WHAT A DAY!! After three and a half hours of sleep on a freezing airplane, Renée and I proceeded to explore Le Marais (the gay and Jewish part of Paris!) before finally finding our little apartment. My French vocabulary is getting stretched by the hour, but lots of people are cool speaking English to us, which is nice. So many nice people here! Then, we went to see a cabaret with lots of Edith Piaf songs sung by a woman in a very awesome corset. At 9 PM, it was still bright out (didn't get dark til 10:30!) and I had "the best falafel in Paris", which definitely puts Maoz to bitter, bitter, bitter shame. We were actually able to figure out "le metro", and I saw lots of posters for drag queens, plus a giant nose stuck on the side of a building. Bonne nuit á tout!
We loved the Hymne a Piaf show at the Ession Theater which was walking distance from our apartment. Superb musical arrangements of popular Piaf songs by chanteuse Caroline Nin, a young pianist, and double bass player. As we descended into the intimate theater, it felt like we were going into a stoned wall little cave. As the music started, I thought, "Wow! We're really here and tears came to my eyes as I realized how long Sydney and I have dreamed to be in Paris and here we are!"
What has struck us most about Paris though is how friendly and kind EVERY SINGLE person has been to us. And it has been strangely quiet...peaceful and low-key...
Day 2 entry by Sydney:
I'm officially in love with Montmartre! After a breakfast of fresh fruits from the Marche des Rouges Enfants, Mom and I proceeded to visit the Paris Opera House, where the Phantom of the Opera took place! It was full of mirrors and heartbreakingly beautiful ceilings- I plan on singing there one day.
After that, we got a demibaguette, coconut milk bubble tea, a brownie, and san pelligrino on our way to montmartre. Surprisingly, it's easier than I thought to be vegan here, and I haven't gone to a single vegan restaurant! France invaded a lot of middle eastern countries a long time ago, so there's lots of falafel and hummus and couscous for me.
From the 3 blocks we walked from the cafe to the Moulin Rouge, i counted at least 6 strip joints and 20 sex stores. Also, a prostitute complimented me on my outfit. (We didn't go to the Moulin Rouge, cos the tickets are sky high!) I had a mental flash as I was walking of how this area of Paris must have looked 100 years ago... seedy, yes, but grander, more bohemian, with way less tourists and more people stumbling around half blind from absinthe. The kind of place that drew the painters! Moulin Rouge used to have a garden with actual monkeys and a giant elephant buiding with a bellydancing show!
The area where our show, at "Au Lapin Agile" was, couldin't be more different! I felt like we were in a Toulouse-Lautrec painting! The buildings got smaller and older, hills rose and fell, and it was more cobblestone-and-vine. There were singers and jazz bands busking outside on every street corner, and nearly every restaurant had a pianist or accordionist!
Au Lapin Agile is the oldest cabaret in Paris, but it wasn't touristy at all! In fact, Mom and I were the only ones from America! There were two other girls my age; one from Israel and one from Germany. (We made friends with the mother and daughter from Israel.)
At the beginning, they gave us all a shot of some sweet dark red liquor with cherries floating in it- "Les Cerises "Au Lapin Agile""- apparently it was the house specialty.
The show itself consisted of 9 extremely talented singer-instrumentalists (the show was 4 hours long!). I think my favorite was the woman who sang and played the accordion at the same time, but a really fun moment was when the youngest singer started singing "wilkommen" from "cabaret" and I joined in and we were best friends for five minutes.
At the last hour, everyone left except for us two... we felt bad for the performers so we stayed it out. The guitarist-singer at the end was so funny... he kept trying to make me sing along in French, and later kept trying to imitate my mom and I talking to each other in English. Then, one of the other singers who didn't speak English very kindly helped us find our way on le Metro. We're crashing in our apartment room right now, and I highly, highly recommend attending a show in "Au Lapin Agile"- as much as I recommend going to a Broadway show, or the Uffizzi gallery!
After that, we got a demibaguette, coconut milk bubble tea, a brownie, and san pelligrino on our way to montmartre. Surprisingly, it's easier than I thought to be vegan here, and I haven't gone to a single vegan restaurant! France invaded a lot of middle eastern countries a long time ago, so there's lots of falafel and hummus and couscous for me.
From the 3 blocks we walked from the cafe to the Moulin Rouge, i counted at least 6 strip joints and 20 sex stores. Also, a prostitute complimented me on my outfit. (We didn't go to the Moulin Rouge, cos the tickets are sky high!) I had a mental flash as I was walking of how this area of Paris must have looked 100 years ago... seedy, yes, but grander, more bohemian, with way less tourists and more people stumbling around half blind from absinthe. The kind of place that drew the painters! Moulin Rouge used to have a garden with actual monkeys and a giant elephant buiding with a bellydancing show!
The area where our show, at "Au Lapin Agile" was, couldin't be more different! I felt like we were in a Toulouse-Lautrec painting! The buildings got smaller and older, hills rose and fell, and it was more cobblestone-and-vine. There were singers and jazz bands busking outside on every street corner, and nearly every restaurant had a pianist or accordionist!
Au Lapin Agile is the oldest cabaret in Paris, but it wasn't touristy at all! In fact, Mom and I were the only ones from America! There were two other girls my age; one from Israel and one from Germany. (We made friends with the mother and daughter from Israel.)
At the beginning, they gave us all a shot of some sweet dark red liquor with cherries floating in it- "Les Cerises "Au Lapin Agile""- apparently it was the house specialty.
The show itself consisted of 9 extremely talented singer-instrumentalists (the show was 4 hours long!). I think my favorite was the woman who sang and played the accordion at the same time, but a really fun moment was when the youngest singer started singing "wilkommen" from "cabaret" and I joined in and we were best friends for five minutes.
At the last hour, everyone left except for us two... we felt bad for the performers so we stayed it out. The guitarist-singer at the end was so funny... he kept trying to make me sing along in French, and later kept trying to imitate my mom and I talking to each other in English. Then, one of the other singers who didn't speak English very kindly helped us find our way on le Metro. We're crashing in our apartment room right now, and I highly, highly recommend attending a show in "Au Lapin Agile"- as much as I recommend going to a Broadway show, or the Uffizzi gallery!
Seeing the Palais Garnais was another highlight. So. stunningly. beautiful. I am glad we took the time to do the self-guided tour. Hopefully, one day we can see an opera or ballet here. And then we were off to Montmartre for our 9pm reservation at Au Lapin Agile. From Wiki:
As we ascend the long upward hill via Rue des Martyrs, a vision of quaint Parisian eateries and small shops momentarily take my mind off of my exhausted feet and jet lagged body and we finally arrive the 18th arrondissement Montmartre. Wow! Talk about lively, quaint…ooh! and look over there a jazz trio is playing on the sidewalk of a cute cafe while a American tourists pour out all over the square. Sydney is doing great after a month intensive of online French and we find our way to Au Lapin Agile. We are the first ones to arrive and very early so I take this opportunity to quasi-comfortably prop myself against a tree and squeeze off my sandals to give my aching feet a breather. High up on a hill, the sun is golden and there is a slight breeze - just the perfect anecdote to the hustly bustle lives we lead year-long back home.
Next post: the "book"
Lapin Agile is a famous Montmartre cabaret originally called "Cabaret des Assassins". Tradition relates that the cabaret received this name because a band of assassins broke in and killed the owner's son. The cabaret was more than twenty years old when, in 1875, the artist Andre Gill painted the sign that was to suggest its permanent name. It was a picture of a rabbit jumping out of a saucepan, and residents began calling their neighborhood night-club "Le Lapin à Gill," meaning "Gill's rabbit." Over time, the name had evolved into "Cabaret Au Lapin Agile," or the Nimble Rabbit Cabaret. At the turn of the twentieth century, the Lapin Agile was a favorite spot for struggling artists and writers, including Picasso, Modigliani, Apollinaire, and Utrillo. The Lapin Agile is located in the center of the Montmartre district in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, behind and slightly northwest of Sacre Coeur Basilica. Since this was the heart of artistic Paris at the turn of the twentieth century, there was much discussion at the cabaret about "the meaning of art." Au Lapin Agile also was popular with questionable Montmartre characters including pimps, eccentrics, simple down-and-outers, a contingent of local anarchists, as well as with students from the Latin Quarter, all mixed with a sprinkling of well-heeled bourgeoisie out on a lark. Pablo Picasso's 1905 oil painting, "At the Lapin Agile" helped to make this cabaret world famous. The cabaret was often captured on canvas by another Montmartre artist, Maurice Utrillo. In 1993 American comedian and entertainer, Steve Martin, wrote a play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, which had a successful run in Chicago, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. The play depicted an imagined meeting between Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein at the Lapin Agile. Today, many people visit the Lapin Agile, sitting at wooden tables where initials have been carved into the surfaces for decades. Located in a stone building on the steep and cobbled Rue des Saules, the cabaret presents visitors with French songs dating back as far as the fifteenth century.
As we ascend the long upward hill via Rue des Martyrs, a vision of quaint Parisian eateries and small shops momentarily take my mind off of my exhausted feet and jet lagged body and we finally arrive the 18th arrondissement Montmartre. Wow! Talk about lively, quaint…ooh! and look over there a jazz trio is playing on the sidewalk of a cute cafe while a American tourists pour out all over the square. Sydney is doing great after a month intensive of online French and we find our way to Au Lapin Agile. We are the first ones to arrive and very early so I take this opportunity to quasi-comfortably prop myself against a tree and squeeze off my sandals to give my aching feet a breather. High up on a hill, the sun is golden and there is a slight breeze - just the perfect anecdote to the hustly bustle lives we lead year-long back home.
Next post: the "book"
