Pictures from Paris

I have been instructed to add some photos to the blog. But most of them are sideways (remember how in the age of real photos on real film that wasn't an issue??) and I really don't feel like putting in the effort required to figure out how to fix that on Blogger. Maybe later. So here are just a couple of teasers from watching the Tour de France's eight circuits around the Champs-Elysées yesterday. I tell you, Mom and I got tired just standing there watching them! I don't know how they did this for the whole day - let alone three weeks.

Here are the first few racers:

And here is the peloton (look at me using fancy Tour de France terminology!):

Today was much more relaxed than the previous days. We caught an early-ish TGV to Aix-en-Provence. To answer your question, yes, it really is that fast. I am a regular train-taker, and I noticed the difference in speed right away. Everything zooms by so quickly out the window! And walking while the train is moving is a little difficult. The scenery along the way was breathtaking - exactly how you picture the French countryside. We saw old chateaus and fortresses, farmhouses, and even an ancient aquaduct! 

We spent the afternoon and evening strolling around Aix-en-Provence. It is an absolutely beautiful town. Most of the downtown area consists of tiny, winding pedestrian streets, with tall, old buildings rising up on both sides. As in Canada's most popular resort towns (think Banff and Whistler), there are plenty of tacky souvenir shops and all the usual chains. But there are also some true Provençal shops, such as the beautiful patisserie we stopped in that was opened in 1792. 

For dinner, we stopped at a popular take-out pizza spot just off of the main drag. Our pizza came with chorizo instead of pepperoni, and emmenthal instead of mozzarella, substitutions which I would highly recommend you try at home. After dinner, we took in the crafts market that opens every night at dusk along the main street. Again, some tacky souvenir duds, but also some gems, such as the stand where I purchased an original illustration of the Paris flower market from an 1897 publication.

Tomorrow morning, we will explore Aix's food market. In the afternoon we will head out on a tour of the Camargue, a vast area of wetlands south of Arles where flamingoes roam free and you can swim in the Mediterranean. I can hardly wait!

Three days in (and around) Paris

I really wish I hadn't procrastinated on my blog for the last couple of days. Now I have so much to tell! I suppose I better do this day by day:

Friday – The Paris Sights:

Friday was our big sightseeing day. We started off with the Arc de Triomphe, which may just be the most impressive monument I have ever visited. I have always had a certain fondness for Ottawa's War Memorial, but Paris's is on a scale I could never have imagined. Of course I had seen countless pictures of it before our visit, but nothing can quite prepare you for something that is just so big. Not to mention intricate – the amount, size, and complexity of the sculpture that covers the Arc is astounding.

After wandering down the Champs-Elysées for a block or two, and looking at some $20, 000 Cartier watches, we headed for the Eiffel Tower. To be honest, it felt like more of a theme park than anything, and we jetted pretty quickly.

We took a boat along the Seine to Notre Dame, taking in the gorgeous views on both sides of the river along the way. I hadn't been too, too excited to see it, but like the Arc de Triomphe, it impressed me in person in a way that a picture never could. We looked around inside for awhile, and spent some time in the Crypte archeologique, where remains of Roman-controlled Paris (think 3rd and 4th century) were discovered.

We then went to see the Bastille, which was one of the things I had been most looking forward to. Evidently, my mom's historical education was somewhat less robust than mine (which I suppose suits an engineer vs. a musicologist). She was under the impression that the actual Bastille was still there, and that we were going on a tour of a real prison!! She was quite shocked when we got to the Place de Bastille and all that was there was a large monument. I filled in the gaps for her.

Afterward we spent quite a long time walking around the Bastille neighbourhood, which quickly became our favourite part of the city. Unlike most of the other areas we visited, it wasn't saturated with tourists – real people live there! We even had a nice conversation, entirely in French, with a bookseller who gave us some good restaurant recommendations.

On our first two nights, we had a great deal of trouble finding nice places to eat dinner – all the restaurants around us just looked like tourist traps, and the only places we had heard about were super-famous and super-expensive. But we ate Friday night at a seafood restaurant that the aforementioned bookseller recommended, and it was delicious! I had my first bouillabaisse, something I have long wanted to try. Mom had a nicely-cooked fish.

Saturday - Versailles:

We spent most of Saturday at Versailles. After some trouble with my metrocard, we finally made it there by about 1pm….and then stood in line to buy tickets for TWO HOURS. Ironically enough, when we got to the front, it turned out I didn't even need one! Evidently music students get in free, so all I needed was my student ID. They didn't even give me a ticket that says "free" or "student" on it. But I suppose I couldn't very well have gone in and looked around while Mom stood in line.

Out of the parts of the castle that we toured, my favourites were two halls near the end. One had huge portraits of every battle won by the French since the beginning of time hung on the wall, in chronological order, up one side of the hall and down the other. The other hall I really liked had sculptures of all the kings and France's most famous intellectuals.

Something else I found funny were the rooms that framed the Hall of Mirrors. One is called the War Room and the other is the Peace Room. I found myself wondering, is that because in the day of the Ancien Regime, the king would meet with his enemies first in the War Room, awe them with the Hall of Mirrors, and then get them to sign a peace treaty in the Peace Room out of the fear/wonder caused by the Hall of Mirrors?

The most amazing part of Versailles for me was the gardens outside of the palace. It's not that I've never seen a symmetrical palatial garden before (hello, Belvedere Palace!). But, like Notre Dame and the Arc de Triomphe, it's on a scale that I could never have imagined. Even the forests surrounding the palace are perfectly symmetrical.

I also appreciate the way in which the symmetry of the garden plays out within the palace as well. The windows in the Hall of Mirrors look directly out into the centre of the garden. And the window across from the King's bed looks right out through the centre of the front gate. I could go on.

Before leaving for Versailles, Mom and I cracked and finally bought a real Michelin guide to Paris restaurants (the website is USELESS). When we arrived back in Paris from Versailles, we decided to look up a couple of the restaurants in the neighbourhood a little north of the Bastille. It is a beautiful area, and we enjoyed walking around there very much. However, all three of the restaurants we tried were full! So we decided to go to another one that was on the same block, but wasn't in the book, featuring the cuisine of Normandy. This turned out to be hands-down the best meal yet of our trip. We both had delicious appetisers, followed by the most amazing lamb, served with its own juices (heavenly!) and gratiné dauphinoise – which basically is scalloped potatoes made with lots of cream, with a delightfully crispy topping of cheese. The waiter was very friendly, and was excited to meet "des étrangers" – a sure sign we weren't in touristland anymore.

Sunday – TOUR DE FRANCE!

Finally the day I had been waiting for came – the final day of the Tour de France, when all the bikers race down the Champs Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe.

Before heading out to the Champs Elysées, we had plenty of time to do some more exploring. First we set out for the weekly bird market on Ile de la Cité (the same island which Notre Dame is on). There were cages upon cages of canaries, budgies, finches, and all kinds of parrots. The highlight, though, was definitely a pair of baby Amazons, still partially covered in down.

After that, we wandered down Rue de Rivoli towards our favourite Bastille neighbourhood. Then Mom and I split up; she went to the Picasso museum and I paid a visit to Victor Hugo's house.

After lunch by the canal near Place de la République, we took the metro to Jardin des Tuileries, and staked out our spot for the Tour de France. We were only two or three people away from the barriers, and we were on the curb (those ahead of us were on the road), so we had a pretty good view. It was amazing seeing all the racers whiz by – they really do go very very fast! After their first couple of tours around the Champs Elysées (they do a total of seven), the crowds started to thin, and we got to go right up against the barriers.

For dinner, we phoned ahead and booked a table at a Michelin-recommended restaurant near the Eiffel Tower. Walking across the Seine and seeing the Eiffel Tower looming in the distance was quite magical – in my opinion much more so than seeing the tower up close. The dinner was pretty good, too – the restaurant was very chic, and filled mostly with locals, and our dishes were well-prepared (especially our appetiser of prawns!).

Tonight is our last night in Paris. Tomorrow morning we have to get up very early to catch our train to Aix-en-Provence. Paris has been fun (in an exhausting, touristy sort of way), but I'm really looking forward to spending some time in the south of France, in some smaller cities. Till Provence, then, I bid you adieu!
_________________________________________________________________

Bonsoir de Paris!

My mother and I arrived in Paris yesterday morning, after a sleepless night flying over the Atlantic. We didn't feel too adventurous after our flight, so we toured around Montmartre, the neighbourhood our hotel is in. The afternoon in Montmartre left me a little worried, since the area resembled, more than anything, the most touristy parts of Quebec City and Montreal's Old Port. There were, however, a couple of cool things:

-a church across the street from our hotel, where the organist gives free concerts whenever he feels like it

-the Musée de Montmartre, featuring various cool posters etc. from earlier in the neighbourhood's existence, when the likes of Debussy and Satie played in Montmartre's cabaret halls. I found an AWESOME set of six cabaret songs, scored for voice and piano accompaniment, with beautiful illustrated title pages à la Toulouse-Lautrec.

Today's meanderings proved my Montmartre-fuelled doubts wrong: the areas around the Musée d'Orsay and the Quartier d'Opéra resembled much more closely what I had thought Paris would be like. Big avenues, beautiful buildings, all the nicest stores....

After a very enjoyable (read: pastry-filled) breakfast in our hotel, we headed over to the Musée d'Orsay, home to one of the world's greatest collections of Impressionist paintings. I especially enjoyed seeing many less-well-known paintings by some of my favourite artists.

After our time at the museum, we took the metro to Place de la Madeleine, home to many gourmet food shops. Funny story: in the Maille boutique (yes, an entire store devoted to mustard), there was a group of people we assumed (from their generally obnoxious behaviour and their refusal to speak in French to the saleslady) were American. Only when they started going on and on about how you can only buy two types of mustard in Canada (which just isn't true!) did we realise they were Canadian, just like us! I would like to think this experience would have taught my mother and I not to stereotype, but after we left the store, my mother turned to me and said, "well, I suppose they must be from Toronto!"

We had aspirations of walking across the Seine to the Louvre and the Jardin des Tuileries after lunch, but we never made it. Instead we spent the rest of the day wandering along the Boulevard de Capucines and the Boulevard Haussmann. Over the course of the afternoon/evening, we visited the famous Café de la Paix for coffee and pastries, saw the Opéra National de Paris-Garnier, and shopped at two of Paris's oldest department stores (Au Printemps and les Galeries Lafayette).

Anyway my turn on the computer has far exceeded my mother's patience, so I suppose I should giver her a chance to check her email now. À bientôt!

Tour de France - sneak preview!

As my trip to France is quickly approaching (t - 12 days and counting!), I thought it would be fitting to put up a rough schedule:

July 22-28: Paris (though actually by the time we get there it'll be July 23)

July 28-31: Aix-en-Provence (with a day trip or two TBA)

July 31-Aug 1: Marseille

Aug 1-Aug 9: Music at Castelfranc (piano school lead by awesome British pianist, Paul Roberts!!)

Aug 9-Aug 13: London (because Air Canada didn't have any Aeroplan seats left in France!! What a wonderful twist of fate!)

I'm starting to get very excited.

Welcome!

Why do people decide to blog? Some want to connect with people halfway around the world who share their interests - see the countless blogs devoted to knitting, cooking, sports, etc. Many, feeling that their posts will be funnier, better-crafted, more interesting than the rest, hope to get a little attention for themselves. Some of these attention-seekers may hope in their heart of hearts that some editor at a top publication will stumble across their blog and offer them the job of their dreams. (If only life were so simple.) But it seems to me that another common impetus for a blog, perhaps the most common one, is travel. Which brings me to how I decided that the time was ripe for my own blog.

A few weeks ago, I graduated from McGill University, with a Bachelors in Music. Armed with the knowledge of such esoteric musical topics as performance practice in the early 18th century, the daily Office in the medieval Roman Catholic church, and the emerging field of eco-musicology, I decided that I was ready to march out into the real world and...oh wait. No. That would require some real life skills. Scratch that. I decided that the best thing would be to stay in school as long as possible, in the hope that one day, if this heap of esoteric knowledge really piled up, someone would reward me with a job.

Still, I decided that even if I wasn't ready to fly out into the real world of jobs, real estate, etc., I did want to shake my life up a little bit. So in six weeks (exactly! to the day! not that I'm counting) I will be moving to Manhattan to continue my musicological studies at the City University of New York. So, in the fall, you can expect to read all about the wonderful adventures I experience as I adjust to life in the Big Apple.

But wait! There's more!! Before I head off to New York, I will be spending three weeks gallavanting about France with my darling mother. So stay tuned for exciting tales from that *other* land of Francophones beginning July 22.