Hemingway, the old hood, Père-Lachaise and Sondheim

74 Rue de Cardinal Lemoine
Hemingway's first Parisian home

Thursday was a lovely day. I got out of the apartment later than I'd originally planned, but I spent the morning booking my hostel in Salzburg and my train to Ljubljana, so it was still productive.

I started my day off with a walk through "Hemingway's Paris", from a book I forgot at home, meaning my mum had to snap pictures of the pages and copy out the directions in an email. Thanks mum!

The walk started off with the first home Hemingway lived in when he first moved to Paris. It had a dark blue door and there's now a clothing shop on the ground floor called "Under Hemingway's". Cute. Next the walk pointed out some squares and streets detailed in H's novels, including Rue Mouffetard! My jam!

The square on Rue Mouffetard!

Our old stomping grounds!

A bad idea.  But such a good idea.

It was seriously awesome to be back in the area where I "lived" with Kirst, Grady and my mum when I was in Paris in 2009. It surprised me how much it all came back! I instantly recognized street corners, shops and markets, even little alleyways! My heart strings were most definitely tugged at when I passed by our apartment door, snuggled between a wine shop and a poissonnerie. I visited cute jewelry and clothes shops I recalled from before, and yes, had a crêpe from our crêpe place. Just as delicious as I remembered. Ham and cheese. It'll get you everytime (it got me later that day. Serves me right with my blatant gluten intake).


After strolling up and down rue mouffetard, I made my way to the Pantheon- a building I'd passed by many times in my 2009 visit, but had never gone inside. Rectified that this time around. It's just as magnificent inside as out, with a highlight being "Foucault's Pendelum". Hung from way way up on the ceiling, a little gold ball is in constant motion, measuring the rotation of the earth. Entrancing, to be sure.

I also ventured below the Pantheon, into the crypt. I saw the tombs of Voltaire, Rousseau and Victor Hugo, to name a few. It was a bit eerie and cold down there, but I felt humbled and pensive rather than creeped out.

The Pantheon

After my visit to the Pantheon I took a stroll through the Jardin de Luxembourg. It was about 3pm when I got there, so tons of adorable French children were out of school and racing sailboats in the fountain. My heart melted. There is something about little high pitched voices nattering en français that is too cute to handle.

My last stop on the Hemingway walk was his favourite café in Montparnasse, where it is rumored he wrote "The Sun Also Rises" (one of my favourite novels from my degree).

I took a metro to meet Kevin, and we entered Père-Lachaise Cemetery about an hour before closing. Because of the rush, we missed out on a few key resting places (sorry Edith, sorry Oscar), but we did visit Chopin, Poulenc, Abelard and Héloïse and Jim Morrison. The sun began to set while we were in there, and it was quite beautiful. I find cemeteries to be really gorgeous, and a pretty pink sunset makes it even better. At one point we were high up enough to see the Eiffel Tower. Brilliant.

Chopin's grave

Poulenc's Tomb

Père-Lachaise

After the cemetery Kevin and I found a little church nearby, Notredame de la Croix, and did some renegade singing. We couldn't go all out, as there was some sort of service going on in the back of the church, but the acoustics were honestly so amazing that even singing covered and with our throats closed, our voices echoed up and up and around the sanctuary. I've taught Kevin the alto part of Pie Jesu and we do a nice little soprano/tenor rendition.

We had dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant in Belleville and then metro'ed to Châtelet with the hope of getting student rush tickets to see, get this, West Side Story!!! No luck on that front, but they were selling "obstructed view" seats at a discount, so we hopped on that. Our seats were in the nosebleeds, but it was fine, really. The music carried and we just sat perched on the tops of our chairs in order to see better.

The dancing was fabulous, definitely the strength of the cast. The singing could have been better, but honestly the music is so great, and the story so powerful that its hard not to create an emotional performance. I still loved it. I still cried. Don't know if Parisians have low standards or are always profusely appreciative of their arts, but holy did the applause go on forever, and the cast took, like, 5 curtain calls. It was quite amusing.

After the show we went home and tried to get to bed early, but failed. Oh well! Stay tuned for Friday!