It's finally spring in Paris, with its sunny and warm April days and its cold, grey, rainy and generally miserable May weekends. But spring brings more than mutable weather, but lots of cultural activities, several Jazz festivals, and plenty of long May weekends to travel a bit or enjoy the city while Parisians are in a traffic jam on the way to Normandy.
All last week was one of these busy weeks. Monday was the quiet evening, planning a trip to Brittany for the 4-day weekend ahead, and starting to pack. Unfortunately, neither the weather forecast nor the traffic previsions were very encouraging, so alternative plans were put in place. Tuesday, after deciding that spending half of the weekend in a traffic jam was not my dream of holidays, I went down to St. Germain des Pres, to get last minute tickets for one of the last concerts of the Jazz Festival. Marcel Solal, great piano improviser, playing in the church of St. Germain des Pres.
(a picture is coming here, eventually, and more info on the Festival elsewhere in this blog)
Wednesday was the day of our usual Salsa course. I had already danced salsa and other Afro-Caribbean rhythms while in the UK, but when I arrived to Paris I was surprised how seriously people take to have a 'good' style. You cannot just "dance", but you need to know the precise small routines that people get used to in the courses in the city, so, back to beginners courses. Which is lots of fun nevertheless, and good exercise in this otherwise sedentary urbanite life.
Thursday was still grey and rainy, so the perfect day to meet a friend for dinner and to go to the 'cinematheque' for an Antonioni film ("L'eclipse"). Friday I had a 'grosse matinee', and in the afternoon I drove to Chartres to visit the Cathedral in depth (I even took the audio-guide with the 'full tour'). A funny experience was that with the laberynth and possibly that "sheep gene" we all have. When I arrived, noone was paying much attention to the medieval laberynth drawn on the floor of the main nave of the Cathedral. Even though I knew I would not get lost (medieval labyrinths are some sort of initiatic symbol, not a puzzle), i decided to 'walk it' to the center. That was already interesting, as you don't realise the complexity of the path till you actually follow it and keep getting closer and farther away from the center till, all of a sudden yo find yourself in the last 'corridor' leading to it (more symbology there). Anyway, as I started asking people to move aside so that I could walk the labyrinth, more and more people started following it, and even a couple of hours later, when I finally left the Cathedral, half a dozen people were still at it. I guess many people felt like walking it, but noone dares to be the first one (or only one) to start behaving in a weird way, and only when people saw that someone else was already doing it, that they could make their minds.
Anyway, a short walk in Chartes, and drive back home, getting lost in the way (the road and highway network around Paris is worse that a plate of spaguetti). As I arrived home I met online a good friend who is coming back to Paris soon and we started planning a weekend in London.
Saturday was the day of the "Nuit des Musees", that evening a year when many museums and cultural societies open their doors for free and sometimes even organise special exhibitions that you can enjoy from mid afternoon till midnight. Of course the usual 'large' museums get really packed, and moreover, it's a good idea to take advantage of this 'soire' to discover those venues and exhibitions that you might not be able to visit some other time. In our case, while some friends went to the Louvre, Centre Pompidou or the Musee Picasso, we went to the small Espace Dali, in Montmatre, to the Museum and Association of French Franc-masons (Le Grand Orient), that included a visit to one of the oldest Franc-mason Temples in Paris, and finally, not being able to visit the Musee du Moyen Age (too many people queuing), we ended up in the Musee de la Police, where the guided visit took us through centuries of the history of Paris, of the police, with anecdotes from the times of the French Revolution, Napoleon times, and the start of the scientific police.
Finally, Sunday was the day to get up late, go to the market to get some fresh greens and fruit, read, watch some DVD, and basically try to recover from this extra active week and get ready for the coming one, which will include a new dance course, may be a trip to visit some of the Chateaus in the Val de Loire... who knows?.
