Friday night I hopped on a train and zoomed to Montparnasse where I caught the metro to the Opéra National de Paris (I had about 45min to get there before the show….during rush hour.) It was really warm that day so my forehead was “glistening” by the time I made it through all the train changes/stairs and to the door at the opera..but I didn't mind. The opera was fantastic (four soloists, a massive opera choir, an orchestra, and a narrator) and they recounted the story of David. Emily would have LOVED it. I've never heard voices like that and the soprano was wearing Louis Vuitton stilettos and diamonds I could see from the fourth balcony! There were no microphones but it really resonated well.
After the opera, I walked to the Louvre just to enjoy the wonderful weather and then I took the metro to my friend’s apartment (her cousin is an ambassador of France and she was sent to another country for three years so Mathilde gets to live in her apartment which happens to be on the seine two blocks from the Eiffel tower!) She didn't tell me that before I got there so I was expecting a normal French studio apartment on a dark alley, miles from the center...haha
Saturday I woke up early and explored some more. First I got a croissant and a thing of strawberries for breakfast and ate them in a park...then visited les Invalides. On my way out, I noticed a crowd around one of the little courts and went to watch and it was the coolest thing. Tons of guys Tom's age playing “polo à vélo!” They were wearing hilarious team uniforms and self-decorated helmets (elephant, bunny, or dogs ears attached) and pinned on tails, and painted faces. So bergwall if you ask me. Anyway it was some kind of major tournament with several teams on the lawn waiting for a chance to play.
After I had my fill of that, I just kind of wandered around for a little while until I went to meet up with Mathilde at her brother's apartment for lunch. He lives in a beautiful little area on the east side but still close to all the fun. Her whole family was there so I had plenty of speaking practice! And some really great "chili." After dinner several of us went to my host dad's art show in the cutest little gallery in the saint germain area. His artwork was so beautiful and his whole family was there...I'm sure they are all very used to this, but I was super impressed!
Mathilde (a concert bass player) had to go to her rehearsal at that point, so her dad and brother took me to get "the best ice cream in Paris." They were right...I had pistachio and wow was it delicious! So kind of them to take me around too. When they had to get going they pointed me in the direction of the Seine and so I just did tons of window shopping and people watching until I had to be at Mathilde's concert. Her concert was yet again in a part of paris I'd never seen, but really really pretty and fun to take the metro to new places :) Mathilde has almost the same age as me so for her to be performing in Paris all the time seems really accomplished to me.
So her concert was great...a very lively conductor, and afterwards we ran to the RER and caught a train to her parents’ house in the suburbs. (They were having a party for her brother and invited me to stay the night there.) It was a group of maybe 10 others of my age just sitting around being goofy and nibbling on all kinds of little snacks...(Mathilde has two brothers and sister so it felt a lot like being at home)
We got there at night so I really couldn't tell what the surroundings looked like but in the morning I went down for breakfast and wow....their house was on a hill that overlooks all of Paris (and the house was super cool too..over a hundred years old and just massive) Anyway, we spent the morning hiking, playing badminton and just chatting and then back to Paris for the rest of the day. I said bye to Mathilde at that point because she had another concert...and took the metro out to la Defense (the modern part of Paris on the north west side).
Having never been there, I thought I would probably spend like an hour hanging around looking at the architecture....but little did I know there is an enormous mall out there! So, an hour turned into a few. haha. Then I went back to the Marais area to see some things I hadn't seen before...kinda got turned around coming out of the metro and ended walking to the point where I could see Montmartre! oops...but I saw some more of Paris at least. So at that point it was starting to get a little bit dark so I quickly hopped on the nearest metro to head back to Mathilde's appartement to get my things. There I just kind of lollygagged around taking pics of the eiffel tower and walking along the seine and then decided to head to Montparnasse so I could get some dinner there before getting on my train back to Tours. That was all fine and dandy until I saw the time on someone else's cell phone (we apparently did the whole “spring forward” thing yesterday) so I literally ran as soon as I got off the metro, up several flights of stairs....composted my ticket and found my seat with 5 min to spare. Crazy...but so glad I had built in sandwich time even though I had no sandwich. (don't worry I had some bread and jam when I got back to tours around 11:)
So there you have it...my whirlwind of a weekend! Couldn’t have been any better really!
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