Palais Garnier

Fellow classical music lover friend came to town. I pulled myself out of a few days of trying to sleep off a cold to go see a concert at Palais Garnier!

10 euro, hour-before-the-show tickets got front row second balcony seats.

(It took me a little while to decide that the curtain was not actually real.)


The hall itself was quite different from anywhere I've attended a concert before. The balconies are stacked and the arrangement is as if there are a bunch of small rooms surrounding the stage. Rather than rows of attached auditorium seats there were individual chairs of different heights in each room to provide the tiered viewing.

Although the hall is mainly used for ballet, the concert itself was a woodwind ensemble playing pieces by a french and a czech composer. It's always a different experience visiting a concert hall just to walk around the building and actually sitting down and enjoying what the space was made for.

On that note, if you're in Boston and haven't been inside the Christian Science Church, you should go. Better yet, watch an organ performance. They actually have one of the world's largest organs there and it is impressive to say the least.

Montmartre

The wikipedia description starts off "Montmartre is a hill". Very accurate, as usual.

It also happens to be a really cool area to explore. More tiring than others, can't really bike up and down the stairs, but definitely worth it.

Tristan Tzara's home designed by Loos is also located here.

And some no namer houses...

But people are probably more familiar with the area as the setting for Moulin Rouge and also the Sacre Coeur.

I visited the basilica in the evening/night as the doors are open till 11pm. Not many people were there, few tourists, a peaceful meditative space, the way a church should be. Not to mention, beautiful.

(I think this is the first photo I've taken where the sky has color. So many grey weekends.)

3 scenes, one building. [Cite de l'architecture et du patrimonie]

Funny how, for me, a more eventful life leads to a less eventful blog. Blogs are a depiction of not-my-life. I also tend to take less pictures when I'm with people, so this blog is a pretty inaccurate representation generally.

Things you do not see: friends visiting, drinking wine by the seine, late nights at the office, lunches out in the sun.

Things you do see: Museums, like the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimonie. It's a museum for architecture and urban planning. I posted a picture from inside the museum in my Eiffel Tower post. The museum building itself was part of a lot of the exhibits. In the Eiffel tower photo you see a replicated domed room in the museum.

Scene 1:

There was a street performer at the entrance to the museum. I've always thought it would be too ridiculous to drag a real piano out to perform on the street. Not something I ever expected to see.

Scene 2:

There's a full scale mock up of a unit from Corbusier's Unité housing project. Cool to see, but it's hard to understand the project from just one unit as the main ideas of the project only become apparent through the accumulation of units around shared spaces.

Scene 3:

Not sure I was supposed to be back here, but there was a children's room with the usual toy doll houses and castles replaced by toy cathedrals.

Outdoors Day and Night

Is North America the only temperate climate where people aren't super connected to the outdoors and to their streets?

Even in my first few weeks here, when it was chilly out, people were eating outside, drinking outside, sitting out in parks. Restaurants and stores spill into the sidewalk. You can see that people are wearing winter jackets in this photo. Most restaurants have outdoor seating and many have outdoor heating. There's a place on my street that only has space for one table outside for two and of course there is a table there.

At night, I've also seen pockets of people around, sitting, having a beer, playing music. Looking forward to spring and summer nights.

(Earlier this week, I went on a long evening/night walk. After living in Boston, where I feel insecure walking outside after dark, the little venture was quite liberating.)

Marché de la Bastille (Bastille Market)

I happen to have the best landlady in the whole world. Not only has she given me amazing chocolates and home baked goods to enjoy in my fully stocked apartment, she also invited me along with her for a trip to the market. Not the grocery store, mind you; when I mentioned the grocery, she scoffed and said 'That's not a real market.' So we went on a nice long walk, full of advice on where to find good chocolates, cakes, and baguette. I do believe she has a sweet tooth!

I've been to several markets at this point, trying to figure out the best way for me to buy groceries. Although the Bastille Market is crowded and being overrun by tourists, what I like is that it is like the Markets I am used to from Taiwan. Big, many options, and selling everything one could want. Food, clothing, rugs, toys, antiques... Well, maybe not everything. I still had to run to the grocery for milk, juice, and cereal.

The only place I can think of with reasonably priced produce along with all the other packaged goods I might want is the Chinese grocery, go figure.

I bought a gift for my dad at this Puce (antique market) that also starts at Bastille. I had to resist also buying myself a crap guitar to have some sort of instrument to play while here.

Eiffel Tower (Tour Eiffel)

The story of half of my ventures here seems to be me going somewhere only to find it closed. This time, I was headed to see a meditation space designed by Tadao Ando, located behind the UNESCO building only to find it closed for weekends. To compensate for my losses, I usually end up seeing something else in the area.

I had actually been putting off seeing the tower in the expectation that I will unavoidably see it several times once a few friends roll through. Wonderfully, it made itself even more unavoidable this weekend. The UNESCO building is just down the Champ-de-Mars, and the steel structure is visible from all around.

Here are three very different views.

The first two are from the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimonie. I've been told there are protests in Paris almost constantly.

Roads

Path of the vélib. I'm surprised by how many people don't know about this Parisian system. If you don't, really, look it up, because it is fantastic.

Path of the pedestrian. A bit narrow don't you think? At least this one didn't have a curb or posts. Posts being objects that are meant for pedestrian safety, which instead one has to avoid walking into constantly.