Happy Valentine's Day, or as they call it (properly) here, Happy Saint Valentine's Day!
Paris is obviously an ideal place to be for what is supposed to be the most romantic day of the year. As with every other holiday, it is not as commercialized here, but there have still been signs of the upcoming day around town - the lingerie shops, in particular, have been advertising accordingly!
My friends and I decided to spend part of the day together (since many of us are either single or in long-distance relationships). Several of us had an 8:00 a.m. make-up class (during which our professor said something like "this will be a long day for you - you've had to get up early, and I'm sure you won't be going to bed until very late!"). We went for brunch afterwards right near school at a place called Eggs & Co. I got my first ever eggs Benedict, and they were a runny, divine mess of yolk and hollandaise sauce!
The brunch "formule" came with a pancake and fruit after the eggs. Normally in France "pancake" would mean crêpes, but here it meant an actual American-style pancake. It was lovely!
It's typical of the dining experience in France that even eating something in the American style does not result in being hugely full the way we often eat in the US. My brunch was certainly on the heavier side, but it was not actually that much food - it was just the perfect amount to set me up for the rest of the morning and afternoon.
From brunch, three of us went over to Place de la Concorde to cross an item off our Paris bucket lists: ride the Ferris wheel! It was a rainy and windy day today, so there were very few people riding, but the weather did not dampen our enthusiasm. It's a great view from there because you're in the center of everything; my only complaint is that it was over too fast and that it was hard to get clear pictures from certain angles! Here are some of the shots I did get:
(facing north, towards Montmartre)
(facing east, across the Tuileries and to the Louvre)
(facing southwest, towards the Eiffel Tower, whose top is hidden in the clouds)
(facing west, down the Champs-Élysées)
After our scenic ride, we set off down Rue du Rivoli to make our way towards the Louvre. On the way, I saw a posting on Facebook about 1500 roses that had (supposedly) been placed throughout Paris for Valentine's Day. The picture from that post is below - I looked the rest of the afternoon but didn't find any of these! "Coup de foudre" might be a phrase you've heard in English; it literally means "lightning bolt" but figuratively refers to falling in love at first sight. I love this idea, whether or not it actually happened!
Did you know that there's a small mall underground and right in front of the Louvre? It's called the Carrousel du Louvre and is right under the roundabout that passes between the Louvre and the edge of the Tuileries. We ducked in there for a few minutes because the other two had never been down there; I had visited a few weeks earlier to go to the Apple store. There is a cool inverted pyramid (just like the one in front of the Louvre):
This is a pretty popular picture backdrop, and I'd already been asked to take a photo for one couple, so we weren't surprised when a woman came up to us with a camera in hand. It turned out she wanted something more and much cooler than a picture: she was a Brazilian living in Paris, and because her boyfriend was back in Brazil, she was putting together a video to send him. She was going around Paris today asking random people to say "I love you!" in whatever their native language was, so she asked us to say that loudly and quickly three times in a row. We were very happy to oblige and didn't feel the least bit awkward shouting "I LOVE YOU!" in the middle of this underground mall. This is why Paris is great!
We had just enough time before our next activity to grab a glass of champagne, so we parked ourselves on the heated terrace of a cafe just a block back from Rue du Rivoli. There is nothing like a glass of champagne or wine in the middle of the day! I felt energized and excited, as though something amazing or important were about to happen. I think that is partially because of where we were going next.
I'd seen a post on Facebook yesterday about a flash mob that was going to take place next to the Louvre pyramid at 14:14 this afternoon. Rather than everyone dancing, this flash mob would consist only of people kissing each other - whether just doing "la bise" (the two on the cheek that is the standard greeting here) or going all the way to a full-on French kiss, everyone was supposed to kiss each other at that time. The three of us are all single, and I for one felt it was entirely possible that the love of my life could have also been there without someone to kiss - that our eyes would meet across the square and we'd have a veritable coup de foudre. Alas, this did not happen, but it was cool nonetheless! There were lots of photographers, and many people had heart-shaped red balloons that they released once they finished kissing:
(I love this one! The couple tied their balloons together! Love was literally in the air.)
After the "flash mob" we went our separate ways, which for me meant waiting in line for about 70 minutes outside the Hotel de Ville to see a photography exhibit by Brassaï called "For the Love of Paris." Given my love for this city, this seemed like the perfect thing to do on Valentine's Day. It was a bit underwhelming (I think partially because my feet were frozen after all that time standing outside), but I did really enjoy seeing pictures of the various bridges at night and of the Eiffel Tower specially lit up for its 20th anniversary.
I had thought about just wandering around the city for the rest of the day, but at this point it was 5:00, and I'd been carrying my school bag around all day, so I was ready to go home. I arrived home without having experienced a coup de foudre, but I did see this a few blocks away from my apartment:
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