Paris looks just like you think it should

...except a little shabbier, in a way. I found the same was true in Italy last year. But it's an endearing sort of shabby. Today I learned how to use the metro and RER and made it to a class meeting at Ecole l'Etoile, a little school that teaches French to university students from elsewhere. They will be hosting our classes and coordinating our events. There were scraggly roses in window boxes. (By the way, the metro is nowhere near as glamorous as it looks in Amélie!)

After our meeting, the class tromped its way to Notre Dame for the weekly Sunday afternoon organ concert. Here are a few scenes from along the way. (Incidentally, it was very easy to tell when we entered the touristy part of town, and the transition was quite abrupt.

By the way, they have, and drivers obey, traffic laws in Paris. Sometimes they're even nicer about pedestrians than they are in New Haven. Plus, there are lots of crosswalks.

And suddenly, we came out into the open and ZOMG CATHEDRAL

Italy jaded me as far as big cathedrals are concerned, and even the National Cathedral back in Washington, which I visited with FTE a few weeks ago, is bigger than Notre Dame. Still, this is the real deal: medieval, built by hand, and still standing despite the physical stress and political turmoil of many centuries.

Inside, things are dark, but the lighting is better than in many old churches. There's a fair amount of natural light from all the windows too.




The organ concert failed to impress most of the class, which fell asleep. Granted, I don't love nineteenth-century organ works myself, and a space like Notre Dame is just too muddy for them. But it was fun, and the organist must have had some hearing loss afterward -- the console is right under the pipes!

So that's what Notre Dame looks like. Now you know.