Art and government

June 22nd

It was a busy day today. Katie, again my partner in crime, and I headed to find the Centre Pompidou, the modern art museum in Paris. On the way, we found the Fountain des Innocents, and wandered into a funeral at L'Eglise Sainte-Eustache, where Mozart held his mother's funeral. Whoops. The museum, once we found our way out of the section with the ridiculous modern art that freaks everyone out, was wonderful. Lots of Chagall, Picasso, Ernst, Mondrian, Pollack, Arbus...wondrous. I find modern art to be incredible, but not the modern art that involves green blobs and sound effects.

We were starving, so we found a bistro right next to the Pompidou. Here, Kate had her first experience with escargot. I'd never had them in the shell before, and we had quite a time attempting to get them out of the shell. They were, in fact, delicious.

We tried to go to L'Opera Garnier for a tour, and we found it closed due to rehearsal. Frustrated, we headed over to L'Ile-de-Cite, which is where Notre Dame resides. However, our goal was the Memorial de la Deportation, an homage to those people of France who were deported to work and death camps under the Nazi regime. Most of those who were deported because they were part of the resistance returned to France; most of those who were deported because they were Jewish did not. It was a beautiful and respectful memorial, with millions of lights to represent each of the deported.

The group went to a talk at the French Senat. After quite a bit of work to get my group there on time, we arrived and received a tour of the building, which is in the Palais de Luxembourg, built by Catherine des Medicis. Then we had a meeting with a French senator, the head of the US-French relations committee. It was fascinating, particularly in contrast to a meeting we had two weeks ago with the US embassy.

After a group dinner, several of us roamed the Rue de Mouffetard, hopping in and out of bars...including a karaoke bar! The French do it a little differently, with ridiculous 80s videos behind the lyrics and lots of Celine Dion from the French karaoke-ers. Wild. Because we missed the last metro home, and I was wearing heels, I definitely walked home to the apartment with our group barefoot at 3am. Fun times in Paris.