Toussaint

All Saint's Day was November 1rst and I had been waiting for a whole full year to go back to the cemetery Pere Lachaise. I went with my sister last year.
As I write the once a month air raid siren drill is going right now...it is noon Paris time!
The sirens sound at noon each first Wednesday of the month.
So back to Pere Lachaise...on All Saint's Day people take flowers and candles to honour those that have passed on (loved ones known or unknown). For example, here is the tomb the most decorated...Chopin. There will be a shot at the end of this blog of Chopin's tomb at night because it is breathtaking. I apologize in advance for the quality of these photos. I took them myself and there were lots of people bumping and pushing trying to see and take photos themselves.




Edit Piaf's tomb. She was a singer with an unforgettable voice.



















A ? person's tomb. Their family decorated their tombstone for All Saint's Day.














I found this statue to be very interesting. It said "they were amazed by the beautiful voyage that brought them all the way to the end of life" on the tombstone.










The poet Apollinaire's tombstone



















I found this Cross inside a family's chapel to be incredibly beautiful in spite of the fact that vandal's had tried to break its beauty.
Surprisingly the rest of the glass stayed in tact. Others were not so lucky.
Oh there go the sirens again on the dot 10 minutes later!











Chopin's tombstone at night (see below). This is by far the most visited and as the cemetery is closing people run here to see it when the night has fallen. It is beautiful and very peaceful here at night right before one gets kicked out by the loud security men and security women of the cemetery Pere Lachaise.... you have to just be there to see how loud they can be! Oh and yes, we my flatmate and I, were ok during the power outage. It was weird!
We were watching tv and click everything went dark this past Saturday night.
we did flashlight talking with our neighbours in the bulding behind us. It was quite fun and we even went down to the street. Parisians are friendly and talkative when you have to stick together! It was off for 40 minutes and then we had to blow our all our candles. It was fun! We got all warmed up with all the candles so we didn't even need the heaters! Yep, it is cold here now!
Have to run before I get dropped off the net.
BISOUS from Paris,
Grace
ps I could not proofread this blog so sorry if there are errors :-)