THE PARIS OPERA NORMALCY FORGES FULL

However, it took me a while to understand that Marc would only love Israel once he had been in its much more welcoming and pleasant Arab Israeli districts in all the cities we visited. We stayed in a lovely flat in Herzliyya upon my brother’s right advice and indeed enjoyed its location a bit away from non-stop hectic Tel-Aviv (totally gorgeous and reinvented, I have to say). The tension being extreme in Jerusalem, we didn’t visit it and it leaves us with quite a few sites to revisit. Since we had gone there to spend the Passover night together, we didn’t get much chance to properly visit Israel with Marc but still managed to make him discover, for his first visit several wonders such as Jaffa, Acre, Tiberias, Caesarea and Masada. Now about Israel…Well going there and coming back mean quite a bit of an administrative hassle, long queues and not necessarily smiles and relaxed attitudes, a way of driving which was insane and has become even more so, yet fabulous food, views and sites. Basically, I got it when the Swiss law no longer required me to be locked in and even forced me (since I was unfortunately only very slightly symptomatic) to keep working and teaching as long as I wore a mask! Just to summarize, I would say that I noticed my illness because I had a little sore throat and headache one evening and the next morning both of which gave way to a slightly altered voice for about a week, as if it were veiled. I will explain this point later but think it necessary to explain a little bit my very eventless Covid episod. Not an easy trip in Covid circumstances yet, despite my finally contracting the virus on April 1st (does it surprise anyone), we were able to go, thanks to Marc’s determination to make EasyJet’s reluctance revise its policy (they were in slight contradiction with Israel’s own policy on the matter).

THE PARIS OPERA NORMALCY FORGES FULL

Thank you Sandra, my generous friend, for enabling us, after a rather maddening move, to settle again in the shades of your beautiful garden full of memories of Vincent.Įaster and Passover were spent in…Israel.

When we came back, we decided to start the year in style in a fabulous restaurant the cost of which was roughly a week-end in New York but worth every bite of it, since we later found a poster about a small flat that is now our new Paris nest, with its lot of joys and necessary frustrations with the small Paris frustrations totally balanced by its so many beauties and pleasures. So, what happened since last December? A lot, really, including Christmas in Paris and a fantastic Offenbach’s Vie Parisienne, my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary, New Year celebration including Loire Castle, Alienor’s Abbey and of course staying by the sea. It’s not always easy yet I enjoy so much both cities that despite minor shortcomings in terms of stress and peace of mind, I wouldn’t exchange my present life with my fabulous previous one which implied far more travels, far more far away…although of course I long for my wonderful friends and experiences which were (and still are) the spice of my life. It’s been a while and it only means I’ve been keeping myself busy in this new life bridging even more Paris and Geneva.

The paris opera normalcy forges