And I thought my workspace was impressive....
We go to an Open House at the girls' school, because Pippa is performing with her class in a circus-themed medley of songs.
While there, we tour the classrooms, just to see the girls's desks and art-work on the walls. We've done this before, of course, last year and this past fall. But they are in new classrooms, because there was a recent renovation to add in an elevator (for accessibility purposes) to the school. Gigi is now on the top floor, the 5ème etage (6th floor by US counting). We can never forget this as she often complains about how she walks a minimum 40 flights of stairs per school day (up 5 floors, down 5 for 1st recess, up 5, down 5 for lunch & second recess, up 5, down 5 for 3rd recess, up 5, down 5 at the end of the day).
The school must be well-placed, because the next-door neighbor is French telecom billionaire Xavier Niel. He bought the old hospital museum complex for around 50 million. Euros. In dollars, it would have been a steal. He's selling off some portions of the 4,000 square meter complex (that's near 40,000 sq. ft) into smaller million, two million euro apartments along the quai, facing the Seine. His own portion, seen in part on the right in the photo below, will have a nice private garden and end up about 1,000 sq m. It's not our apartment on Ile Saint Louis, of course, but still -- not too shabby.
And neither is Gigi's new classroom. A converted old attic space, it has the most stunning views of any place I've seen in Paris, slightly edging out an apartment we decided not to take in favor of our current lovely abode.
This is the actual view sitting at her desk. From the various windows -- not to mention the balcony just outside -- you can get a clear view over the Paris rooftops of the Pantheon, the Montparnasse Tower, and a tower of the Sorbonne. That's just on one side. On the other side, we have a crystal clear view of Notre Dame, with Sacré Couer in the distance (hard to see in the photo, but easy in real life), alongside the dome of Sainte Chapelle. I feel like the school should charge admission to tourists for this view. I am, frankly, very jealous.
And if you look carefully from the balcony, there's a view of the Eiffel Tower. A distant view.
Along with the awe-inspiring view over monuments and rooftops, the school also brings in a flashy science demonstration for the Open House.
But before you go thinking their school has it all, please take note of these two computers we find in the classrooms -- the only ones we see. Anthony points out that they still have floppy disc drives. The Bay Area this ain't.
We go to an Open House at the girls' school, because Pippa is performing with her class in a circus-themed medley of songs.
While there, we tour the classrooms, just to see the girls's desks and art-work on the walls. We've done this before, of course, last year and this past fall. But they are in new classrooms, because there was a recent renovation to add in an elevator (for accessibility purposes) to the school. Gigi is now on the top floor, the 5ème etage (6th floor by US counting). We can never forget this as she often complains about how she walks a minimum 40 flights of stairs per school day (up 5 floors, down 5 for 1st recess, up 5, down 5 for lunch & second recess, up 5, down 5 for 3rd recess, up 5, down 5 at the end of the day).
The school must be well-placed, because the next-door neighbor is French telecom billionaire Xavier Niel. He bought the old hospital museum complex for around 50 million. Euros. In dollars, it would have been a steal. He's selling off some portions of the 4,000 square meter complex (that's near 40,000 sq. ft) into smaller million, two million euro apartments along the quai, facing the Seine. His own portion, seen in part on the right in the photo below, will have a nice private garden and end up about 1,000 sq m. It's not our apartment on Ile Saint Louis, of course, but still -- not too shabby.
And neither is Gigi's new classroom. A converted old attic space, it has the most stunning views of any place I've seen in Paris, slightly edging out an apartment we decided not to take in favor of our current lovely abode.
This is the actual view sitting at her desk. From the various windows -- not to mention the balcony just outside -- you can get a clear view over the Paris rooftops of the Pantheon, the Montparnasse Tower, and a tower of the Sorbonne. That's just on one side. On the other side, we have a crystal clear view of Notre Dame, with Sacré Couer in the distance (hard to see in the photo, but easy in real life), alongside the dome of Sainte Chapelle. I feel like the school should charge admission to tourists for this view. I am, frankly, very jealous.
And if you look carefully from the balcony, there's a view of the Eiffel Tower. A distant view.
Along with the awe-inspiring view over monuments and rooftops, the school also brings in a flashy science demonstration for the Open House.
But before you go thinking their school has it all, please take note of these two computers we find in the classrooms -- the only ones we see. Anthony points out that they still have floppy disc drives. The Bay Area this ain't.
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