A day in Paris with Celine

The view from one of the balconies of the Paris Opera.

On Tuesday we were honored to be shown around Paris by our friend Celine, who is from here originally. Sven met Celine when she offered to translate Pinart's journals for the Alutiiq museum while she was working towards her PhD in American Indiginous Museum Studies a couple of years back. Celine now lives in San Francisco with her husband but was back in Paris for a couple weeks visiting her family and generously took a day to hang out with us.

Our plan was to meet at our apartment at 10, but our newly adopted schedule revolves around staying up super late reading Harry Potter, so we didn't actually leave until much later.... The first thing we did with Celine was go straight to the local (Latin Quarter) favorite boulangerie to buy some pastries for later, then got on the metro to head to the Palais Garnier Opera, a building we'd marveled at from the outside but never been inside of. When we read that Chagall painted the ceiling of the auditorium we knew that it was time to go. And I'm so glad we did! The Opera (completely sold out for everything in December, unfortunately) was built in the late 1800s by Charles Garnier in the Neo-Baroque style, meaning that it incorporated a little bit of everything- rococo, baroque, neoclassical- lots of gold and lots of marble. It's quite stunning! It was built as the home of the Paris Opera and Ballet companies when Emperor Napoleon III authorized Baron Haussman to clear 12,000 square meters of land and to widen the streets into rigid, grand boulevards leading from the opera house, to the arc de triomphe and over to the Louvre. At the time it was devastating. Now it is humbling and awe-inspiring. None of us could say whether we 'liked' the building or were just amazed by it, though- it is such an over-the-top statement of wealth and richness that it makes one feel like a country bumpkin.

Apparently, though, Phantom of the Opera is loosely based on this Opera house. There is indeed an underground lake under the building, and there was someone killed by a chandelier- plus the grand, glorious elements of the building- led Gaston Leroux to write The Phantom of the Opera in 1910.

The girls in front of the Paris Opera.

Eilidh getting the shot....

The shot!

Ceiling painting in one of the small drawing rooms off of the main floor.

Another Eilidh shot. The grand staircase.

Chagall's ceiling, featuring images of many different operas.

Swan Lake...

Some of the amazing mosaics....

Ceiling of what was once the place for men to 'meet and smoke' during intermission. Not women, initially...

Eilidh showing froggy around.

The main stage

Outside the opera house.

The gift shop- with beautiful ballerina lamps.

After our time at the Paris Opera was done, we exited through the gorgeous gift shop and into the gently falling snow. We walked around the Galleries Lafayette to admire the window decorations and finally into one of the Galleries (department store). 7 escalators up later (and through some very expensive and fancy stores) we arrived into a simple dining hall with a very surprising and amazing view of the city. Afterwards, looking at the falling snow and wet sloppy streets, we decided to ditch our plan of walking all afternoon around the Marais district (Jewish quarter of 50 years ago, now turned gay district) and instead, go to the Pompidou Center. Of course, it was closed... so we called up another friend, Nelcya, who Sven had met in Boulogne and had also presented at the conference on Saturday, and who had invited us over for coffee when we were in the neighborhood. Nelcya, a brilliant woman (along with Celine) has spent her career working on issues regarding American Indiginous Studies and art. Nelcya served us some wonderful traditional French Christmas streets- soft, sweet dates filled with marzipan and rolled in sugar.

The view from the dining hall at the Galleries Lafeyette.

Pompidou center closed for the day...

Afterwards, Celine showed us some of her favorite local haunts... the beautiful church of Notre Dame des Champs....


A specialty food shop carrying a little of everything- all stacked up to the ceiling!





A well-known tea shop filled with throngs of shoppers slowly and carefully being treated to smells from gigantic tins (The Mariage Freres tea shop).

The Jewish quarter, filled with blue Hannukah banners- mosaiced store-fronts, windows stuffed with menorahs, posters about Israel, Torahs and silver candelabras- amazing bakeries, etc. We stopped for a plate of hummus and falafel (yum!) then got again into the metro to go to a friend's daughter's jewelry show across the Seine. One glass of mulled wine in, we knew that the jewelry was very much above our price range (although gorgeous) so we made our way home... what a full, wonderful, satisfying day!

Hummus!

On the metro...

Stopping in to a Marais district historical construction renovation project to see how they are re-building 13th century Romanesque arches in an ancient abbey...