As I mentioned in my previous post on Sacré-Coeur, one of the other places I didn’t get a chance to see when I was in Paris last summer was the catacombs so I wanted to be sure to fit in a visit this time around. Long Queue vs Online Tickets You can either wait in line to get in or buy tickets online for specific time slots to bypass the line. Wait times can be anywhere from 30 minutes to 3+ hours and in the summer time, it’s common to wait for hours. I definitely recommend buying a ticket online. Keep in mind that they have a limited number of tickets for each time slot, so don’t wait too long to buy or you may be stuck in that loooooong line. We got quite a few less-then-friendly looks from those in the line when we bypassed the entire queue and went right in. C’est la vie (insert Gallic shrug here). For some inexplicable reason, the site says you must print your tickets if you buy them online. Given that most visitors to the catacombs are tourists with limited or no access to a printer, this seems particularly silly, but what can you do? Luckily, we were in a hotel with a small business center so we printed our tickets there. Online tickets cost quite a bit more (27€ compared to 12€ for adults and 10€ for those age 26 or under). Totally worth it if that works with your budget. Online tickets also come with an audio guide. If you buy tickets at the door, the guide is an extra 5€. It’s a nice cool 14°C (57°F) down there, a lovely break from the hot summer weather above. It is damp in places and the ground can be slippery so watch your step as you walk. What did the author do after leaving the catacombs? Pick the correct answer from the following options:  A. She went back to her hotel  B. She went and walked along the Seine River  C. She went to a fancy cafe in Paris  D. not enough information
D
This is a beauty myth that I have been wanting to bust for a while as I am surprised how many people actually believe it. I am quite vain so hate having visible grey hairs. Having naturally dark brown hair means that even a single grey hair is very noticeable. From the age of about 22 or 23 I discovered that I had about five grey hairs floating about. As soon as I could see them I'd pull them out. Then, a few months later when they were rearing their ugly heads again - pluck, out they'd come again! Up until I was about 27 or 28 I only had these 5 grey hairs, well that was all I could find anyway. Then from 28 onwards they have been inviting their friends and relatives to move in and I am slowly losing the plucking battle (side note: this increase in grey hairs at 28 was also the year that I got married...I wonder if their is any correlation between getting married and going grey??). Whenever I was having a conversation with someone about grey hairs and I'd mention that I pull mine out, they'd look at me horrified - 'you can't do that, seven more will grow back in its place' they would all warn me. Even my hairdresser was horrified that I plucked my grey hairs. One day when she was straightening my hair I could see a stray grey sticking up and it was driving me crazy. I asked her to pull it out and she refused saying that I'd end up with more if she pulled it out. I have never believed this old wives tale, mostly because for five years I kept plucking my greys yet they didn't increase in number. Plus it made no sense to me. Why would plucking greys cause more greys to grow when the same is not true for your coloured hair. Imagine if it were true - that would mean that the cure for baldness would be to pluck out your hair as each hair you pluck causes seven more to grow in its place - doesn't really make sense, does it? Or worse, each time you waxed your legs, seven hairs replaced each pulled one - what state would your legs be in now? Who didn't want the author to pluck grey hairs? Pick the correct answer from the following options:  A. not enough information  B. the mother of the author  C. the hairdresser  D. the father of the author
C
What is creativity? How de we define creativity? Where does creativity come from? How philosophical is the notion of creativity? Is everyone’s ‘creativity’ different? Or is it an ill conceived, simplified term that is used to describe a very specific series of neuronal & bodily reactions to certain stimuli? These are all the questions I’ve been thinking (and googling, and youtubing) since beginning this Capturing Creativity studio* and I have found some answers or maybe I’ve just found more questions: Creativity is generally defined as the ability to make new things, or come up with new ideas, it’s an ability to think outside the box, to see unique solutions and employ them in inventive ways. In this sense creativity is not always utilised when being ‘creative’, as to be creative is simply defined as the ability to make or produce something. However I guess that depends on your definition of creative, how different, unique, special, once off, un-influenced does something have to be, to be classified as creative? This is where creativity get’s tricky. It’s all well and good to be like oh this is what creativity is, so it’s easy to investigate it, but what if you don’t define that as being creative, maybe that was just following a formula, a somewhat inspired formula, but maybe it is just a formula. Creativity to most people seems to be a random mix of once off genius combined with solid skill and hard work and for us humans these percentages are unique to us. Maybe creativity to you is 90% unique idea, 5% skill and 5% hard work. Maybe creativity to you is 40% unique idea, 50% skill and 10% hard work. Maybe for you creativity doesn’t have to involve any hard work at all. For me when it comes to creativity I’m most interested in that unique idea portion; where does that unique idea come from? Is it simply random? Is it a gift from the gods? Is our unique idea just a product of a lot of subconscious effort, only made aware to us in the sense of a ‘random’ idea? Have we been influenced by something, processed it... When does the unique idea come to a creative person? Pick the correct answer from the following options:  A. When we have been influenced by something  B. Before new things are made  C. not enough information  D. When a formula has been followed

B