HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMILY!!!!

I hope you have a wonderful wonderful day

Alone in the rain on a Monday.....is that the start to a bad week??

My day stared looking for the Picasso Museum. I found it.

It's was ok, more expensive than my guide book lead me to believe, but interesting, lots of different rooms, underground caverns, and upper levels, it was a mini maze of Picasso pieces. I was a little disappointed because I really wanted to see "Ma Jolie" it's my favourite Picasso piece, I remember seeing it somewhere in France last time I was here, almost 10 years ago. It's now at the MOMA in NYC so I'll just have to go there! When I was in NYC with Kasumi in 2004, the MOMA was in Queens, because it's current location was under construction so I never got to see it. Yes, yet another reason to go to NYC!!

After the Picasso museum, I walked towards Bastille, and took the metro to go to the Pantheon. The Pantheon used to be a church, Sainte Genevieve, converted into the resting ground for some of the famous revolutionaries of Paris: inventors, philosophers, men/women of science, political figures. I didn't know everyone, but I did recognize Voltaire, Curie, Hugo, Dumas, and Zola. It was a crazy time to go to the Pantheon, they had an exhibition on inside, which I enjoyed, because it's a large space, and had there not been these dangling forms from the ceiling, it would have been yet another big church. It was by Ernesto Neto/ Levianthan Thot.

The basement of the Pantheon is where the crypts are kept, and it too was a beautiful limestone maze.

I walked around the city for a bit, then decided I will go to my new favourite book store, Galignani (where I applied for a job as the fine arts specialist!) for two reasons, 1) I love to peruse through the books there and 2) to check if the position is still open and introduce myself. Lucky for me, right next door is Angelina's tea room, so a great hot chocolate, and raspberry tart for me! And all indoors to avoid the downpour for an hour.

Slow Starting Sunday...or the last of cemeteries

Sunday was much of the same as Saturday, we just weren't hungover, only tired. We wanted to do things that were cheap, that was our goal of the day. Bought a crepe, 4.50euros, bought a map of Cimitiere Pere Lachaise, 2euros (all the other cemeteries the maps had been free!) and went forward in search of Bizet (Carmen musical), Balzac (writer), Modigliani (artist), Delacroix (artist), Wilde (writer), Moliere (French playwrite), Chopin (composer) Sarah Bernhardt (French actress), our girl EP (Edith Piaf) and Jim Morrison - he has is own security guard! Again like the past two cemeteries I've been to, the more elaborate ones are by the anonymous.

After the cemetery, we went in search of Victor Hugo's house. He wrote Les Miserables and Jessica was once in a production of Les Mis and loves it. So off to the Bastille/Marais area to find it. We got lost, and so close to it too!! As we're sitting down against a fence, I get a phone call, not entirely sure who it is, they ask me where I am, and I respond that I have no idea, we're a little lost. The voice on the other end says well aren't you sitting down against a fence across from a little cafe? This is exactly where I am!! It turns out to be a friend of Shefali's, named Guillaume with a friend that I met at a party a few weeks ago, Laurent. So we joined them for a cafe (or in our case a glass of Orange juice, no cokes) and chatted for a bit with them then continued on with our search of Hugo's House. I know where we went wrong and just needed to backtrack. I like serendipidious days like this.

Yay! We found it, and Yay! It's still open (30 mins to go) and the biggest YAY, it's free!

Saw some guy installing the last of his work in an enclosed garden and some street performers, it was a fun day.

Slow Starting Saturday

Well it's understandable that when we finally did rise from our slumber of 4 hours, we were a little groggy, and to say the least hungover. We decided to do nothing.

I dropped Jessica off at the Montparnasse station so she could go home and take care of the kiddies, and since I was in the nieghbourhood, I decided to go see Sartre and Beauvoir, amongst others at the Cimitiere Montparnasse. It was a beautiful day, I didn't want to completely write it off! Buried here are the existentialists, Jean-Paul Sartre with Simone de Beauvoir, Charles Baudelaire, my favourite absurdist playwright Samuel Beckett and the sculptural artist, Brancusi. It's funny, the "famous" tombs are quite plain whereas the more elaborate tombs are for people I've never heard of. One with the lions, it's for the "Prince of Archery" I couldn't read the name for all the moss in the way.

Bought some groceries and had a quiet night in, chatting on MSN with Camille.....sorry about that sweetie!

Friday Night's alright for fighting!!

The rest of the story on Friday night.

Let's just say that we were very popular with the French boys, and I found most of them to be to young, and told them so, so off they went after Jessica. At one point, they were two guys who were going to fight over her, it was actually quite funny to watch. So we danced a little more, until about 5:30am, then walked home, stopping at the base of the stairs to remove our boots....our feet were killing!! Not only do they hurt on normal days wearing flats, but after a night of walking and dancing, we could not make it up those damned famous stairs!

One by one we'll knock you out

Jessica was a great prop!!

Friday.....Jessica had a great Friday, very eventful to say the least. Don't worry I'll say the most!!

What did we start out with? Right, we met at Shefali's apartment (she's gone to London for the Indian New Year this weekend) and walked around Montmartre, trying to avoid the staircases (at least in the upwards direction). We found ourselves hungry as usual and stopped for lunch, then around the corner to the Dali museum, where the girl was nice enough to cut me a student discount deal....these museums are getting expensive for me! Jessica either gets in cheaper by being a student or by being under 25....that's why people don't like to age, everything costs more until you reach 60! The Dali museum was small, but cool, it had a lot of works by Picasso, drawings and ceramics, plus they had on display couture dresses inspired by Dali, so that was neat, it would be great if someone, somewhere, someday wrote a Daliesque play and used some of these gowns.

Next we tried to tackle the Opera house, however the auditorium was closed to the public due to rehearsals, so we didn't want to pay full price and NOT see it! Some window shopping led us back to our favorite haunt, thanks to Francia, back to Angelina's for some fabulous raspberry, mango and caramel glaces....delicious!!! We still had time enough to hit the George Pompidou Centre (it closes at 21h - 9pm). When we arrived, we were treated to a spectacle for the 120th anniversary of the diplomatic relationship Franco-Korean. It was neat; we caught the end performance of the Opening dance by the four young monks, then the Eight Buddhist Monks and the finale of the Lion Dance. It was really fun to watch.

We entered the centre and went to the lower level (it's free). IT WAS COOL. It's contemporary work, crazy -make you think work. I can't describe everything, the exhibition is called Les Yeux Ouverts (Eyes Open) and really the work is to make you realize some of the things happening in the world. Some of the major works were done by "leading organizations" as their campaign. Some were from United Colours of Benetton on poverty and mal nutrition in Africa; Reporters without Borders, on the deaths of reporters simply exercising freedom of speech and attempting to bring the truth of corruption or "plots" to the masses.
flip book
There was a fun staircase that plays piano notes when you walked on them (think Big, with Tom Hanks, but running up and down a staircase!) and there was a drawing station where one could make a flipbook (and political messages of U2 & TV....silly Jessica!).
Onwards and upwards! To the gallery, to the exhibitions! They were having a cinema exhibition. It was interesting, there was one short flick of all the Hollywood Female leading actresses of the 40s, 50s, 60s (Bacall, Kelly, Gidget, Hedren and even Audrey Hepburn) of all similar scenes from their films put together as an assemblage, exampl: all of them start in the bedroom, hear a noise or a knock on the door and get up to answer it, open it, fright in their eyes, running away from whatever they opened the door to and locking themselves in another room.......they all had similar scenes in their respective films and this artist put them together to create a mini movie. There was also the pink room, I liked this one best. It was strangely calming, even though there was a giant red shoe (I like shoes, I like red, it's all good). This work was housed in a large room and on either side of the room, there was a sheet draped across blowing in the wind; three circles with bulbs around blinking, lay on the floor leading the eye to the giant red shoe and some very nice lounge/trance music playing. Jessica and I just sat there for a little bit, it was good. We thought we'd like to have a giant red shoe in our home one day, could make it into a slide or put steps in it to create a small staircase....fun fun

We went back to Chez Clement, a restaurant we ate at, only 3 days ago! We had the steak and potatoes (fries) and loved it and wanted it again, plus it's quite cozy and has a great decor. This time we tried the pumpkin soup as well as the steak. It was DELICIOUS......mmm.......and of course we meet more Americans on vacation, or here to work and offer them some tips on what to see and where to find it.....and hey, why not join us for a drink down the street. Honestly, I think I should just start my own tourist sightseeing company, Wanna Party in Paris? We'll take you out. So two girls from Kansas (one is studying in Ireland, Jessica, how jealous are you?) and an older gentleman here on business from LA. We take them for a drink at my new favourite night cap, Cafe Jade (cute waiters), then for some great desserts, Cafe Mabillon, up the street where we devour the moelleux au chocolat (like a chocolate souffle) with the famous Berthillon ice cream, made next to the Notre Dame on the island.
Now this is our first night to go out in Paris all night long, Jessica doesn't need to be back in the morning to babysit, so we want to have fun, so after one drink at an Irish pub the Kansas girls wanted to check out, we say our goodbyes and head up to Montmartre on the last train. We go to a bar near Shefali's apt, and when I return from ordering drinks inside for us, I come out to find Jessica swarmed by a pack of Frenchmen!!! There are about 10 of them outside!!! The picture doesn't do it justice. They are coming back in a few minutes then off to a club nearby and if we want to go with them, the more the merrier. Off we go to our first Paris Club, Elysee Montmartre. These guys seem nice, and they caught on to our 90210 joke. Now once we're at the club, one offered to pay for me, but not Jessica, so we just paid for ourselves, but then after we paid they had left us there.....French guys are weird, they didn't wait for us to pay, like 1 minute out of their lives......it was bizarre. We go in, get drinks, and look out at the dance floor. It's a fairly large space, and most of it is for dancing, this makes me happy, I love to dance.

more to come on the night......right now tired, need sleep