Let it snow
First snow of the season, polluted sunsets, and Christmas trees of all sizes and colors
The big question of the week was, will it snow? Forecasts announced days in advance that on Wednesday, we might have a slight dusting of snow. Paris is not a place prone to much snowfall, so the prospect of even a light sprinkling of snowflakes is a tantalizing one.
And not just the snow-frosted trees lining storefront windows, but some real flakes…
Waking up on Wednesday morning, we were indeed treated to a little bit of snow, though it only stuck in the parks and on the bridges. On my way to work, I stopped to admire the snowfall in the Luxembourg Gardens. You can see that for any resident of the northeast or midwest U.S, for instance, worth their salt, this is not a real snowfall. Still, there were delays on the RER (urban train system), and deliveries were cancelled throughout the city due to the significant meteorological disruption….
The winter weather trade-off is Paris is 1) relatively warmer but grey, grey, grey for days, or 2) blisteringly cold but with blue skies. This week we got the latter. Temperatures hovered around 0 degrees Celsius, which, for Paris, means ‘c’est glacial’. A parade of very elegant fur hats and coats was on display, allowing these Parisians to don their winter’s best for a few days of the year at least.
Perhaps from all the coal burning to keep warm in the absence of Russian gas, skies were quite polluted, making for some beautiful sunsets. (As most friends know, I am just a little bit obsessed with learning about air pollution, so I was keen to track the pollution seen from space and simulated by weather models, like on the website ‘Windy’. In a similar spirit, a popular science article came out this week about some work I did on polluted skies and hazy paintings in the works of J.M.W. Turner and Claude Monet; see here for a French version)
For a light show of a different kind, I checked out the James Turrell installations at the Gagosian Gallery. A nice thing about galleries, compared to museums, is that entrance is almost always free, so it is a budget-friendly activity in otherwise absurdly expensive cities like Paris. I liked these installations that reminded me of an iris, constricting or dilating (and even changing color) in response to the surrounding light availability, though I prefer his ‘Skyspace’ works slightly more. According to Wikipedia, Turrell’s Skyspace is “an architectural design in which a room, which is painted in a neutral color has a large hole in its ceiling which opens directly to the sky. The room, whose perimeter has benches, allows observers to look at the sky in such a way as though it were framed.”
A similar color scheme was on display with holiday lights in the Marais, with myriad floating Eiffel Towers in the sky.
While running errands, I was stopped in my tracks and had to get off my bike to admire this display at Rosa Luna, a flower shop close to my home. In German, there is an expression ‘Baumschule’ (tree school), meaning a plant nursery where plants are propagated and grown to a desired size. (Maybe it exists in other languages too? Let me know). I just thought this Baumschule of tiny-tot trees was as cute as could be :)
I also couldn’t help myself from picking up some holly at a different florist, after, naturally, pricking myself approximately 37 times on the spiky leaves and singing ‘Holly Jolly Christmas’ to myself in my head for some joyful American Christmas cheer, as one does, of course…
Picking up a Christmas gift for a friend at Galeries Lafayette, I got a chance to see what happens when the little trees at Rosa Luna are all grown up. The trees at Galeries Lafayette are always a bit ‘extra’, as the youth would say. This year it wasn’t even as extravagant and out there as it has been in the past (e.g., with super-sized Santas in astronaut gear floating below the cupola). What do you think about this tree? Is it too much, or just right?
Here are some more multi-colored holiday lights, in front of the Hôtel Lutetia, where one night costs about the same as my monthly rent.
On the gustatory front, there were plenty of delights to be seen in storefront windows and ideally tasted, like a crusty Poilâne bread loaf adorned with a wise man, Christmas tree, stars and moon, and an Italian store whose storefront was piled up with panettone (which brings back childhood memories of having this fluffy brioche-like sweet bread filled with raisins and candied orange peels in the mornings over the holidays). The very best thing I ate this week was a chestnut soup made by a friend. Growing up in the U.S., I wasn’t aware of chestnut soup and didn’t know if I should expect it to be rather sweet or savory, but this is your sign to try it if you haven’t had it before. My friend made it with chestnuts, broth, onions, and leeks, and especially the leeks gave it a delicious flavor to cut through the richness of the chestnuts.
With some sparkling decorations, I’d like to wish everyone a very merry and bright week ahead, whether you are celebrating the winter solstice, Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, or anything else. Hoping that this end-of-year break is restful and restorative for you, and see you in the New Year,
Anna Lea
