feel of fabrics ! I love watching how they cut fabric after you tell them how many meters you want: they make a tiny cut and then like godzila rip the fabric starting from the cut. And the results are perfect, exactly the x meters you want and cut totally straight. This store has been here (and probably has not changed, except for the fabrics they sell) for half a century already. Around le Marché Saint Pierre, you see other fabric stores, some selling what's called 'coupons' or left over or cut pieces of fabric for a price.

Paris Départ : Ronda, Spain

Travelling on the bus to Marbella from Malaga, I met a young American (rather handsome too !) who has been living in Marbella for a few months. He told me that two places anyone coming to Spain must see are Alhambra in Granada and Ronda. I did not make it to Alhambra this time (another reason to go back to Spain), but did visit Ronda. Ronda is a village situated very high up on the mountain about an hour drive from Marbella.


You have to be alert to drive there with the twists and turns of mountainous roads and as we found out as were coming back to Marbella, they get lots of fog too especially towards the end of the afternoon or early evening.

A plaza in the center

As soon as you enter the village/town, you notice that this is a very very old town even by European standards. Lots of cobble stone and very narrow streets that offer incredible views. From the park in the center, you can see the valleys below and the river that divides the city. The height and the fall of the gorge Rio Tajo simply are astounding, accentuating the cliffs on each side. Perced on these cliffs  you see little and not so little building perched on their sides hanging precariously (though already for centuries).



To get to our restaurant to eat lunch we lurched like drunken soldiers on the very steep cobble stone street but the reward once seated in the restaurant in term of views is incomparable. Ronda was ruled by Romans, Arabs and Berbers in the past. It is also known as the birth place of the corrida (bull fight). There is an ancient

A bull in front of the ancient area

bull ring in Ronda that you can visit. And each year there is the Ronda fest that features corrida of course.

Once satisfied with tapas and sangria and other delicacies, as the straight men would say, being with women (though alone too I would have done the same....!), we went shopping. I swear Spain is so cheap compared to France, hotels, food and drinks and even cigarettes (cost half of what they cost in France). We bought leather shoes for cheap and each came back to Paris with about 3 cartons of cigarettes each ;-) !

SIDACTION (Action AIDS/HIV)

This week in Paris, everywhere you probably see the sign of SIDACTION. Roughly translated it means, Action AIDS (SIDA in French). Throughout the week there are programs or telethons on tv and you see people on the streets asking people to donate to SIDACTION.

The organization funds (according to their website) many AIDS/HIV related activities, including prevention programs, access to treatments for people in need including in poor countries outside France, paying doctors treating AIDS/HIV patients in poor countries, and funding research on the subject of AIDS.
We probably think of HIV or AIDS as not so dramatic anymore. But, though people living with AIDS can now live a long time rather than dying quickly before the multiple antiretroviral treatments were discovered, it remains that many people living with AIDS are more likely to have a quality of life lesser than those without and are even more likely to be socially isolated than others (due to inability to work for example or stigmatization of people living with AIDS by others). And too many still die from AIDS. There are also secondary effects of the treatments that are not negligible and may even be as bad as the consequences of the HIV virus itself. Lastly, there is still no cure of AIDS. People remain seropositive though controlled by the medications they take. Wrongly, with the existence of these medications (that indeed are incredible as they render HIV/AIDS not a mortal disease, though sadly sometimes still considered as moral disease :-(  ), people start considering AIDS/HIV as almost a banal disease.

Talking to people I also observe a lot of misunderstanding still of HIV/AIDS. Hence, the prevention and information programs. Many do not make the distinction between being seropositive (having/carrying the virus VIH)  and being ill (having AIDS). Many people probably do not know that they have the HIV virus in their body. The virus can stay a long time without any effects that a person will notice (except, when a person just got infected, he or she will probably show symptoms like the common cold...). Years can pass before the virus makes itself known (by then already in the tens if not hundreds of thousands attacking the immune system of the person). People will then feel tired, lose weight and probably catch some infection that could be fatal given that the immunity system of the body is shot. Lab techniques can now measure levels of virus in the blood (viral load, the higher the more sick the person) and CD4 a type of white blood cells that protects the body from infection. Normally the level of CD4 should be upwards 500 to 1200 cells/mm3. A person is said to have AIDS when the CD4 count is below 200 and probably has a very high viral load. Commonplace infections (lungs or others) can at this stage be very life threatening as the body simply cannot fight the intruder.
Misconceptions may also concern how HIV may be transmitted. If many people now know that they cannot 'catch' AIDS by sharing cups or toilets ...other misconceptions remain. How many times have I heard guys I meet for a sex rdv say that they would like to fuck me raw and will pull out just before they come (they believe if they don't come in me, they will not give or get the virus) ? OK, probably not as bad as President Zuma (South Africa)'s assertion that one only needs take a shower to avoid getting AIDS... but still !!!!!

If medical research does get a lot of attention, social research on the subject is not to be neglected. The questions of what people believe and how these beliefs influence their behavior as well as the social and psychological well being of people living with HIV/AIDS are all too important for many of today's societies. In France around 7000 (new) infections are discovered each year. In Africa, access to treatments is still very minimal for economic and social reasons. There are also social taboos. Speaking to Asian gay friends, some of them express that they would rather die of AIDS than reveal their homosexuality and bring shame to their family....

To donate, you can go to SIDACTION website. I just did, even if not much (I figure I will cut down on my smoking and buy fewer packs of cigarettes at least for this month ....). Every little bit helps...