In Paris day 2 - Musee day

So the "morning" arrived late, WAAAyyy late, for me.  The wines that tasted so great last night are pounding in my head this morning.  I woke up at 7:30a with a very dry mouth.  I begged Evan to go get some water, orange juice and coffee.  He lovingly obliged and even brought back some delicious pastries.

Breakfast, cafe, some excedrin, and LOTS of water made me start feeling human again.  We planned out our day and I promptly fell back to sleep.  Evan had some work to do so he patiently let me sleep some more.  I accidentally slept until NOON!  Well, technically, it was 3am San Diego time.  I apologized for being such a sloth and he warmly smiled and said he completely understood.  He's been here a week already so on the jet lag curve, he's winning.

I quickly showered and got ready because we wanted to have at least 3 hours at the Museum of Modern Art.  We hopped on the Metro and after 3 change overs we found ourselves at the corner of an outdoor market.  We strolled down the market towards the Musee and bought these delicious "Megabon" spinach stuffed pizza.  I didn't get a good shot of them but here's one of Evan eating his:

They made these out of dough that was rolled really thin and then filled with a variety of things.  We chose spinach.  The guy proceeded to wrap them in a triangular shape making sure to carefully fold over the edges and then plopped them on this dome-like cast iron stove.  After flipping it over once, we had these piping hot stuffed pizzas.  We're definitely doing this at home.  I have the perfect griddle attachment.  I will likely use the Trader Joe's pizza crust.  Feeling a bit better now, we decided to hurry along so as not to miss the Musee.  After crossing the street, we walked right into a big hub bub.  Turns out Haider Ackermann is having his fashion show at the Palais du Tokyo, which is right next door to the Musee, in a few hours!  Okay, for those of you not into the fashion designer scene, here is how cool this is.  If you pick up spring Vogue, you will see Lady Gaga in a Haider Ackermann design.  Word on the Vogue blog today was that fashion insiders are predicting Ackermann could take over for John Galliano at Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent and Chanel.  There we were navigating our way through lighting and sound tech roadies while watching them take scaffolding and set material into the auditorium.  Needless to say, I was in awe!

We strolled into the Musee and grabbed a quick drink.  The spinach pizza was super salty but still really yummy.  We decided to go from the bottom up.  Some highlights for me were the Alexander Caulder mobiles.

and these really groovy paintings by an artist whose name we forgot to record.

I also enjoyed watching the aspiring parisienne painters in the salon copying masterpieces by Modigliani and the like.

We were both blown away by this huge high definition video installation.  It's hard to describe in words but was definitely something to see.  It was called, I believe, Broken Manifestos.  I took a picture but it really doesn't do it justice.  It was basically a video montage that took 3-4 projectors to show this people and animals in motion 3 minute movie.  It had a music track that made you feel like you were in a trance and then would interrupt the flow with a bunch of barking dogs.  I meant to grab the paper explaining the Turkish artist's (Inci Eviner) motivation/inspiration/message because it was very intense to experience.

Waking up from our trance, we made our way upstairs.  Evan was so adorable.  After cruising through the Salle Matisse, we checked out the large installation by Raoul Dufy.  The piece is called "The Electricity Fairy, 1937".  I counted 260 canvases on the wall that comprised this incredible visual story of the history and artist's clear fascination with electricity.  Evan walked around and started describing how each individual depicted in the painting helped advance our knowledge of electricity.  We came upon one of his favorites, famed Scottish physicist and mathematician, James Clerk Maxwell.  I will have him do a guest post about Maxell's equations.  It was very entertaining to hear him tell me about the "beauty and elegance" of these four equations.  It's really why I love him so much!

After almost a fascinating 4 hours at the Musee, we headed out to cross under the rue du Pt. Kennedy that runs adjacent to the River Seine and walked up and over the Pont Passerelle DeBilly.  This is what we saw

I didn't get a good shot from the bridge so this will have to do.  I actually took this from the steps of the Musee.  It felt cliche to stop and take pictures at that point.  I thought I'd just take it all in.  The breeze was cold on the river.  We decided it was time for another cafe, so we ducked into a touristy little place with a cantankerous french waiter.  The service was awful but the crepe with banane et chocolat was fantastic.

Evan opted for a nice Rose and some onion soup.  He, of course, joked that it isn't called "French Onion soup" in France, duh!?  So not funny.  It looked really good.  I'm not a big fan of onions, let alone a whole bowl of them.

We headed through the Champ du Mar and past the Ecole Militaire.  It was starting to get really cold.  We needed to buy some more water, a USB/SD card reader (so I could load these photos for you), another bottle of Saint-Emilion Grand Cru (we couldn't resist) and a tube of adorable french lipstick.  Monoprix, think upscale Target, was the perfect stop before heading on to the Metro back to the hotel.  It felt cool to rub elbows with the locals in line and peek at what french people buy on a Saturday night.  Mostly we saw them buying food for dinner and breakfast, oh and lots of wine! 

Tomorrow we're off to Versailles.  Before that we're going to stop by an open air market that was a suggestion from one of Evan's colleagues.  It's called the Marche Bastille and according to my "Markets of Paris" book has "3 broad alleys of stalls that stretch four long city blocks.  I can't wait to share it with everyone.  Well, I can't believe it's 1am and I'm wide awake.  I should really try to get some sleep.  We have a big day tomorrow.  I am missing the kids.  Hopefully they're getting a chance to hear Grammy read this to them.  Bon soir!