MASS AT NOTRE DAME, PARIS

MASS AT NOTRE DAME

Posted on 01/25/2011 

On Sunday we went to mass at Notre Dame.  It was wonderful to get back after 10 months. The sweet and lingering smell of many, many years of burned incense was immediately familiar to me.  I sat in my favorite seat, the front location which is directly under the Miraculous Medal in the ceiling. Although it was supposed to be an international mass, it was all in French. However, the bulletin for the mass did have the Liturgy of the Word and the Gospel in English.

Afterward I always look forward to having dinner at Sorza.  It’s such a wonderful little restaurant located on Ile de la Cité.  On Sundays, we always go there after the mass. We always get a warm welcome back with a small conversation in French from our waitress.  She always greets us so nicely.  The food is always so very fresh and so very good.

We follow our meal sometimes with a good walk along the Seine.  It is so nice the way they close the highway to cars so that pedestrians can stroll along the water.

As you can see the Christmas tree is still up, how delightful, we saw it last year as well. Sundays in Paris, are always priceless to me.

DOUBLE HEADER MOVIE DAY

I try every year to see all the movies nominated for an Oscar.  I’m way behind this year, so yesterday we decided to see a movie in the afternoon.  I checked it out online and saw that the movie The Descendants was playing at La Pagode.  I love the La Pagode cinema. It is an authentic pagoda moved from Japan and was originally used a ballroom for the house next door which belonged to Mr. Bon Marche (of the famous department store in Paris) and his wife.  After they divorced in the 1930′s it was turned into a movie theatre.  It is beautiful and I always love going to see a movie there.  It must be about a mile and a half walk, but it is such an interesting one.  I would have to recommend the movie if you have not seen it yet.  It was very good and set in Hawaii.  We really enjoyed the story and the beautiful setting.

Interesting to me was that so many people were going into Salle 1 and we were going to Salle 2.  I kept wondering what movie everyone was going to see which was called La Taupe.  I’ll keep you posted on that one.

We left the theatre and stopped about a block away at a favorite little boulangerie on the corner. We had coffee and a pastry each and talked about the movie.

On our way back we stopped at the little butcher shop to pick up a roasted chicken for dinner and then on to this little Italian specialty store.  Several containers of olives, veal cutlets and roasted peppers later, we continued on.  We then stopped to get bread.

I made some roasted red potatoes in the oven to go along with the chicken and side dishes.  I treated myself to the hot potatoes, comté cheese, bread, olives, and left over Chinese rice.  I was starving as the only thing I had prior to dinner was a morning yogurt.  Oh, okay I did have a chocolate bar in the movies.

We wanted to rent a movie for tonight, so I looked around and read about some recent releases on iTunes.   A movie  called ”The Way”,  with Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez looked like a good possibility.   The reviews were very good and the story sounded so interesting, so we rented it.  It is the story of La Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain.  It is the most inspiring story of a family and the ancient network of the pilgrimage route.  I won’t say another word about it so as not to spoil it for you, if you have not seen it already.  I highly recommend it, we absolutely loved the story.  If you would like to read about it, here is the link:

http://www.caminodesantiago.me.uk/

So it was a great double-header movie day in Paris.