[Written 9/15; I was originally reluctant to post this bc is seemed rather banal, but I will anyway for the sake of record keeping and continued motion.] I have this list of things to do, and I have now officially done everything on it except the blog entries: update and conference notes. Boy, I am really far behind on the conference notes.
So, here’s my gameplan: I am going to update you now, as best as I can, and then if I have time and stamina, I will start typing the conference notes. But the update is only for like 4 days, bc after that I haven’t really done anything interesting not described in the letter excerpts.
On August 25th, Eric and I decided to have any “easy day”, although it was not much different than how I treat myself normally. But then, I get to be in Paris all the time. We were exhausted. So, we slept in and lounged around the apartment until like 3 in the afternoon.
The designated activity for the day was the Pompidu Centre, which houses the modern art museum. I’ve been there several times, and, well, I hate to say this, but I don’t really like it. I can think of 2 possibilities: 1) I don’t like contemporary art or 2) I don’t share the curators’ aesthetic. Another possibility that isn’t different enough to merit its own number is that I don’t like the French aesthetic of contemporary art, and since the Pompidu Centre leads that, I think it’s pretty obvious.
If I may digress slightly, I want to say that I think the Pompidu Centre is awesome. I mean really. I love the building. I love that its there among all of those Haussmann apartment buildings. I love that people do crazy and wonderful music and performance art in front of it. I love watching the crowds. I love that crazy fountain. If I had the option on an apartment (that met my other needs) with that building as the primary view, I would take it without hesitation. I say this bc Mido, a seasoned Parisienne, doesn’t like it. She thinks it belongs next to La Defense (a suburb that houses the city’s financial center). (I think La Defense is horrible, inhuman, crass.)
But we were still exhausted. So, we took a break from art-viewing to write postcards, have a deca, and enjoy the view and ambiance from the restaurant. The restaurant is so cool. I wrote about it last year – it’s this stark-white, high-ceilinged, sterile-feeling room with one single red rose on each table and a magnificent view of the city. They play modern, sometimes techno, music, and have these huge white-silver pod thingies that remind me of burning man but serve to create some more private spaces or at least break up the huge space. The coffee was bad and expensive but worth the experience.
Yeah, so we looked at a little more art, and one thing I remember (I’ll have to ask Eric to add something about the art there, since he is our collective memory) is photos of short cut pathways. The reason I went into transportation planning is because of shortcut pathways in Nepal. I think I have talked about this before, so I won’t go into complete detail, but the main point is that I fell madly in love with them. These photos, on the other hand, like someone who looks like an ex-lover, but isn’t good looking like they were, were, well, not very good looking.
That night we bought a roasted chicken on the street outside Muriel’s magnificent apartment, and ate it with salad, baguette, and a couple bottles of wine. Life was good. (Of course, I had to make broth of the bones afterwards, and Muriel later said that she made a lovely, fragrant risotto with the broth.)
Friday will go down in history as the day that Eric was the taskmaster ;-). I had a little hangover from all that wine he made me drink ;-) and that made me feel sluggish. We started at Trocadero and looked that the view of the Tour Eiffel. Then we walked past the Palace de Tokyo where the City’s modern art museum is housed except that it’s been closed for like ever. So, we just looked at the gallery, which was cool. Another time, I hope to see the whole thing. The goal was the Musee D’Orsay.
Visiting the Musee D’Orsay is, to me, like visiting a group of old friends I don’t see very often. They’re magnificent. They’re brilliant. And if I really loved them, I would keep in closer touch. I mean, some of them I do really love, but they don’t reproduce well, and they don’t have that much time for me (i.e., I can’t buy them). But most of them are so close to perfect that I find them annoying. We did the museum right, and started with the Impressionists on the top floor. We also really enjoyed the art nouveau furniture. Alas!
From there we walked up thru the garden de Tuilaries, where we sat for a while in the sun, and then to have a chocolat chaud that wasn’t very good at a café nearby. Shortly thereafter, and at the very beginning of dinner for the French, we stopped at La Fresque, on the northern edge of Les Hales, and had a magnificent dinner. I felt much better as soon as I had my kir. (Alcoholics beware of the cycle you’re getting yourself into – you know who you are!)
Yeah, so that was a really good meal, and it was the same place that Jennifer recommended a while back that I’ve mentioned a few times before not going to. It was worth the wait.
The other thing that we did at Muriel’s magnificent apartment is watch all of Sex and the City season 2. I am not completely sure this is the ideal activity for the week that your new boyfriend visits you in Paris, so I don’t really recommend it, but I think we both enjoyed it.
Muriel said that she might arrive back at the apartment early, but we couldn’t imagine how it could be earlier than 11, so we set our alarm for 9 so that we could clean ourselves and the apartment before leaving it to her. Alas! We had a wrong interpretation of early. She was there at 7:30. But, we told ourselves, the good news is that that leaves us plenty of time to see Paris on Eric’s last day (suppressed sob). We moved ourselves to Montreiul (had a pastry or 2 with Mido) and then went to Monmartre. It started with a picnic in front of Sacre Coeur. We had ice cream. We walked all around, and it turned out I still haven’t learned not to talk to the artists in the Montmartre square. After a while, we went home for a nap (naps are yummy).
Mido made us this magnificent meal which involved pork (I think) and cream sauce. Eric appeared to be really impressed. They talked about music. It was a fine evening. But alas, the next morning, before I was fully awake, Eric slipped out of bed for the airport to return to SF. And that’s where you find me in the letter excerpts pulling myself together.
I spent the next week with my parents, trying to get my mother to write and catching up on my own blog posts.
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