Twelve Days of Paris

Bonsoir!

Ten days is not enough to fill you in on everything.  The month of March passed quickly enough, considering the 17^th seems like miles and miles away (or kilometers!). April is also moving out in a few days, which means that I will inevitably pack and leave too.  Despite this, perhaps I can share highlights of stories, which can be described in few words or less.  But let’s be real: since short-windedness is a task nearly impossible for me, I will go into detail at a later point, to elaborate more fully on my most recent doings.

After I last wrote, several things happened in quick succession.  And by quick succession, I mean that the last month has been so busy that I didn’t even have time to write!  So, these memories are at the mercy of hindsight.  In the past month and ten days I:

1) Tried almost every macaron flavor known to man.

2) Accidentally discovered my favorite place in Paris.

3) Saw a bizarre play, then a bizarre ballet, and decided the French are a very particular audience.

4) Finally saw part of another European country (Italy) where I: a) said hello to Saint Peter, and waved back at the Pope’s arm, b) conquered gelato with an average of three scoops a day, c) rode in a gondola, d) got lost (surprising, I know) while riding both a land bus and a water bus, and e) somehow managed to make it to the train on time, specifically to Car 93, with two minutes to spare.

Deep breath…

5) Spent a week at “Chez Rosa,” hanging out with my friend Jess, and enjoying her Portuguese-influenced home stay.

6) Did my best to show my parents around Paris in only a week – we crossed off almost everything on the list.

7) Enjoyed and died a little inside at the sight of Monet’s garden at Giverny, which despite hoards of tourists, is as lovely and charming as humanly possible.

8) Picnic-ed, walked, talked, and was once imposed upon by the affections of a pigeon sitting above me in a tree, all during much time spent in various Parisian parks and gardens.

9) Spent an odd four hours or more in the Bois de Boulogne one Saturday, riding bikes with bells and enjoying the ability to get lost for once without actually caring.

10) Attended two incredibly crowded masses at Notre Dame for Palm Sunday and Easter, later enjoying a delicious Easter dinner at “Chez Rosa” that consisted of spaghetti and meatballs, and homemade tiramisu (all of which I made, thank you very much).

11) Attempted writing haikus about Parisian things, especially after seeing Molière performed on the metro line 4, and feeling too blonde to actually live in the 20^th arrondissement of Paris for a week (“Chez Rosa”).

12) Cried a little inside at the thought of leaving it all!

Since it overwhelms me to actually think about going into detail on every single one of these at the moment, I will leave you with my friend Kate’s masterpiece of a haiku – one that simply puts you right there in the thick of it at the metro stop Montparnasse Bienvienüe.

The smell of urine

Painfully stings the nostrils

Damn you, Montparnasse.

*end scene*

Bisous et à tout à l’heure!

Paris is a moveable feast

Coucou!


I have so many things to share, so this might seem kind of jumbled...just go with me here...


To John: A Croque-monsieur is an amazingly cheesy, greasy, deliciously oozy sandwich that makes the American version of a grilled cheese look incredibly pathetic.  You see, the Croque-monsieur includes two things normal grilled cheese sandwiches don't generally have: ham in the middle and cheese on BOTH the inside and the outside.  It's also the easiest way to consume a normal week's worth of butter in one sitting.  Also, if ordered in a restaurant, you are generally expected to eat the sandwich with a fork and knife - perhaps putting cheese on top of the sandwich encouraged people back in the day to have manners and use silverware.  I still stand by the butter theory - nothing beats it.  And if you're feeling especially adventurous, you can get a Croque-madame, which is the same sandwich with an egg on top!  The boulangerie near my house makes the best Croque-monsieurs...although it's sometimes more fun to day dream about them than eat them every day!


Two Friday's ago, I went to Montmartre.  Not for the first time, but for the second time, in order to do several important things: see the famous Basilique du Sacré-Coeur, see the Moulin Rouge, and sit at the café Les Deux Moulins, which was featured in the movie Amélie.  (If you haven't seen this movie, you should...it's stereotypical that I love it, but that's not going to change the fact that I do!...also, it takes place in Paris, which makes it all worthwhile)... Montmartre is known for several things: the bohemian artists who lived there, the moulins (windmills) that formerly dominated the area, and the red-light district's many sex shops.  Yes, I'm being serious - Toulouse-Lautrec + Moulin Rouge Can-Can dancers = his career and most of his artwork.  Other notable people who spent quite a bit of time there are van Gogh, Matisse, Degas, Renoir, and Picasso.  So nowadays it's an incredibly touristy area.  But like the Tour Eiffel...Je l'adore!  On our informal walking tour with Rebecca and Kelsy (IES people), we visited a famous chocolate shop, walked around Sacré-Coeur, and of course, had a beer at Les Deux Moulins, where four of us played an intense game of Quiddler that Rebecca had smartly brought with her.  C'était magnifique!  Sacré-Coeur is located at the highest point in the city of Paris, which means there is a wonderful view from the top once you climb all the stairs.  Montmartre, at the top of the hill behind the basilica, is also very touristy but still maintains its artistic spirit with vendors selling their various paintings and textiles, as well as men who walk around with giant easels offering to draw portraits of unaware tourists... All the same, Montmartre is vibrant and beautiful and will never get old.


Last Thursday a former student who stayed with my host family last spring was visiting the city and came for dinner.  It was nice to see that it's possible to stay in touch once no longer living in Paris.  We played at least seven games of UNO, which is Victor, my host brother's favorite game.  He's also incredibly hard to beat!  Somehow, I managed to win two games...I'm sure it was luck, because Victor loves when people have to draw cards, and we all had plenty after being passed the "+4" wild card a number of times.  It was a really fun night and I hope next year or the year after, I'll get to come back and visit too!


Rebecca from IES started a "club de lecture" (book club) a few weeks ago, and so naturally I signed up. We just read a very sad but very good book called "Oscar et la dame rose," in which a ten-year-old boy with cancer writes letters to God at the insistence of his mentor and friend, Mamie-Rose.  So sad!  We are having a potluck dinner next week and will watch the movie-version with tissues at the ready, I'm sure.  


Speaking of books, there is something I have completely forgotten to mention in all the hubbub of sharing my experiences.  The most wonderful, straight out of Beauty and the Beast, English-language bookshop named, perhaps as expected, Shakespeare and Company, is located near Place Saint-Michel, across the street from Notre Dame de Paris.  There is no way you could not fall in love with this floor-to-ceiling book store where books are in every nook and cranny, they have those awesome ladders for hard-to-reach books, there are old and new books alike (I saw a first edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales), they have a piano upstairs, and couches and chairs placed at odd intervals for people to sit and read in, and the store is run primarily by English people.  William himself would die to hang out there.  
I had to buy a book there, of course, not just for the pleasure of reading but also for the more superficial reason of getting the book stamped with the Shakespeare and Company logo.  I tried years ago to read some of Hemingway's books but could not get acclimated to his writing style.  However, A Moveable Feast is an all too appropriate book for an American to read while in Paris.  It was one of the last books he wrote, and serves as a memoir of the time he lived in Paris before he was actually a famous writer.  It's so fun to read because I know so many of the places he mentions, and the sections are rather short, so it's the perfect thing for a morning metro ride.


In addition to all of this, my painter-admirer has a real name: Florian.  If that's not French, I don't know what is.  But naturally, the first thing I thought of was Florian Fortescue, the man with the ice cream parlor in Diagon Alley.  Figures.  If I don't reference Harry Potter at least once, I've done something wrong. Also, I swear by my life that Bathilda Bagshot lives on my floor.  This tiny, crazy old lady with an incredibly hollow face and who never smiles, spends her day shuffling down the hall at the most inopportune times (i.e. when I am also in the hallway).  I prefer to avoid any interaction with her, but sometimes that is simply impossible.  Other oddities of my apartment building besides the painters, M. Richard, and old Batty, are the dog that barks twice at exactly 7:15am every morning and no other time during the day or night, and the couple who live down the hall from me who always sound like they are yelling, when in reality they are probably just unable to hear properly.  It's incredibly interesting to live where I do in Neuilly, if not for the characters, for the fact that there's never a dull moment.


On that note, thank you for reading all of that despite the lack of continuity!  Pretend it's a feast of movable entries...start off with a Croque-monsieur, followed by a show that is borderline raunchy but artistic, have a sit in a café, play a few hands of whatever game you have available, and end up at home with some ice cream and the comfort that you will never need an alarm clock as long as the dog down the hall continues to bark.


Bisous,
Laura

Reims, printemps, et les peintres

Bonjour!


It's finally spring in Paris! In fact, it's been so warm that the metro occasionally feels more like a sauna than a rickety, underground car ride (i.e. Gringotts).  Yes, I swear that goblins control the metro, or at least, they had a very big hand in creating the system (especially my line, line 1!)


Last week was also the beginning of our IES "excursions" of which we can go on two out of four.  Friday, we went to Reims - the city known for it's cathedral that was designed after Notre Dame de Paris (think of it as the Hunchback of Notre Dame - the remake), where all the kings of France were crowned, as well as a city within spitting distance of Champagne (yes, the area itself and the fun bubbly stuff).  
So, we took a tour of the cathedral in which we learned how to "read" the statues on the outside of the church, and interpret the stained glass and architectural style of the interior.  We had a very thorough tour guide.  In fact, she was so thorough, I was sure we would never see the inside of the church.  And though we were fascinated with comparing the statues to determine which artists designed them, we were all a bit chilly - that is, until we entered the cathedral.  It was at least ten degrees colder inside!  My favorite part of this tour was when our guide asked us to observe the statue of Clovis (the first official King of France) in the center of all the other statues and determine how he differed from the rest - most everyone pointed out that he was nude, but this was not the response she had been hoping for.  The real answer: he is the only king depicted not wearing a crown.  I would love to know how many people usually answer that he's not wearing clothing before noticing that he's crown-less.  Perhaps it was because we were freezing that we overlooked the latter...
Anyway, my REAL favorite part of this tour: the Marc Chagall stained glass windows in the very back of the church behind the alter.  Marc Chagall more recently became one of my favorite artists.  He was a Russian Jew who came to Paris to broaden his artistic palate, but was later forced to escape a tainted Vichy France in WWII to reach safety in America...needless to say, his story is amazing, and more astonishingly, he is well-known for many works taken from stories in the Bible - so maybe it's not so surprising that a Jewish artist fashioned stained glass windows depicting Christian stories in a Catholic church in Reims, the city of French kings.  (If you can see my past facebook profile pictures, the one "Paris par la fenêtre" is a painting of his that I fell in love with after I saw it at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC last fall)...


The second half of our day consisted of a tour of the Pommery Champagne caves - oh la la!  The 127 stairs down to the depths of the caves are not the creepy part - it was the bizarre menagerie of modern art and the ancient walls and bottles of Champagne that created the bizarre ambiance.  When I say "modern art" I mean sleek sculptures resembling blobs with huge peach-pit type things sticking out of them.  One was full of coconuts.  There were also life-size clay hippos (I realized that they were made of clay when I curiously touched the surface to see what kind of smooth, non-shiny stone they were made of...oops)...Also, large video screens projected "fashion" photo slideshows.  I suppose this is how gritty caves and dusty green bottles of Champagne age - in the pits, surrounded by fashionable and incomprehensible things.  To tie up the loose ends from our tour, there was a "dégustation" or Champagne tasting afterward, in which one could then feel informed about the artistically-influenced pre-life of the beverage.  It was a great day and a very interesting and diverse trip.




In other news, "strange men" have been in my building every day for the past two weeks.  They are preparing to paint all of the hallway walls and doors, and fixtures, and pipes, and basically everything but the tiled floor.  This is quite a process.  Cutting to the chase, I have made friends (sort of) with a few of these fellows who are, all in all, very nice and very middle-aged.  This might seem like a bland topic, but I promise it has a point...
They really bothered me at first because I felt like I was in the way, and because I dislike coming home during the day to hear hammers shake the building, and boards clanking as they prime and do repair work to the in-need-of-TLC walls.  My favorite part of this is that the staircase from my floor to the floor below me is completely blocked...which means I have to take the elevator from floor 7 to 6 in order to get to my host family's apartment.  (It just makes a person feel lazy...haha)...  
Every time I run into this one guy - we'll call him Luke (like from the show Gilmore Girls - he's always wearing flannel, and has a strikingly similar scruffy look about him; also, I don't know his real name) - he always says something about how I'm "charmante" (charming) and that he hopes they paint the walls blue like my eyes.  Yes, kind of creepy.  But he's harmless, and let's be honest, it's kind of flattering.  Then there's Toothy, who must have the worst orthodontia I've seen in a while.  I chatted with him today about how I play the flute, which must mean I don't smoke because it would be hard to play the flute if I smoked (as he puffs on a cigarette in the hallway).  He also shared that he is a self-taught guitarist, as the Jackson Five's "back to your heart" song played from the radio behind the ladder.  There are two other painters who are the strong, silent types, and then there's Monsieur Richard, the "doorman" (as explained to me by my host mom - and of course they would have doormen in French apartment buildings...).  
The reason I am explaining all of this is because Monsieur Richard has seen me before (obviously when I'm exiting and entering the building during daylight hours - his general friendliness and tendency to greet people make so much more sense now that I know what it is that he does).  And when he sees me, he's always like, "Oh you're the one that plays the flute!  It's always so wonderful to hear!"  
Today I was practicing in preparation for a rehearsal with Mme de Buchy and Diego, when who knocks on my door but Monsieur Richard.  He was really excited to see me with my actual flute, and though it sounds bizarre, he asked if I wanted to practice in a bigger room (i.e. his flat on the 7th floor) because I honestly don't have much space in my room.  So, he led me down the hall and I practiced for about an hour, feeling like I was giving a concert to the whole city (the windows were open).  The best part was that he pointed out that you can see the Arc de Triomphe, the Sacre Coeur, AND the Tour Eiffel out of his two windows.  So, essentially, I saw my own version of "Paris par la fenêtre" today in the most literal sense possible.  And it was simply "charmant."




à bientôt!
-Laura :)


P.S. Thank you SO MUCH for all of the wonderful letters! I love getting mail and hearing about how everyone is doing!  :)  Also, I plan on sharing other cultural/gastronomic discoveries VERY SOON!  I have not forgotten your requests! :)

Bonjour Paris!

I plan on writing a whole lot more soon...but I just HAD to post this link...it's fantastic!! :)

Funny Face

fantastique!!

la campagne à Paris!

Bonjour mes amis!


Paris is the city of love, the city of life...and once a year the city of cows, food, wine, and a really big Salon International d'Agriculture, where every region of France is represented by its livestock and/or cuisine, and other European and Francophone countries can show off their delicacies to Parisians and visitors alike.  This is like one big county fair that stretches across the nation.


I went to this agricultural festival paying the student price of six euro, and was treated to a day of ooing and awwing at the animals, watching accordion players in berets, trying samples of different cheeses, breads, jellies, honey, and fruits, and enjoying the spectacle that was this convention full of hungry, animal-loving people from age one to one hundred.  Obviously, this was the place to be.  It was heaven for anyone searching for "dégustation" (sampling), or anyone interested in competitive livestock shows.  I have never seen so many kinds of cows, and such big ones!  It made for a great day, and was the most unique thing I've experienced since I've been here! (definitely a bit different from the Louvre at least...)


I also made a new friend!  IES started a conversation club for French and English speakers and at the first meeting I met a very nice girl named Noémie (like Naomi, but French) who is a middle school music teacher in a banlieu (suburb) of Paris (she is a cellist).  My friends Jess and Keara and I went to dinner with her last Wednesday and had a wonderful time talking about everything from Disney movies to our interests and what we find to be surprising about Parisian culture.  She is just as curious about us as we are about her - she's ready to introduce us to her little dog, Lilu, who also happens to be bilingual!


So that is all the exciting news I have for now.. This link will show you some photos of the salon d'agriculture if you're interested!  I definitely took photos...but my camera batteries chose to run out of juice very early on (bummer!) but I promise I will share what I have soon!


Bonsoir et à tout à l'heure!


-Laura :)

Vachement...chouette.

Coucou!

I promise I did not just make a bird noise...or did I?  Yes, "coucou" is a popular way of saying "hey!" and being cute about it - my host family does this all the time.  So the past few weeks have been busy and once again, I can't believe how the time is flying by!  I've been in Paris for almost a whole month and a half, though oddly my stay seems to be both shorter and longer all at once.  Since there is so much to say, and no eloquent way to say it, I'm simply going to revert to the old standby - list-making! (just in paragraph form...)

I visited Versailles.  It is way bigger than I ever imagined.  With my sense of direction, and Louis' idea of a garden, I would be a goner living within a mile radius of the palace.  The inside is, by any standard, enchanting.  And though I admittedly expected a fun-house kind of experience in the "Hall of Mirrors" (apparently I was being too literal), I was in awe and drooling over every elaborate square inch of the place.  Also, the gardens of Versailles, though not in bloom, did not cease to impress me.  I never imagined a garden could be so big.  I recall finding the very exact pruning of the shrubberies to be very amusing and "French" my first time here.  But in the dead of winter, I never expected to see trees the size of the ancient oaks in my backyard pruned so precisely, down to the last straight edge and ninety-degree angle.  Maybe that was naive of me...but, seriously.  I can't wait to return in the spring when everything is alive and in bloom!

Musically, I feel very busy - I did a three-day masterclass with my flute professor here, Mihi Kim, where I vigorously took notes and received criticism and advice on how to better my playing.  It was quite a learning experience, and I look forward (almost tentatively...but not really) to what else I will learn this semester with regard to my flute.

I visited a few fantastic "expositions" at various museums in the past few weeks.  I really enjoy being within métro-distance of any type of museum possible - everything from Rembrandt and Da Vinci, to Van Gogh and Monet, to Soulages and "De Stijl" Mondrian art.  This past Thursday, I was on a roll.  I first went to the Place des Vosges, where I visited the Maison Victor Hugo.  This was not his only home in Paris (apparently he moved a lot), but I was fascinated with the museum's attempt to remake some of the rooms of his various homes.  I enjoyed seeing the exposition "Portraits d'écrivains" which included portraits of Victor Hugo and his contemporaries.  The best part was seeing the writing desk engraved with the names, inkwells and pens from four famous writers (Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, George Sand, and Lamartine) - the piece was originally designed to raise money for charity.

While trying to find the subtle entry to Victor Hugo's house (I was not lost, I was just enjoying a few laps around the Place des Vosges...promise), I also stumbled upon an incredibly interesting boutique/store, covered floor to ceiling with very old, occasionally exotic, and professionally refurbished musical instruments.  It probably shocks you that I was in awe.  But maybe not... I actually walked in behind two French women who proceeded to talk with the owner and express interest in trying a guitar - just for fun (it appeared as though none of the price tags had fewer than four digits on them).  So, I watched as the owner demonstrated playing an instrument I have never seen before, nor know the name of.  It looked like a small keyboard from far away, but instead of pressing the keys to hear the kind of percussive tap of a piano mallet, the keys actually pressed down on a guitar-like string instrument, acting as the left hand would to change the pitch on a guitar.  But this string instrument only had one string, and you changed the pitch by playing the keyboard with your left hand, while using what appeared to be a violin bow to play the extension of the guitar at the end of the piano with your right hand.  What's more, you can change keys or registers by lifting the piano part and moving it to the left or right.  I was really enjoying this demonstration and took the opportunity to gawk around at the variety of instruments: about a dozen baroque bassoons, a few serpents, various sized cornetti, several flutes made from different materials (ivory, wood, etc.), dozens of string instruments hanging from the ceiling (guitars, violins, citars, lutes), ornate harps of various sizes, several Hurdy-Gurdys, natural horns and brass instruments I didn't even recognize, and so much more, all in tip-top playing condition in this tiny little shop in the middle of Paris.  This made for a fantastic twenty minutes out of my day.

In this very same day, I decided to hike over to the Centre Pompidou, the modern art museum.  The Pompidou screams modern, scientific and asymmetrical.  It's all about a flash in the pan, pop art, feminism, abstract and surreal ideas, shocking, new, structural, animated, media-encompassing, architecture and neon lights.  I did not get to see all of it - I was only there two and a half hours and only made it to the exposition I purposefully went to see - Mondrian and De Stijl.  This was something my host sister, Serena, recommended.  And I quite agree that it was really incredibly interesting, despite not having any prior knowledge on the subject.  Mondrian started out with a kind of expressionist approach in the beginning of the 20th century - I was reminded of Van Gogh with his first paintings of trees and women, and then was startled by the shift to something like this.  It's kind of hard for me to explain how great the exposition was, so I think it would be best, if you're interested in seeing more, to look at the Pompidou website, which will give you a much thorougher and more informed recount of Mondrian/De Stijl.  Very fascinating stuff!

I also saw another great exposition two weeks ago at Le Petit Palais, situated on the Champs-Élysées across from Le Grand Palais (I bet you can guess which one is bigger!)... For my language class we were required to see "Reporters sans Frontières: 100 photos de Pierre et Alexandra Boulat."  It was a presentation of the works of a father/daughter duo who were both photo-journalists, a generation apart.  It fascinated me to see the similarities and differences in both bodies of work, and to compare them.  Pierre used what was available (black and white film) to capture moments in the lives of celebrities, marriages, American women, and even soldiers training at West Point.  Alexandra shocks the viewer more immediately with photos of people suffering in times of war, namely in middle eastern countries like Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Iraq.  Check out this link if you're interested in reading more!  I highly recommend even google-ing some photos... :)

So at the moment, I sound exposition-crazy.  This might be true, but I have a lot of "culturing" to do here!  (Not at all related to cheese...)

On that note, I will move on to food.  I knew you were looking forward to this part.

Things I have tried, or almost died trying in the past few weeks that were not afore mentioned:

• Mont-Blanc - the speciality dessert at Angelina.  My friend Jess and I nearly died when we realized Versailles also has this tea room.  Not shocking of course, because the place is probably meant for royalty.  So, as you might guess, we had to go there.  Mont-Blanc is simply so delicious it could kill you.  It begins with a bottom layer of meringue followed by a filling of incredibly fluffy and thick whipped cream, and topped off with chestnut paste.  It looks like an imitation mushroom cloud you are permitted to eat.  Here's an image of both the hot chocolate and the dessert described above/previously.
• Falafel in le Marais, an old, shopping/food and Jewish district of Paris - This meal from L'As du Falafel is heaven in a pita.  I don't even know how to describe this.  It does not taste like Paris, but definitely puts some zing into your lunch (especially if you ask for extra spicy sauce...I have no idea what it is but it's great!)  It was kind of sad to see the competing falafel shop across the street with a line less than half as long...but I suppose the word is out about who makes it best!
• La Crêperie des Canettes - a tiny, family-owned crêperie in what is known as "Pancake Square" in Paris.  I immensely enjoyed my meal there, especially the dessert crêpe with homemade caramel...mmm!
• Macarons from Pierre Hermé - I take back everything I said before about macarons being just so-so... Pierre Hermé won my heart over with the bizarre combination of flavors offered, as well as the traditional.  Chocolate was definitely good, but carrot/cinnamon was also bizarrely delicious, as well as passionfruit/chocolate...and rose-flavored...and...well, you kind of get the idea.

So, this is where I say "adieu" or "coucou" depending on which part of "So Long, Farewell" I'd like to do an impression of.  Thanks for reading, and I promise to update sooner rather than later next time!!

Love,
Laura

Formidable Fauré

I just got home. Literally, just walked through my door, and I have to savor this moment...I just saw a really fantastic concert at the Salle Pleyel, with the Orchestre de Paris, playing all FRENCH music by the master, Fauré.  It's really sad that I could have nearly forgotten how the sight of an orchestra makes me feel - WOW!  I almost cried.  About 3.4 times.  I did cry 1.5 times.  What an amazing performance - not to mention the chic-ness of the program.  Beginning with the Pavane, one of those pieces that you hear or play (especially on the flute) when you are learning to hold the instrument, followed by a piece originally for cello and piano - Elégie, which is stunningly set for cello and orchestra (I learned about this piece last semester - beautiful!), followed by two lesser-known Fauré pieces, which were marvelous. (Oh, have I mentioned yet that the choir of the Orchestre de Paris was also singing??? AH!)...The second half of the program was the Requiem, which was equally as great as the rest.  Only in Paris, in a concert hall full of French people, with a French orchestra, playing French music by one of the greatest French composers, could the concert manage to end successfully with the last movement of the Requiem, "In Paradisum," WITHOUT the orchestra doing an encore after ten whole minutes of clapping from the audience.  This is incredibly peaceful music!  And, oddly enough (it took me a while), I realized on my walk home that the opening of the Pavane and the end of "In Paradisum" sound slightly familiar with the arpeggiated passages...Fauré, you sly dog, you've done it again.  Not only did the music come full circle, but the French-ness of it all was out of control, for lack of more sophisticated vocabulary.

Indulge my nerdiness here.  For comparison, listen to the opening of the Pavane and the opening of "In Paradisum"...AH! SO GENIUS!

Anyway, it was a really incredible concert, and I just had to write these wafty words before I forgot...which, let's face it, I won't forget, but it's still too exciting to put off...

As a side note, I sat next to a very nice lady from Normandie who used to be a geography teacher.  The French continue to charm me!

I'll write later about other exciting things, but I wanted to make sure I got to write from Paradise while I am here...

Bonsoir,

Laura