Saturday, September 12, 2009

first museum & first pastries

Today Eva slept in until 9:30 -- hallelujah! And the boys got up at 10:30, so that is progress. We left the apartment at 1:00 today, which is our best time yet.

When we live here, I pace myself. We just can't be on the go all day every day. (When we have guests, we are out and about more for their sake.) My ideal Paris day is to go on an excursion in the morning(ish), come home, relax for awhile, put in a load of laundry, then figure out what to do for dinner.

Max requested the Centre Pompidou today (modern art museum). Lucas was on board, Eva was not, but we take turns choosing what we want to do! Right now they have a special exhibit of female artists, which I found very interesting.

I loved this girly-girl piece, complete with jewelry, hair accessories, ribbons, and trims, all in various shades of pink.

One of my favorite color combos, this one spoke to me.

And I loved how text was incorporated into so many things:

So, yeah, I'm a word aficionado. Just this plain text makes my heart sing. The font, the words, the spacing, I love it all. (this was an art piece, not a museum commentary)

The words were cut out and illuminated from behind. Love it!

This is tongue in cheek, of course. Funny. (My ayatollah??)

This one was knitted! Just a huge, knitted panel, with the words. Cool.

This piece was made of wood and had letters strewn about. It made the best shadows. Eva had to get out of her stroller and dance around in this room. (She also announced today that she wants to take ballet and tap. How does she even know about tap?)

This looks like a cool book that we could reproduce! (Amy? Hannah?) What a fun project.

Come on, how can you not love this?

This one was fascinating -- it was a series of 8 panels. The 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th all had the same photo. Each one tells how many days it's been since the man she loved left. The even-numbered panels continued the story of their relationship with different photos. I stood there a long time reading the whole thing.

We discovered that Lucas and I have a faster museum pace than Max -- he was always lagging behind, and later told me that we were going too fast for him. Good thing he is old enough for me to not worry when he is not at my side!

At a certain point, it became clear that Eva couldn't handle any more museum time, so we wandered around the Stravinsky Fountain and then made our way home. Then we took a stroll along Rue Cler to buy baguettes and pastries. The baguettes were hot out of the oven! Such a treat. And it was the first time we have gotten pastries -- I have no idea how we waited this long. Max had a divorce (like a big éclair with chocolate custard on one side and coffee custard on the other), I had a religieuse (chocolate cream puff with another smaller cream puff on top), Lucas had a pain au chocolat (croissant with chocolate inside), and Eva had a chocolate sablé cookie that was almost as big as her head.

My blisters have not improved and my feet are in bad shape. It's a good thing I brought my favorite rhinestone wedge flip-flops, or I would not have been able to go out at all today. Here's a bit of good news: after carrying the stroller with Eva in it up and down many flights of stairs today, I can report that my knees are doing fine! So much easier than 2007, when I was just post-knee surgery.

Marc was gone all day helping the students to get to their host families. When he got home, we had raclette for dinner. I should have taken photos (next time). Basically it's melted cheese with boiled potatoes, ham, baguettes, and apples. The easiest dinner, yet delicious and very filling.

Today was so much more promising than yesterday.

12 comments:

Amy said...

If there was a way to express a whimpering sigh in words that would be my comment. :) Fun day! I went to the Centre Pompidou when we all took our alone day and loved it. I also loved all of the little shops around the museum--the cool little notebooks! And then the pastries! How in the world did you wait so long?

Alisa said...

Oh yum, raclette. My husbands brothers and Grandfather all served their missions in France. Whenever we go to visit they pull out their machine and make the most delicious dinner. What a fun memory!
It is so fun hearing about your day to day life.

TX Girl said...

Yes please take photos of your food. I'm very jealous.

The exhibit looks fascinating. I would have loved to see the complete display for the girl recounting her relationship. Of course, that might be a little hard since I don't speak French. (Do they offer subtitles?)

Neighbor Jane Payne said...

Eva's outfit is darling. It was fun to imagine her dancing among the shadows.

I'd have never thought of loving type. I love the things you expose me to. Yes, those fonts, texts, were very eye-pleasing.

Feet, please don't fail Michelle now. She has lots of pictures to take for us all.

Natasha said...

I love Eva's tights (leggings?) and they remind me of how I like to dress my Luci.

How nice that photos were allowed in the museum. Are most places in Paris like that? When we went to Santa Fe I was so disappointed that in one museum the security actually made me delete a photo I took with my camera. That was my 3rd time in Santa Fe but I had not recalled so many rules against photos. Not that I'm comparing my trip to yours . . .

Great pics as usual!

Kelly said...

I loved each and every one of your museum pictures. (Eva is such a doll -- those legs!) But, I think my favorite was "What big muscles you have!" All those little nicknames behind it just had me in stitches -- professor of desire?!

I'm sad to hear your feet are no better! At least there's good news on the knee front.

jenn said...

Beautiful pictures.
Raclette was my favorite meal in Paris.
I'm so happy your knees are doing well with the stroller.
Thanks heavens for rhinestone flip-flops!

Jill said...

Hooray for another post! Every time I click over to your blog I'm mentally chanting "please have a new post, please have a new post."

It's good that you pace yourself and are realistic about what everyone can handle in a day.

I love all the text in this exhibit, it's so cool! I can imagine how giddy you were.

It's probably for the best that you didn't take pictures of your warm baguettes, pastries or raclette or we might all start crying or drowned in a pool of our own drool!

melanie said...

Yeah for sleep!

Amazing photos Michelle. Really amazing. I feel like I'm there with you and I've loving every minute of it. I wouldn't know how to pace myself in Paris. The museums, the food, the streets, all of it.

Love Eva's tights.

shawna b. said...

Hooray! You made it! I love your museum pictures. The blue and red color combination spoke to me as well. And how can you not love all those words?! There is something very artistic about letters. I thought the simple, plain text piece was beautiful, and couldn't help but laugh at the "What Big Muscles You Have" piece. SO clever!

Hope your blisters heal soon and that you continue to get settled in your beautiful city.

amy gretchen said...

sounds like a successful most delightful day in Paris. I would have loved to see the museum...i love words too. I keep thinking how cool it must be to see parts of Paris most people never see because they don't have the time.

so jealous of the pastries.

Rebekah said...

I have to admit that looking at text gives me a headache and makes me feel very anxious and ill at ease. All the letters blur together, switch places, or start jumping around. When I see big blocks of text I start panicking and thinking, 'I can't read that! I can't read that!'

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