street at night, Dunkerque, France

click on these to see them bigger and check out the pattern in the sidewalk. I very much enjoy the attention to detail that some European cities employ. Dunkerque is in the very north of France, a region that was hit hard by the Luftwaffe in WW2 and had to do a lot of re-building.

backlit in Paris

Locks of Love on the Seine

on the bridges in Paris, lovers come and pledge their love by attaching a padlock to the bridge and throwing the key into the Seine. These locks were on the footbridge, called Passerelle Leopold-Sedar Senghor from the Musee D'Orsay to the Tuilleries last week.

les chevaux et les jumelles

Katixa and Alaia
I feel so blessed to have spent a month in France (with a visit or two to Spain), I can't even really believe it. We just returned last night. I will be updating/changing my real website, ewarfield.com to a more cohesive and simple format in the next few weeks as well as going through the 1000+ images I took in October, both digital and film. I don't feel odd to return, and didn't miss New York at all either. Maybe as long as you are with people you want to be with and have something to do, it doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't hurt that France has a attitude towards food I can really wrap my mind around, where not a day goes by without good butter, cheese, saucisson, fruit and vegetables and most importantly, bread.

The horses are Pottok, wild horses native to the Pryenees. They wander where they may and one night showed up after dinner on the lawn at Baptistes' brother Manechs' house in Sare. I was honored to have met them, in fact we ran into these guys quite a bit. Can you imagine if there were wild horses wandering Brooklyn?

San Sebastian, Spain

the cathedral

mid-rumble
xistera for playing Pelote or Jai Alai, a Basque game
Baptiste with sangria
Maia
We visited San Sebastian, Spain for a day recently, walked around and enjoyed amazing tapas in the old part of the city. As an American, it still seems crazy to me that you can drive for a half hour and be in a new country, with another language I don't really understand and new and exciting snacks. The cultural difference between South-Western France and Northern Spain is very clear, even though it is still Basque territory.

Last night we had dinner at Olhabidea in Sare, France and it truly was one the best experiences I have had at a restaurant in a long time. There is no menu, except for the wines, you just are served what the kitchen has that day, including an amuse bouche, starter, entree and desert. So so great, truly a culinary experience where they leave you a little in the dark about the ingredients and make you guess and think about it for days after.

Bonjour mes amies

inside St. Martin church in Marquise, Pas-de-Calais, for a wedding October 3
a stained glass window right above where I was sitting

horse in Peuplingues
view from the Pont Des Arts in Paris, looking toward the Institut de France
une ane dans le parc de George Brassens, en Paris. Yes I took all these with my iphone. I haven't found a place yet to process my raw files and the film will have to wait until I return, which I don't even want to think about right now. We are in the Pays Basque for a couple weeks, which is a magical place. The other night three small black wild horses slept on the yard.

a little Los Angeles

Baptiste at sunset on Venice Beach
Shanna and Stoney on El Matador


Stoney
This is my 77th post this year, which is pretty much my favorite number of all time; that's a good omen. This month has been 5 plane rides, 2 funerals and it's time for a new month I think.