Maxine took a special tour of the reception rooms at the Hotel de Ville. This is the Paris City Hall but, its much more elaborate than the usual city hall in a U.S. city.
An excuse to stay up all night sponsored by the City of Paris. We don't actually understand French modern art. Or maybe we don't understand anyone's modern art... One night a year the city of Paris runs the event called Nuit Blanche, which I (Tom) attended 12 years ago and we've been looking forward to since before we arrived. We accept that we don't "get it". But, that's ok. It's fun. And one of the areas where they were concentrating this year was less than a mile away. But, first, lunch. We picked up sandwiches and macarons at what had been one of our favorite bakeries in 2006 when we lived down the street. With the weather remaining great, we had a picnic in Luxembourg Gardens. Now, Nuit Blanche... Nothing says French Art like outdoor roller ball Or tall women posing next to statues of DeGaulle Or soccer under black light in glow-in-the-dark, neon rain jackets. But, Paris at...
This weekend marked the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Lots of ceremonies acknowledging it. Four years ago, we attended Armistice Day observances at the Arc de Triomphe, but that was just a short walk from the old apartment. This time we watched on TV -- and most certainly saw more of it. Although we'd have preferred that French television show captions identifying people so we'd know who they are. On Saturday night, Macron held a state dinner for the heads of state who were attending -- somewhere between 60 and 80 of them. It was at the Musee d'Orsay and, from looking at Google Maps, I figure that Trump, Macron, Merkel, Putin and etc. were eating dinner 600 meters from us. We tried to be tourists and were stopped 2 blocks from the museum by police who not only didn't want us to cross their line, they wanted us to just move on. And, late in the evening when I took Emmy for a walk, we talked to the policeman who was guarding...
We had tickets for Friday night, balcony seats. Buying them last December was the tangible start of our planning for this trip. But we were caught up in the enthusiasm from all the Facebook posts from others who had come to Paris and ended up getting tickets for a second night. 7th row center! "Tailgating" is at the "island" median in the road. The French don't seem to know what to make of all of it.... And there was a picnic with music and 70 or so fans. Emmy wandered the group making friends. One last photo from the concert -- 1000 seat venue! Having seen him many times before at concert spaces, it was an amazing experience to do it in this small a venue!
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