Lucian Freud L'Atelier Exhibit at the Centre Pompidou

Yesterday I walked from our apartment to the Centre Pompidou, France's national museum of modern art. This very contemporary structure located in the heart of the Marais, one of the oldest parts of Paris, takes up an entire city block including its outdoor amphitheater. I generally don't care for the exhibits presented there because they're usually be bit too abstract for my tastes but the Lucian Freud L'Atelier was one that I thoroughly enjoyed. All of the paintings were done inside or outside in the garden of his London studio. Many of these were nudes, lots were self-portraits, but not in the sensual classical sense of nudes. He actually preferred to use the word "naked" to describe his nudes which is understandable considering his intent. These paintings show more the wear of time on the body and his use of paints to illustrate skin tones is really amazing. At the end of the exhibit was a film of his workshop with some still photos of the space in a small attached room. These too were interesting since the studio was already familiar because the paintings reveals its walls and props. Check out the exhibit at the Pompidou's website http://www.centrepompidou.fr/Pompidou/Manifs.nsf/AllExpositions/57C293CB2BD5E0CFC12576E3003A4771?OpenDocument&sessionM=2.2.1&L=1

Bois de Boulogne

Paris is one of the green-ist of the large cities in the world. It not only has tons of small parks hidden throughout its neighborhoods but also it boasts of numerous large, expansive parks. On Sunday we visited the city's largest, Bois de Boulogne, situated on the western edge of Paris. In ancient times this was one of the hunting areas for the kings, thus the surrounding residential neighborhoods are upscale. The park is now a smorgasbord for outdoor/nature activities and contains several specialty parks within its boundaries. For example, the southern edge of the Bois has Roland Garros where the annual French Open takes place. We took the Metro Line 1 to the Sabion exit then walked to entrance nearest to the Jardin d'Acclimatation. From there we headed to the Parc de Bagatelle, one of Paris' botanic gardens. It was absolutely gorgeous with tulips, clematis, apple and pear trees, wisteria, and tons more in full bloom. The gardens even have a very attractive restaurant that we want to someday go back to someday. There were also several pairs of peacocks wondering the grounds, providing lots of picture-taking opportunities. One of the males spread his full plumage as spectators oooed and awed, myself included. At the end of day, we had clocked in more than 10 miles of walking, every step of the way worth the effort.

Tractors take to the Streets of Paris

The French are known for taking to the streets to protest anything and everything that dissatisfies them. I consider this a function of any democracy, if something doesn't work for the people then the people publicly, and en mass, show their point of view. La grève, the strike, is a French institution used almost weekly, although it seems more like daily, in Paris. Transportation, medical services, educators, garbage workers, and more have all had strikes since I've been in France. Today, over 2000 tractors descended on the country's capital driven by grain farmers from all French regions. They tied up traffic for over 12 hours as they drove slowly through the city, flying flags and shooting off fireworks to bring attention to their cause.

Saint-Germain-en-Laye

The weather in Paris has been great for over 2 weeks so yesterday we decided to put a bunch of stuff into the day pack and to head out of Paris for the countryside. The RER is a system of trains that runs through Paris' subway, connecting the suburbs to the city. We walked over to Gare du Lyon from our apartment, bought 2 R/T tickets for less than 10 euros each, and went out to the small town of Saint-Germain-en-Laye 19 km from the heart of Paris. The town is known for its château and attached gardens that were particular favorites of King Louis XIV. We actually exited the RER below ground and came up right across the street from the castle which creates a dramatic entrance to the town. By the time we arrived we were ready for lunch so immediately found a terrace restaurant where we ate a salad before heading back to the grounds of the castle. It was really too pretty to be indoors so we postponed the visit to the château for another time and went straight into the gardens. The castle and grounds sit along a high plateau overlooking a long valley stretching all the way to Paris. As a matter of fact, from there we could see the Eiffel Tower with the towering contemporary buildings of La Defense in the foreground. We first walked through the château's large gardens and then continued into a connecting forest for a long walk. Afterwards, we sat at a café in the gardens and had a drink while we played cards in the sunshine. It was really so easy to get away from the city to enjoy nature and a lovely historic setting.

Exhibition at UNESCO

Paris is home to UNESCO and I have a colleague from the States who works there in the Intangible Cultural Heritage section. Last Wednesday evening, I attended the opening of an exhibit they brought from the States that showcases some of the National Heritage Fellows. These are people who have been selected because of their outstanding talents as traditional artists. The exhibit was produced by Documentary Arts in Texas and consists of 46 larger than life-size photographs of artists and short bios about them. It was done in cooperation with Flemish Belgium interests so dignitaries from that country spoke at the opening. Then Cajun fiddler, Michael Doucet, who came from Louisiana, gave a demo of his fiddling style. Afterwards, the Belgium government sponsored the very nice reception complete with Belgium beers and chocolates.

The next evening Michael Doucet had a concert after the viewing of a documentary film on Texas fiddling styles by Alan Governar of Documentary Arts. That night I left my apartment in plenty of time to get there but unfortunately I forgot to take my invitation with me. The previous evening no one had even looked at it so I didn't really think it would matter. Wrong! That night UNESCO was mobbed with people, which I thought was amazing. I wondered how many people would come out to see a Cajun fiddler? After going through the security screening, I had to wait in line to get into the concert hall. I did notice that a woman was checking tickets so I arranged French words in my mind preparing to convince her that I was worthy of entering. However, she was not interested in any of my excuses for not having a ticket and told me that under no circumstances could I enter without one. At that point another woman came over and even tried to intervene on my behalf for the first woman would hear nothing of it, I had to have a ticket, period! So, I went back out to the foyer, outside of security, and convinced the person at the information desk that I should be allowed in. She gave me a copy of an invitation, then I went back through security, cued up again and finally got past the ogre. The hall was large and at that point I was ushered to the second level where I quickly found a place to light.

By this time it was already after 6:30pm which should have been the starting time. So, I sat there for another 30 minutes wondering why it hadn't started yet. The woman next to me asked the time...it was 7:05 and I commented that it was very late in starting. But she told me it was supposed to start at 7pm. Finally, dignitaries gathered on stage and started speaking. At first, I thought it was a bit odd that one of the persons spoke Italian but I love to listen to Italian so I wasn't thinking about much. Then the second and third persons also made comments in Italian which really seemed odd. It finally occurred to me that the grand piano on stage was going to be played by an Italian artist! I was in the wrong place!!! Quietly, I got up and left, exiting outside the door past the ogre. In the lit hallway I found a flier for the concert I was supposed to be attending. By the time I got to the right place in the building, it was 7:40, I had completely missed the showing of the film and Michael only had only 2 tune left to play. When I left into the dark of night I truly felt in many ways in-the-dark.

London & the Euro Star

After all the horrible things that happened in the tunnel between France and England over the last winter holidays, I had great reservations about taking the Euro Star to London. But a friend invited us to spend the long Easter weekend in London so we decided to go by Euro Star since one can go from the heart of Paris to the heart of London in 2.5 hours! We didn't have to bother getting to and from the airports, etc. I also had worried that going under the English Channel would last a long time but in fact it was only about 10 minutes, far less than the time it takes me in the subway to get to class, so I didn't really have time to think much about it. Pretty amazing actually!

Our first day, we had tickets to see a performance of Handel's full Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall, opened in 1871. Our seats were on the first row behind the chorus, which were absolutely fabulous. There was a full orchestra and at least 200 voices so the sound was incredible. We got to watch the conductor and were facing the audience so had a grand view of the hall. It lasted about 2.5 hours and,keeping with tradition, everyone stood for the Halleluiah chorus. Magnificent! On the way back to the house where we were staying we stopped in for about an hour to see some of the Albert and Victoria Museum. The day was cool and rainy....typical for London.

The second day we joined our friends to do some tourist things. First we went to the Portobello Road Market, which was a zoo and we tired of it quickly so ended up in a pub for lunch. Then we went to St. Paul's church, which was closed. We walked a lot in the area and saw the big wheel and some historic buildings.

On Easter, we headed out early to go to the Royal Academy of Arts to see the exhibit, The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters. It was really great seeing so many of his works from the period that he spent while living in Arles in southern France. I also enjoyed seeing his letters where he drew miniatures of many of his works. We ate in a small restaurant and then went to the Tate Britain to see an exhibit of Henry Moore's works. I'm really not a huge fan of abstract art but it was nice seeing this exhibit.

Afterwards, we decided to walk back to the place we were staying that took an hour and a half to walk. At the Albert Bridge we took the only photo of the entire trip. The late afternoon sun had just come out and was shining on the bridge. Back to Paris the following day.