Paris GBU
Exceeded Expectations
- I really liked Paris, more than I thought I would, and I would definitely come back. The process for checking into my apartment was a bit of a pain in the couple of weeks leading up to my arrival here, but now that I have had a chance to stay in it with its great location I would stay here again, too. The location can't be beat (though it would be a bit cozy for two or more). It wasn't so much the major sights of Paris that I liked as taking self-paced, self guided walking tours of the neighborhoods and just generally hanging out. If I came back, I would plan to spend less time museum hopping and more time writing. I think that is what you are supposed to do in Paris anyhow, right?
- playing the piano in a bookstore on the Left Bank*.
Good
- apartment location is extremely central (only a block away from Notre Dame cathedral) but on residential street, so good balance between noise and privacy levels and access to restaurants, shops and other action
- seem to be managing pretty well in French and have not had a disappointing meal yet
- Cluny museum uncrowded with lots of nice tapestries and a really good bookstore, where I got a book of medieval ghost stories, a book with the medicinal and magical properties attributed to stones by classical and medieval writers, and a book of reconstructed medieval dances with dance steps, sheet music and recordings; and a whole bunch of medieval music.
Bad
- spent more time and metro tickets than I thought would be necessary traipsing around looking for a place to buy my train ticket to London. On the plus side, paid only half as much as I thought I was going to have to.
- missing Quad War. Just because I am having a good vacation here doesn't mean that I don't miss my friends, or that I don't wish I could also go to Quad.
Ugly
- many of the major sights are so crowded with tourists (much worse than Venice) that you can't really get a good glimpse at the famous thing you are supposed to be looking at, let alone feel like you could be communing with it in some way. In some places, there are so many crowds you can't even move. Even Chopin's grave**** was surrounded by a steady stream of tourists. I could try to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are all classically trained pianists like me but I suspect that most of them were just there traipsing through the cemetery looking at the gravestones of everybody their guidebook tells them was famous for some reason, without having any familiarity with the works of the dead people in question.
Interesting
- an octopus netsuke caught my eye while window shopping in the Latin Quarter, though it got much less appealing when it turned out to be real ivory and close to 700 euros. Would consider spending up to $150 on similar item of sufficient quality in more ethical material like wood or stone though, it was pretty neat. I never found the store again though, I think there are some strange and shifting geometries in the Latin Quarter that prevent you going back to neat places a second time.
- though of absolutely no SCA research value whatsoever, I would put the Pere Lachaise cemetery on the essential SCA field trip because it is atmospheric and cool, and only the graves of famous people you have never heard of are really crowded. I also took a tour of the Paris sewers, which was okay but I probably would have got more out of it on a guided tour.
*the only way this could have been better is if I could have dashed off the Revolutionary Etude, or at least some other Chopin, from memory. I keep meaning to work up a select repertoire of pieces I could play from memory on any piano or harpsichord I met**. The only music available at the piano was the Well Tempered Clavier, books I and II. I guess it's fair to say that every classically trained pianist probably has at least one selection out of the WTC that they can do justice to (I picked the Prelude in C+ from Book I, which I played very well, and the Prelude in f#- also from Book I, which I played less well) but in Paris surely there should be the option of some Chopin. If I ever open a bookstore with a piano on the Left Bank, or in Southern Alberta, or anywhere else in the universe, I will provide the WTC, the complete piano sonatas of Mozart and/or Beethoven, Chopin's Preludes, Debussy's Suite Bergamasque, and John Cage's 4'33"***.
**My wish list includes, at a minimum, the Harmonious Blacksmith, the Revolutionary Etude, and Debussy's Arabesque #1.
***actually I am not sure who should be considered the essential 20th century piano composer. Having had a Hungarian piano teacher, I am partial to Bartok but I know there are plenty of other choices out there.
****blah blah Chopin blah blah blah
- I really liked Paris, more than I thought I would, and I would definitely come back. The process for checking into my apartment was a bit of a pain in the couple of weeks leading up to my arrival here, but now that I have had a chance to stay in it with its great location I would stay here again, too. The location can't be beat (though it would be a bit cozy for two or more). It wasn't so much the major sights of Paris that I liked as taking self-paced, self guided walking tours of the neighborhoods and just generally hanging out. If I came back, I would plan to spend less time museum hopping and more time writing. I think that is what you are supposed to do in Paris anyhow, right?
- playing the piano in a bookstore on the Left Bank*.
Good
- apartment location is extremely central (only a block away from Notre Dame cathedral) but on residential street, so good balance between noise and privacy levels and access to restaurants, shops and other action
- seem to be managing pretty well in French and have not had a disappointing meal yet
- Cluny museum uncrowded with lots of nice tapestries and a really good bookstore, where I got a book of medieval ghost stories, a book with the medicinal and magical properties attributed to stones by classical and medieval writers, and a book of reconstructed medieval dances with dance steps, sheet music and recordings; and a whole bunch of medieval music.
Bad
- spent more time and metro tickets than I thought would be necessary traipsing around looking for a place to buy my train ticket to London. On the plus side, paid only half as much as I thought I was going to have to.
- missing Quad War. Just because I am having a good vacation here doesn't mean that I don't miss my friends, or that I don't wish I could also go to Quad.
Ugly
- many of the major sights are so crowded with tourists (much worse than Venice) that you can't really get a good glimpse at the famous thing you are supposed to be looking at, let alone feel like you could be communing with it in some way. In some places, there are so many crowds you can't even move. Even Chopin's grave**** was surrounded by a steady stream of tourists. I could try to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are all classically trained pianists like me but I suspect that most of them were just there traipsing through the cemetery looking at the gravestones of everybody their guidebook tells them was famous for some reason, without having any familiarity with the works of the dead people in question.
Interesting
- an octopus netsuke caught my eye while window shopping in the Latin Quarter, though it got much less appealing when it turned out to be real ivory and close to 700 euros. Would consider spending up to $150 on similar item of sufficient quality in more ethical material like wood or stone though, it was pretty neat. I never found the store again though, I think there are some strange and shifting geometries in the Latin Quarter that prevent you going back to neat places a second time.
- though of absolutely no SCA research value whatsoever, I would put the Pere Lachaise cemetery on the essential SCA field trip because it is atmospheric and cool, and only the graves of famous people you have never heard of are really crowded. I also took a tour of the Paris sewers, which was okay but I probably would have got more out of it on a guided tour.
*the only way this could have been better is if I could have dashed off the Revolutionary Etude, or at least some other Chopin, from memory. I keep meaning to work up a select repertoire of pieces I could play from memory on any piano or harpsichord I met**. The only music available at the piano was the Well Tempered Clavier, books I and II. I guess it's fair to say that every classically trained pianist probably has at least one selection out of the WTC that they can do justice to (I picked the Prelude in C+ from Book I, which I played very well, and the Prelude in f#- also from Book I, which I played less well) but in Paris surely there should be the option of some Chopin. If I ever open a bookstore with a piano on the Left Bank, or in Southern Alberta, or anywhere else in the universe, I will provide the WTC, the complete piano sonatas of Mozart and/or Beethoven, Chopin's Preludes, Debussy's Suite Bergamasque, and John Cage's 4'33"***.
**My wish list includes, at a minimum, the Harmonious Blacksmith, the Revolutionary Etude, and Debussy's Arabesque #1.
***actually I am not sure who should be considered the essential 20th century piano composer. Having had a Hungarian piano teacher, I am partial to Bartok but I know there are plenty of other choices out there.
****blah blah Chopin blah blah blah