hey! i'm moving into the opera garnier!

from my very first day in paris i knew that this was going to be my favorite place.

we didn't even really know what it was when we stumbled into our hotel, half asleep.

we just knew that it was the closest landmark to figure out where our hotel was in the sparkling, confusing, supposedly romantic maze of a city.

we had traveled for a whole day and our heads were fuzzy and i was dreading trying to stay awake to try and fight the jet lag.

so we just started walking around in the general area of where we were staying.

and thought we could just pop in and see what the opera garnier was about.

i was so amazed at the detail of every room.

the carving and the painted ceilings.

the way the sunlight spilled into the long hallways, empty and echoing with your steps.

it was relatively empty and i didn't even understand how lucky that was as i stood alone in a round side room, closing my eyes and imagining that i could go back decades and decades and see how the people must have looked and acted in those magic halls.

looking down on to the paris streets from the balcony.

later as i pushed past crammed groups of people in the louvre and Versailles i realized that the lack of crowd in the the opera was one of the reasons that it was so appealing.

that first day we spent about two hours going through.

looking out from the scarlet, velvet lined boxes at the stage, imaging being in the audience during a ballet or concert.

 then surprise surprise, we find out that this was where the main ceremony and banquet for the verizon part of our trip was to be held!

we did get to see a lovely taste of ballet and hear some beautiful music as well!

then as we left the performance we walked into the banquet that was surrounded by groups of string performers on every balcony.

i feel silly trying to describe it.

i tried taking some photos with my phone

(don't worry, i didn't look too dorky since it was a large group of phone people and some of them had a similar idea...)

but not even my real camera could capture how incredible that night was.

it was magical.

the music, food, and location all together just took my breath away.

i felt like i was in movie.

so, that being said.

these first pictures are of that first day.

enjoy.

and here are the few little phone images i took to try and capture the magical fairy night....

so, i think i might move in....