Le Pompidou et Le Pain

Today is the first Sunday of the month, and that means free museum day in Paris. I went to the Musée National d’Art Moderne at Centre Pompidou with some friends. The modern art starts before you even enter the building. The architecture of the building is very modern and very controversial. Some people view this building as a way of keeping Paris the center of avant-garde, art and innovation as it was throughout history. Others see it as a blemish of a building in a city full of timeless architecture. I’m not sure how I feel about it.

All of the load-bearing elements of the building are located on the outside. This allows for more open space on the inside. I can imagine that this comes in handy when arranging some of the more outrageous installation pieces. There is a glass tube running along the outside of the building that contains the escalator. From the outside it looks like a caterpillar climbing a wire fence. While I don’t particularly prefer the look of the external architecture, the view from the inside can’t be beat. To begin, the ride up the escalators is far from mundane. Once you’re really inside, there are tons of windows. I went from walking through rooms of modern art sculptures to looking out a window and seeing Sacre Coeur. Next, I moved to a gallery of Matisse and when I glanced out a window I saw the Eiffel Tower.

As for the art, I found it all interesting. But, that isn’t always a good thing. Some of it I really liked. Some of it I didn’t understand. Some of it I understood and disliked it as a result. My favorites were the modern art pieces of the early to mid 20^th century. There was tons of great Matisse stuff. They had some pieces by Picasso and Dali, although they each have their own museum in Paris. There were some Jackson Pollocks and Piet Mondrians as well. It was fun to actually recognize some of the works and remember learning about them in art class or seeing pictures of them in a book. It is a totally different experience to actually see the original piece of art as opposed to looking at a photograph of it in a book.

After the Pompidou, we were starving. Modern art can make a girl hungry. We walked around, got lost, figured out where we were and ended up at this adorable restaurant called “Le Pain Quotidien” which translates to “The Daily Bread”. We ate inside, next to an opened window that looked out onto the street. We sat in the middle of a large table. On either side of us was a group of young, trendy Parisians. We felt really out of place. There were several waiters buzzing around, and they each brought us something. Our favorite was a little guy who was incredibly helpful, but didn’t understand anything we said. We would speak in French to him, and he would respond in English (this happens a lot). He tried to make jokes with us, but the Franglais left everyone confused. One time he asked me, in English, “What color are you?” I just giggled, and looked nervously at my friends for help (I do this on a regular basis in Paris). We later decided the he must have meant “What color jam do you want?”. But that still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I ate a “tartine” which is like an open faced sandwich. It was delicious and very French. It was on rye bread, with artichoke spread, ham, cucumber and a dry cheese. After we finished our sandwiches, we decided we needed to try the bread. So, we ordered a large bread basket to share. The spreads were delicious. I might go back and buy some jam to bring home with me. It was by far the best preserves I’ve ever eaten. I think it was called 4 red fruits, I’m assuming it had strawberries, cherries, raspberries and…. I don’t know. Also, they had praline, hazelnut, chocolate (which was basically like fudge in a jar), and white chocolate spreads. There was apricot jam as well. We spent almost two hours there, and after it was all over I felt very French and very full.

We decided to walk off our lunch, and one of the first places we passed was the oldest patisserie in Paris. It has been around since Louis XIV. Also, this patisserie made all of the deserts for Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette”. They looked delicious, but I decided that I would just have to come back another day. We kept walking. We walked along the Seine. It was a beautiful day, so the entire city was out on bicycles and roller blades. I saw two “crashes” just in the short time I was walking. We passed some of the oldest bridges in Paris. I saw an old man fishing, and a little dog that wouldn't move out of the shade of the bridge despite the coaxing of his frustrated owner. Eventually, I got on the Metro, came home and fell asleep.

In other news:

I went to Troyes and Dijon this weekend. I’ll write more about it later this week. The pictures are already posted on my Picasa site http://picasaweb.google.com/petitechou87. My Swiss-German “sister” left, and I have a new “brother” who is also Swiss. His name is incredibly Italian, but I think his first language is German and he has red hair… but I guess that’s Switzerland for you. He seems nice, but I don’t think we’ll hang out as much as Michaela and I did. Tomorrow I start a new month of classes which means I have a new teacher. I guess tomorrow will either confirm or put to rest any worries I may have about that situation.