Mais Oui Paris - Part 1

As a reward to myself for working my tail off through exams I spent the week between the 2nd and 3rd quar-tester in Paris. The main motivation was to visit with friends, also known as the 'french connection', that I came to know in San Francisco. We spent many weekends and evenings together eating great food, hiking, having oyster picnics at Point Reyes, crepe parties at Nico and Eve's, weekend brunches at Galette (Filmore St) or Ti Couz (in the Mission), as well as, games on the football pitch. Many in the gang have gotten married since our SF days, unfortunately I missed the weddings BUT went to Eve's bachelorette party in Paris in summer 06 when I was interning in Geneve.

Soon after I bought the air ticket the emails started flying and everyday new developments came. Two couples (Eve and Nico, and Michelle and Fred & all their adorable munchkins) live in Paris. But in addition to seeing them while I was in Paris I was also touched by the efforts of Ian and Cecile, Gwen and Alex, and Boris and Martine to also venture into Paris for a quickie reunion weekend. The updates about the weekend reunion kept me motivated through the tough exam week to get done and get out of town! It was great timing too, as we also got to celebrate Martine's 30th and Venise's 3rd birthdays!

My week in Paris started off on a Tuesday. Fortunately Eve works close to their apartment (located just outside the craziness of Paris proper and with a great 4th floor view of the River Seine) so i didn't have to suffer the whole day from weariness due to my early morning flight from Copenhagen. She even made me a fantastic lunch, with homemade quiche!

The weather in Paris wasn't so great the first few days but Paris was still beautiful. I took advantage of the rainy day and long opening hours of the Louvre on Wednesday to lazily wander around the enormous museum. In high school I went there on one of those follow the red flag tours with a horde of students and one teacher leader - and we were given a scant 2 hours in the museum. This time I took my time, spending nearly 6 hours there including chilling out in front of favorite paintings and sculptures and a fantastic coffee break replete with a nutella and banana crepe, yum!

Here are a few of my favorite pieces from the museum that you HAVE to check out if you get the chance to go.
This is my absolute favorite piece - the Winged Victory of Samathrace (aka Nike of Samathrace/Winged Victory). I actually studied this sculpture in a high school art class and have been enchanted with it ever since. It sits alone at the top of a large stairway with a huge skylight over it. I love the majesty of its size and its triumphant forward motion, as well as the softness of the fabric despite the hard marble reality....





















Now THIS sculpture takes a close second place. I had never seen it before, its called Psyche and Cupid. There were several art students sketching it when I was there. The softness and real feel of the skin and texture is incredible. The dynamic pose is alluring and dramatic, an absolutely beautiful piece.





















Of course I have pictures of the Venus de Milo but you know what that looks like. As I neared the end of my day I decided with my extra late coffee break energy to take a look at the French sculpture gallery in the Richelieu part of the museum and wound up spending another hour and a half. Wow, never knew how amazing French sculpture is. Many of them have a love theme or some sort of cupid character - Paris IS the city of love after all so perhaps this is appropriate ;-) Among the many cupids I liked this one the best.





















Last of the sculpture photos is this strange piece which I tried to take with some interesting shadow angles. It is a fun piece in a way, I like the idea of the woman telling her secrets to the portrait head statue, surely her secret will be safe ;-) I like the angles though and that she is on her tip-toes trying to speak into the marble, inanimate ear. It makes me think that in a way this is what I do when I am trying to figure out what to do, or have a secret I don't trust anyone with. Do we all have a real or imaginary confidant like this woman does?





















I was able to catch this nice sunset view from inside the museum, finally the rain stopped that day....