Paris 2008 - 23 Juillet

23 Juillet (Mercredi) - We got a late start, leaving the apartment after 16h00, which considering how I was feeling, was a major accomplishment in itself. I really didn't feel like going out at all, but the days dwindle down, etc, etc.

We picked up the 63 bus and rode over to the Palais de Tokyo and the Musée d'Art Moderne, which are actually two separate buildings behind the same façade with a café terrasse in the center. Until the other day, when we rode the 63 to the end of the line, I didn't even know they were there. I mean, I had heard of them, but I didn't know where they were. I had been under the impression that the Palais de Tokyo was on the Left Bank near la Tour Eiffel, but now realise that is the Maison de la Culture du Japon a Paris, an interesting place in its own right.

Speaking of La Tour Eiffel, this is the view we got after leaving the bus.

We entered the Musée d'Art Moderne first, only to be told they would be closing in five minutes. I saw people entering the Palais de Tokyo and none were coming right back out, so we went over and found that it is open until midnight. We bought our Tarif Réduit (reduced price ticket) and started our tour. Remember our impression of the Pompidou's permanent collection? Well, ditto for the Palais de Tokyo. One exhibit was a room painted white with a small white box in the center of the floor. Another was a huge mound of garbage, literally. There was one exhibit which, though stupid, was interesting. It was a machine that loaded bottles into a barrel and blasted them against the wall at the far end of the room every fifteen minutes or so. There was quite a build-up of broken glass and I wondered how often they cleaned it and what they did with the glass. Maybe that's where they got the garbage for the other room. My favorite exhibit was a room full of Darth Vader masks on rods. They were all wired to a machine that produced a strange kind of music. It could have been really something if they had used the entire outfit so that it looked like there was a room full of Darth Vaders, but that's just my opinion.

We left there and discovered, just across the street, a beautiful building we had seen during our bus rides, but didn't have a clue about what it was. It is the Musée Galliéra. The sign indicated that the next scheduled exhibition would be in November, so we didn't go in. Beside, we weren't sure it was open because we only saw one person on the grounds and she appeared to be just walking through.

We walked up the street to Place d'Iéna where we discovered a statue of George Washington. On the other side of the Place was another museum about which we knew nothing, the Guimet, musée Asiatique. It looks very interesting so I hope we can go back and investigate a bit further before we have to leave.

We had dinner at l'Artiste Café. We both had the Salade Parisien. Ham, mushrooms, tomatoes, carrots on a bed of greens and topped with a poached egg. Super delicious, but again, more than I could finish.

I saw these two headlines on an internet news site: Obama urges Germans to work with US to stop terror. McCain visits German restaurant in Ohio. I find that hilarious!

Plus à venir, mes amis.