Wednesday but not at choir

Out for breakie in Montmontre

Kevin and I planned on having a musically inspired day in honour of it being Wednesday, but we got held up early on, so part two is happening tomorrow. But anyways. We got up in the morning to do laundry, which meant we had about an hour to kill in Montmartre. We started with a petit breakfast at a café- orange jus, café au lait, an omelet, and a croissant. I didn't eat all the flaky delicious pastry, but I had some, because how could I not?

As we waited for our clothes to get clean we took the funicular up the hill and popped inside Sacré-Coeur. I like the outside better than the inside, but I'm glad to have seen both. When we finally got our clothes dried, and my underwear hanging all over the apartment, we set out for the day.

Love this view

Our first stop was the train station at Saint-Lazare to sort out our tickets for our train trip. Turns out that even in the off season, you really do need advances reservations, so we had to do a lot of refiguring. We were at the station for over an hour pouring over potential schedules, and so that set our day back a bit.

We soldiered on though, and made our way to the Palais Garnier to lift our spirits. Unfortunately, the auditorium was closed for the day, but we did see the splendor of the grand staircase and some fancy foyers. They had a really cute gift shop too, where I wanted to buy everything.

After visiting the opera, Kevin and I got a dose of department store history at the Galleries Lafayette. They had a giant Swarovski Christmas tree in the centre of the cupola that so got me in the holiday mood. By chance, we discovered a "100 years of fashion" exhibit on the 2nd floor. My favourite part was the "Centennial Catwalk", which was cutouts of women wearing the fashion of each decade from 1900-now. Made for some sweet "pose" photos. There were other neat things too. I was quite glad to have stumbled across it!!

We went for dinner at a chinese food place in the building, and then scoped out the top floor for some souvenirs. Next up, we metro'ed to St. Chapelle, where we had tickets to see a classical concert entitled "Ave Maria" (very SCC of them). St. Chapelle is super old, and a lot smaller than I thought it would be. It made for an intimate concert. The string orchestra and mezzo soprano soloist were quite grand musicians, and I enjoyed the concert thoroughly. They had a great mix of well-known faves (Schubert, Bach-Gonoud), and also neat lesser known tunes. The acoustics were brilliant.

The concert was short and sweet. Only an hour and over at 8- so Kev and I decided to keep the night going a bit longer. We recharged on a donair and dessert crêpe respectively (I'm such a cheater), and then metro'ed to the Palais de Tokyo- a modern art museum that is open until midnight.

Dude, it was weird. But also awesome. My favourite room was one with fake grass spread out on the concrete and white sheets hung from clothes lines, creating a sort of maze. There was also a room set up like a little farming area that had "element" shacks that surprised you when you opened the door with claps of thunder or a gust of wind. Pretty cool. It was fun seeing such "out there" stuff after having seen so many "classics" over the previous days.

We got back to Kev's apartment around midnight, packed up a picnic and guitar and went up the hill. We serenaded the drunkards of Sacré-Coeur that evening, and had a rather lovely time munching on brie and sipping on white wine and cranberry juice.  Kevin and Walter had a French assignment to finish that night, so we were up super late. Which meant I got to sleep in the next morning without feeling guilty. Bonus.

Une belle nuit au Sacre-Coeur