F
inishing up my poster presentation of what's kept me busy over the past six months in the nick of time, I slipped out of lab to catch the later part of the ninth annual Fête de la Musique, Paris's answer to the summer solstice. It involves loads of music groups, mostly mediocre rock bands, playing in random corners and cafés all across the city all on the same night. This of course brings out hoards of drunken partiers and street vendors. However, between the crowds and the cacophony, we did find a few gems: some lively Brazilian music produced from only a hand drum and a whistle captured us in a side street in the Latin Quarter (both by choice and then by force as the crowd continued to grow after the music drew us in) and I was particularly amused by a brass rendition of the Rolling Stone's "Paint it Black." We turned in that evening in style, taking 
advantage of my at long last subscribing to Paris's Velib' program, a 29€ fee to get to take advantage of the city bikes for a full year. (Had I only realized a day earlier that my new Velib' subscription had been added to my metro card without my notification, my Sunday evening might have also been a bit more pleasant...)
In stark contrast to yesterday's music in the streets, this evening we made our way up to a Romanesque church in the 10th Arrondissement for a late evening concert, the start of the Paroisse Saint Vincent de Paul's Festival d'Orgue (Organ Festival) in celebration of the church's newly renovated organ, which apparently is still in need of a few tweaks. Nonetheless, we heard an impressive (and free) performance of Widor's Fifth Symphony, Bach's Fugue and Toccata in D, and a piece by Boëllmann followed by free drinks right outside the church. Sometimes I thoroughly enjoy how the French unabashedly embrace the pleasures in life: I doubt most American churches serve gin and tonic to their concert-goers as soon as they walked out the front doors. As the weather was at long last warming up-- last night I'd been in a scarf and a couple of jackets, indeed on the summer solstice-- we took much of the trip to our respective homes on foot and enjoyed a bit of conversation, getting a breath of fresh air in the midst of a very hectic season in the world of UPMC's Neuroscience Master's students.
inishing up my poster presentation of what's kept me busy over the past six months in the nick of time, I slipped out of lab to catch the later part of the ninth annual Fête de la Musique, Paris's answer to the summer solstice. It involves loads of music groups, mostly mediocre rock bands, playing in random corners and cafés all across the city all on the same night. This of course brings out hoards of drunken partiers and street vendors. However, between the crowds and the cacophony, we did find a few gems: some lively Brazilian music produced from only a hand drum and a whistle captured us in a side street in the Latin Quarter (both by choice and then by force as the crowd continued to grow after the music drew us in) and I was particularly amused by a brass rendition of the Rolling Stone's "Paint it Black." We turned in that evening in style, taking 
advantage of my at long last subscribing to Paris's Velib' program, a 29€ fee to get to take advantage of the city bikes for a full year. (Had I only realized a day earlier that my new Velib' subscription had been added to my metro card without my notification, my Sunday evening might have also been a bit more pleasant...)In stark contrast to yesterday's music in the streets, this evening we made our way up to a Romanesque church in the 10th Arrondissement for a late evening concert, the start of the Paroisse Saint Vincent de Paul's Festival d'Orgue (Organ Festival) in celebration of the church's newly renovated organ, which apparently is still in need of a few tweaks. Nonetheless, we heard an impressive (and free) performance of Widor's Fifth Symphony, Bach's Fugue and Toccata in D, and a piece by Boëllmann followed by free drinks right outside the church. Sometimes I thoroughly enjoy how the French unabashedly embrace the pleasures in life: I doubt most American churches serve gin and tonic to their concert-goers as soon as they walked out the front doors. As the weather was at long last warming up-- last night I'd been in a scarf and a couple of jackets, indeed on the summer solstice-- we took much of the trip to our respective homes on foot and enjoyed a bit of conversation, getting a breath of fresh air in the midst of a very hectic season in the world of UPMC's Neuroscience Master's students.
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