OPERA

I've been to Paris about eighteen billion times by now but had never been inside the Palais Garnier, everyone's favorite opera house in the 9th arrondissement. If you've ever sat through an art history survey course -- or even better, a whole class dedicated to nineteenth century European painting -- you'll probably remember having to memorize a gazillion slides of Impressionist paintings, which at some point, more likely than not, featured the building in question:


Cassatt: La Loge (1882) / Lydia at the Theatre (1879); Renoir: The First Outing (1876) / La Loge (1874)

Unfortunately, I saw no young coquettes coyly fanning themselves in the box seats. Entry for the opera was only 4€ so obviously I went in, and thank god, because Napoleon III does not disappoint. Everything is made of marble, and what is not made of marble is covered in gold leaf. We snuck into a French tour group and learned that the marble for the staircase was imported from various countries; the green marble along the banister was imported from Sweden, whose très luxueux marble supply I was previously unprivvy to.



One of the rooms had this incredible night sky motif on its dome:

From the balcony, you can gaze out into the streets of Paris.

My friend and I spent Halloween watching Orphan illegally on the internet, thanks megavideo! It was horrible. We also made homemade popcorn and bought some pumpkins from the market ... and we never got around to carving them. But I did eat an entire bag of candy corn, and I don't even like candy corn.

UHOH

Okay, I have a confession.

I don't like Nutella.

I think I am probably the only person in the world that doesn't like it, and definitely the only person in France, because the French put it on everything and I mean everything. Sometimes I will eat it thinking, oh maybe this time I will like it, because I want to like it, but it never happens. Today at this coffee place the only things to eat were hot dogs and "pain Nutella," so obviously I went for the pain Nutella, and after a couple of bites I ended up scraping off as much of it as I could. The proprietor looked at me like I was crazy but I just can't do it. And it's bizarre because I love chocolate, and I love hazelnut, and I love chocolate hazelnut, so I don't know what happened, but man. I feel so uncool.

I've just spent the last four hours watching Nigella on youtube, my god I love that woman



I want to be in her kitchen for Christmas.

I am feeling shockingly festive this early in november because all the Christmas lights are being strung up in the streets here, and my mailbox has been clogged with Christmas catalogues, and I am in the process of booking an apartment in Paris for when Alex comes to visit for Christmas (Christmas in Paris!). I keep hearing about raclette parties and mulled wine and the french Christmas markets, so you'll just have to bear with me. This is probably the only time I am legitimately excited to be in living in the Meuse department, which is so lovingly referred to as "the armpit of France."

PARIS IN NOVEMBER

We made waffles and I talked to my boyfriend on video chat, very important.

I'm sick! Noo!

I had very ambitious plans of getting to the train station this morning at 7:30 to catch the 7:49 train to Nancy to catch the 9:45 train to Metz. I went to bed at five this morning, woke up two hours later feeling surprisingly refreshed and motivated for my early-morning voyage, but I made a huge mistake. Instead of showering and throwing on clothes, the internet beckoned me and I spent three hours talking to my boyfriend. Oops! In truth this was a much better way to spend my morning; Metz can wait, and I hadn't talked to A. since Saturday. But so instead of going about my day in a normal-person fashion at ten o'clock I went back to bed, and I slept, and slept some more, had a bizarre dream about being on the run from the government and escaping to Côte d'Azur, and didn't wake up until 4. And let me tell you, there is nothing that I hate more than waking up this late. I've tried to salvage my day by making some french toast out of brioche, but now it's 5 and I've done exactly nothing. I am still unshowered, in my pajamas, eating really bizarre clumpy flan from the grocery store, feeling lethargic and irritated that I am not out in the world being adventurous in France. And with honesty, the weather looks perfectly miserable outside and I'd rather just stay in my pajamas, clean, make a mix for A, and watch Singin' in the Rain.

Tomorrow morning I am getting on another train bound for Paris; I'll be there until Tuesday. Have I mentioned how much I love the TGV? And Paris? Paris Paris Paris! 

PARIS, TWO WEEKS AGO