Last Paris day

This is the plaque beside the front door of the American Church which tells us that it was the first American Church founded on foreign soil. I bought a DVD about the church and its history that was just released yesterday while I was there, but I haven't had a chance to see it yet. I read somewhere that the church was actually meeting during Napoleon's time and he allowed the congregants space in one of the palaces. The church building was erected around 1837.

I was very warmly received there, and everyone seemed to really enjoy my playing as part of the service. After the service and a nice lunch in the neighborhood, I gave a class to about 10 people on handbell techniques. It was intimidating having Fred Gramman and Bonnie Wooley in the class since they both have been involved in bells far longer than I have, but I was able to show them a few tricks that soloists use that they weren't sure about. It also never hurts to review and compare techniques. Anyway, I felt like the class was successful, and we had a lot of fun together, and I was honored to have been asked to do it. Thank you Bonnie and Fred for being such gracious hosts and for the opportunity to work with each of you.




After the class, Bonnie and her friend Corrine drove me around Paris for a while to see stuff. They said this was some kind of old government building and dead people are buried in there. That was good enough for me.









This is in the Louvre again. We didn't go back -- I just found this picture. I was fascinated by these massive paintings and couldn't help but wonder how long it took to produce them, how much paint did it take, what do they weigh, how would you hang a thing like that, and other questions. If you laid these things down it's larger than any two rooms in our house. There were two more of them on the other side of the room, and the little sign in French called them "large format" paintings. Well I guess so!