Translation-I have a cold. Today I slept in, because I have a cold. I went to the boulangerie that I got the fabulous croissant from yesterday, but there was a line. So, I went to the boulangerie/cafe a couple doors down and they carried the baked goods from the other place and served cafe au lait and had a place to sit. Score. I drank my delicious coffee and ate my delicious orange brioche and then continued on my walk to Notre Dame, across the bridge and to Centre Pompidou. When you look at this building it just makes almost no sense, but then it kind of does. Walking towards it I saw what I thought looked like gerbil tubing on the outside of the building. Oh the irony, that 'gerbil' tubing is the escalators to the other floors. I then felt like a gerbil.
I do enjoy most modern art. Most. I think what I find interesting is watching the transition that many artists go through to reach their apex. Some days though, it is too much and I feel like I have information overload. Today was one of those days. There was an interesting exhibit called Mondrian/De Stijl which was about a Dutch movement that translated is called neo-plasticism. The philosophy behind it is interesting, but it was just too much. Actually if you see one of Mondrian's paintings you would recognize it. The one cool part of the exhibit was a pseudo recreation of an exhibition in the early twenty's that included a charcoal drawing by Mies van der Rohe of the first glass skyscraper.
I then went to the museum's gallery which included work from 1905-now. I don't know why, but it made me miss the Art Museum in Chicago. I have been to quite a few modern art museums all over the world now (which sounds pretentious, but it is just the truth) and I find that I am piecing together an artists work based on what I have seen elsewhere. It has definitely deepened my understanding of art. Today though I admit I just wasn't in the mood. I was making my way through the exhibits more quickly to find the exit and then I stumbled on a room of photographs by Man Ray. The photographs themselves were really great, but the subject matter was astounding. There were pictures of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Hemingway, French philosophers and artists. The range and depth of people was just mind boggling.
I left the Centre Pompidou and headed to a sushi restaurant that was in the neighborhood. It was very delicious. I love sushi and now I have had my sushi fix. After lunch I headed over to the Saint Eustache church. It was built between 1532 and 1640 and it is just beautiful. It has the soaring arches of Notre Dame, but since it is on a smaller scale it feels so much more intimate. As I was walking through the church I stumbled on a section dedicated to St. Vincent de Paul. I have not been actively looking for him, but he is such a part of Paris' heritage that I keep finding him.
By then I was a bit cold and tired and so I headed back to the hotel. I dropped off my camera and then walked to Mosque de Paris, which has a hammam. It was not quite as nice as Cemberlitas in Turkey, but it definitely did the trick. I laid on the warm marble slab until I felt like goo and then I went and had a massage. The other difference about this hammam was that it was much more communal. There were groups of girlfriends and families and it was a very lively experience. After my massage I went back to the hotel and got a hold of a friend of Cora's, who I then met for drinks along with her American boyrfriend. Of course I knew that since they were a friend of Cora's they would be fabulous and I was not wrong. I am meeting her and her boyfriend tomorrow to go to a photography exhibit.
I'm still plotting a way to stay forever. Sigh.
I do enjoy most modern art. Most. I think what I find interesting is watching the transition that many artists go through to reach their apex. Some days though, it is too much and I feel like I have information overload. Today was one of those days. There was an interesting exhibit called Mondrian/De Stijl which was about a Dutch movement that translated is called neo-plasticism. The philosophy behind it is interesting, but it was just too much. Actually if you see one of Mondrian's paintings you would recognize it. The one cool part of the exhibit was a pseudo recreation of an exhibition in the early twenty's that included a charcoal drawing by Mies van der Rohe of the first glass skyscraper.
I then went to the museum's gallery which included work from 1905-now. I don't know why, but it made me miss the Art Museum in Chicago. I have been to quite a few modern art museums all over the world now (which sounds pretentious, but it is just the truth) and I find that I am piecing together an artists work based on what I have seen elsewhere. It has definitely deepened my understanding of art. Today though I admit I just wasn't in the mood. I was making my way through the exhibits more quickly to find the exit and then I stumbled on a room of photographs by Man Ray. The photographs themselves were really great, but the subject matter was astounding. There were pictures of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Hemingway, French philosophers and artists. The range and depth of people was just mind boggling.
I left the Centre Pompidou and headed to a sushi restaurant that was in the neighborhood. It was very delicious. I love sushi and now I have had my sushi fix. After lunch I headed over to the Saint Eustache church. It was built between 1532 and 1640 and it is just beautiful. It has the soaring arches of Notre Dame, but since it is on a smaller scale it feels so much more intimate. As I was walking through the church I stumbled on a section dedicated to St. Vincent de Paul. I have not been actively looking for him, but he is such a part of Paris' heritage that I keep finding him.
By then I was a bit cold and tired and so I headed back to the hotel. I dropped off my camera and then walked to Mosque de Paris, which has a hammam. It was not quite as nice as Cemberlitas in Turkey, but it definitely did the trick. I laid on the warm marble slab until I felt like goo and then I went and had a massage. The other difference about this hammam was that it was much more communal. There were groups of girlfriends and families and it was a very lively experience. After my massage I went back to the hotel and got a hold of a friend of Cora's, who I then met for drinks along with her American boyrfriend. Of course I knew that since they were a friend of Cora's they would be fabulous and I was not wrong. I am meeting her and her boyfriend tomorrow to go to a photography exhibit.
I'm still plotting a way to stay forever. Sigh.
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