{"id":15240,"date":"2025-10-23T16:42:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T22:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/?p=15240"},"modified":"2025-10-23T16:42:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T22:42:16","slug":"ppa-day-5-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/2025\/10\/23\/ppa-day-5-paris\/","title":{"rendered":"PPA day 5: Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(I\u2019m using dictation for this, because it is already after midnight. We were out late at the ballet, and then I indulged in my separate room with some time and catching up at home. Anyway, the dictation might seem different than my previous posts is all I\u2019m trying to say.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

this morning we woke up extra early to drive with rush-hour traffic to our train leaving at 8 AM. It was raining heavily. The TGV train to Paris was very nice! We had first class seats that were wide and comfortable. I enjoyed watching the French countryside change from forest to fields as we got closer to the city. I was surprised the route took us all the way to Bordeaux! So I practically went from one side to the other. I wish we had been close enough to see the western bay. According to the train conductor, because of the rain our train was slowed. So instead of a four hour journey, it took a little over six hours. We had a simple lunch on board from the caf\u00e9 in car four.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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now I am in my final destination, Paris! The metro ride to our hotel was fairly simple, our hotel is in a great location thanks to my parents recommendation. Our rooms were not ready yet. So we dropped off our luggage and started walking around town. Already we found a beautiful kitchen\/dining shop, a vintage clothing shop ( nothing I was interested in purchasing), very spooky Halloween stores, and a patisserie that I could not resist. Oh, but before shopping we got food! Stephanie was so excited to see a Thai restaurant that had Chinese food. She lived in China for three years and says Toulouse, does not have any good Chinese restaurants, only a couple take away places without seating. At this restaurant, I had a chicken peanut satay that was so tender and delicious, Served over green curry rice. Oh, the rice! We eat rice, maybe four times a week or more. I didn\u2019t realize how much I missed eating chicken and rice with chopsticks! So after the shopping and dinner, we got a call that our rooms were ready, and we went upstairs to refresh ourselves before going to our big event of the day\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2026 tickets to see Giselle at the Palais Garnier Opera house! Swoon! Aside from the exterior being under construction, it was perfect. The theater is magnificent. I was gob smacked by the opulence and beauty. I left in that one blurry photo of me because it captured a girl behind me making a face like I felt. We arrived plenty early to walk around the palace and soak up the architecture. Of course, I had to look closely at the costumes and admire the craftsmanship and creativity involved. Then there was the ballet itself! Absolutely exquisite. The footwork was so articulate and beautiful. Our Giselle had the most lovely lines. Everything was light and airy, the jump so high the beats so crisp. At intermission, we chatted with a couple behind us, an older couple married 10 years, one from France who was a dancer and had auditioned to try to get into this company, and the man from the UK, who said their love of dance is what brought them together and that they go to see shows here often. They were very and offered some insight. When we introduced ourselves and I said I was from America he said \u201cobviously\u201d not sure if he was joking or insulting me, but at least he was smiling. Some interesting things about the experience: the audience doesn\u2019t clap nearly as much as American audiences do. It makes the show a lot faster when you\u2019re not pausing between every song to clap. Pretty much only after principal variations, coda and pas de deux, and and at the end – where they did three full sets of bows for the entire company, and then the principals in front of the curtain. Only a few people in the rear orchestra and balcony did a standing ovation. Oh, also they didn\u2019t clap during the dances, except one time. Our dancer playing Albrecht in Act did at least 16, and possibly 24 crazy jumps (I didn\u2019t count, just guess based on the music). They were entreche-six, but I swear they looked like he was doing four beats, so entreche-huit?! Crazy!! oh, I could keep going on and on about the dance, but it is almost 1 AM and I made plans to meet for breakfast at 8:30, so I really need to turn off the lights and go to sleep. Good night! I hope there aren\u2019t too many spelling errors in this!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(I\u2019m using dictation for this, because it is already after midnight. We were out late at the ballet, and then I indulged in my separate room with some time and catching up at home. Anyway, the dictation might seem different than my previous posts is all I\u2019m trying to say.) this morning we woke up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15310,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15240\/revisions\/15310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}