Dufy, Matisse, Picasso, Braque

On the morning of the eighteenth I wrote that I went to eat at Hibou and I started to write. We had been doing laundry. My friend had picked up some pastries on the way, stopped by the post office and met me at the hotel.

I did a bit of work there and we took our time before getting bikes and heading down Granelle to Invalides and across the Seine on the passarelle near the Eiffle Tower. It was frustrating looking for a place to park. We had to walk over to the nearest metro. As we returned I noted that the median was being set up as an art walk.

The Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (MaM) was free because the new exhibit was not open yet. We thought there wouldn't be a lot to see as a result but later we found that the permanent collection was quite extensive. We looked at Dufy, Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Derain  and saw a very large painting by Delaunay. Later I was able to sit in some viewing rooms to watch sheep grazing and a piece called JG by Tacita Dean. Finally we sat down at the cafe and after a few moments talking about how terrible the architecture was we sent a critique of the museum’s brutalist architecture to Twitter.

From there we headed over to the Trocadero where we saw break dancers and Syrian protesters and took a picture of the Eiffel Tower. We found that the Cafe Trocadero had great sorbet and a nearly uninterrupted view of the tower. We also stopped at the Arc de Triomphe to take photos before walking down Champs de Elysees and on to the Tuileries Gardens.  While there we stopped at a fancy patisserie to buy macarons and got a great picture of the Ferris wheel.

Near Metro Madeline we received word from our French acquaintance so grabbed some wine at Fauchon before taking a train to her place at Gabrielle Péri. It was packed but we saw the Seine and were able to get to the apartment easily. Our acquaintance had just walked up when her roommate opened the door.

They lived there with four others- two ladies and two guys- but one of them was out.  They offered me beer while we made introductions.  They had baguette and had a bunch of cheeses and dried meats. We crowded around the coffee table to eat. The food was great. I made light comments about pop and my favorite stuff. One of the girls was in marketing and was going to visit Brazil. She had been there the longest. Another- she was an engineer- was really quiet but played us a lot of music. One was studying to be a nurse and was a bit goofy.

Our acquaintance told us about her family and how her grandma had a Russian name, which conjugate a certain way.  There was cheese and ham. We drank her wine as well as ours. We told her we needed to go but she insisted we eat some of her chestnut butter. Later we are the macarons and coffee liqueur. I wanted to stay all night but eventually we grabbed the jackets and made our way to the now quiet subway station.

On the train I had to close my eyes but we needed to transfer at Lazare. Upon my arrival at the hotel I left my friend to do her thing and headed to the room. I was exhausted and went to sleep almost immediately.

The morning that I wrote this was nice but we had to catch a train to Frankfurt. We passed through the post office before going to Mabillon and taking the metro to Pont Marie where we found La Caféothèque.  We were underwhelmed- possibly because it didn’t conform to our concept of a French cafe- but the coffee was good and we even got beans.

We skipped the Hôtel de Ville because we were behind. We made it to l'Est fine and then I sent text and other messages to Frankfurt and other places. We also talked to the information desk before boarding with a bunch of bread for our acquaintance in Frankfurt. We talked about birds during the ride. The train was fast.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.