Monday, October 12, 2009

monday: paris, day 4

just me and deanna today. it rained until mid-evening, but nothing that stopped our fun! we stopped at the moulin rouge, and headed to the sacre-coeur in the montmarte area of paris. the sacre-coeur cathedral, dedicated to the sacred heart of Jesus, is on a hill of the far north part of paris overlooking the city. we climbed up, enjoyed a man playing fiddle and the view, then centured inside. the basilica was beautiful, and has a huge dome on the top that inside has a magnificent mosaic of God, the Holy Spirit in dove form and Jesus with tons of famous martyrs, saints and Christian leaders worshipping them. also really cool was the collection of stained glass windows- they visually told the life stories of many saints, with written summaries to explain the images in french. reverent and classically pretty place. she wanted to get a legit french cafe experience, so we bought some pastries (my first madeline pastry-cookie as well as a green and black olive pastry), picked a sidewalk cafe and had a drink while people watching. after that, i sent her on her way and wandered the area a bit.
i wanted to see an opera, but needed to stand in line for an hour and a half to see if i could get a ticket again. i decided it was worth the wait, and wound up being the last person to purchase a ticket for the night! it started at 7:30, and at 7:29 i sprinted up five flights of stairs and found my seat just before they closed the audience for the show. my ticket was 7 euros, and was one of the worst seats; the ticket actually had "sans visibilite," or without visibility, written on it. this was fine, because i was still inside the opera garnier (majestic theater that actually inspired the entire story of phantom of the opera) watching my first opera! it was mireille, which apparently is the quintessentiel romantic opera, which got its start in paris in the mid 1800's. i sat in a top corner, right next to a gold ceiling angel statue with a view of the entire orchestra, audience and half the stage. i was at eye level with a small projector that had the words written out, in french, so i actually knew everything that was going on the entire time! it was lovely, insanely dramatic and captivating. with intermissions and all, i didn't leave until 11:00!
went back to nicolas' sleeper sofa, and enjoyed some shut eye.

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