Day 26

Day 26

This morning, for Saturday brunch, we started out for a place mentioned under the best sandwich shops in one of our guidebooks, Le Pain Quotidien. It’s not too far from our apartment, and when we get there, we see a short line out the door. It turns out to be not so much what we expected, we’d thought it was more of a counter style sandwich shop, but it’s a small restaurant specializing in sandwiches and breakfast, and it’s organic. After only about ten minutes, we get a table, or rather seats at one. There are individual tables outside, but inside it’s all one big long table that seats probably 25 or 30. It’s lots of fun, and smells great and there’s all these assorted jams on the table for the bread. However, we’re in more of a lunch mood, so we order tartines, open faced sandwiches. They arrive, five triangles of bread spread with toppings, and vegetables (lettuce, cucumber, tomato) on the side to pile on at your leisure. Kyle’s was beef, basil and parmesan, and mine was a delicious, herby tuna with roasted red peppers and olive “paste” like a fine tapenade. It was great! Topped off with a mint tea for me, and a chocolat chaud for Kyle, and it was one of my favorite places to eat so far; it’s a pity we happened upon it so late in the trip.

It started to rain a bit outside, but we were headed to the Picasso Museum, also not too far away, in the Marais district. For some reason that we’re still not sure of, it was free today. Score! Haha, we hypothesized that perhaps whoever runs the ticket booth just called in sick? Who knows. Anyway, the museum is a converted mansion, so the layout is interesting, not just one big hall of rooms, but lots of smaller rooms that weave through hallways and through the levels of the house. I guess Picasso’s heirs decided to donate his works, as to not be so indebted with inheritance taxes. Anyway, it was all ordered pretty chronologically, something I like because I enjoy how the paintings tell a sort of life story, showing the progression of style. There were also a few by some of Picasso’s friends, like Matisse, Miro, and Renoir. Not too shabby! It was a nice way to spend our afternoon. However, there were no pictures allowed, so don’t look for any except for an exterior of the building. There are no signs to this effect. The watchdog people who sit in the corner of each room just like to yell at people, “No pictures!” I wonder if they just get to decide which days pictures are allowed and which days they aren’t. I also wonder how many such people are employed in this position in Paris. How many people get paid (or perhaps volunteer) to it in a corner and babysit paintings and sculptures? How many in the Louvre alone? We’ve been to a lot of museums on this trip, these things start to pop into your head.

After that, we made another pilgrimage to Berthillon, the fourth time I believe (oh no, I’m losing track), stopping along the way to buy a cheese grater shaped like the Eiffel Tower. You can find these, and many other cheeky, amusing household items at Pylones, on Ile Saint Louis. At Berthillon, between the two of us we had cherry, hazelnut, tiramisu, and vanilla. We have yet to find a flavor that’s not good, and cherry is still my fave.

Heading back, we stop into Notre Dame, realizing that in all the times we’ve walked past it, we haven’t been in (not since last trip anyway). So we went in, and through the hordes of visitors, we could tell that a mass was going on! That was cool to see. We heard the organ a bit too. Still though, and even though I’m not a religious person at all, it really surprised and irked me how disrespectful some of the visitors were of the mass going on. The cathedral wouldn’t be there to visit were it not for its religious purposes. Still though, most people were making no effort to lower their voices, some even on cell phones! How ridiculous is that? It’s an amazing church though, the architecture is incredible. We’ve seen a lot of great churches on this trip too.

After that, I bought another postcard that I wanted to mail, but it was in the evening, so we figured most of the post offices would be closed. But on the way home, we went into the Pompidou, since they sell stamps and have a mailbox. When we got there, we saw something going on in the lower level, which is open to the main floor. We looked over the side to see a band setting up, and the floor all decorated in colorful electrical tape, with people still making designs along the edges. It’s a huge space, so this was cool to see. The band, called The Bad Dogs, was a three person group, with an awesome singer and a killer girl guitarist. They did covers of American rock songs, it was funny and cool how well the girl sang English with no accent. The space, called the “Playground” will open officially in January as a place dedicated to teenagers to hang out and have a creative space, which I thought was awesome. So all in all, a good night to swing by the Pompidou randomly, and also a performance filled day all around. Just walking around throughout the day, we saw a guy paint a portrait of Obama upside down in six minutes; a guy balance a bicycle on his chin; a guy playing the piano on the sidewalk; a whole band, probably thirty piece, out in the park behind Notre Dame; and a guy making giant bubbles.

We finished off the night with dinner back at the apartment. I took the leftover ratatouille from a couple nights ago, heated it up on the stove with some tomato sauce, garlic, and fresh parsley, then tossed it on top of some rotini. It was pretty good! But then again, what do you expect? ;)

-Steph