MaltaMedia: Winter in Paris, continued...

Hello All, and thanks for the kind wishes of support. I'm feeling quite a bit better these days and am looking forward to even exercising soon. Enjoy the rest of Paris!

The city of Paris really has some lovely aspects but, as I believe I said earlier, if you go in the winter your activity choices are pretty limited to the indoors, which usually means alternating museums and cafes. Not that that is a terrible way to spend your days, but in a city like this you really want to experience its breadth. The next notable museum that we hit was the Rodin museum, which was actually the sculptor's house. Due to the icy weather you could not wander through the garden, which is home to The Thinker, but you could get fairly close to it. Interestingly, he made many versions and sizes of his famous sculptures, such as The Kiss. The museum also houses works from contemporaries like Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir, and more.

The Thinker

Van Gogh portait at Rodin House

I won't run through every museum that we took in, but one of my personal highlights was one that we chanced into. The Musée d'Art Moderne was hosting the largest ever international retrospective of artist Jean-Michele Basquiat. Once I discovered this, it quickly moved to the top of our list.

Basquiat painting

You see, one of my more peculiar interests is mid- 1970's to mid-80's New York City. At it's most basic, it is the story of the organic creation of art and culture by a few visionary people who were living at the margins of society. In less than a decade, this crime and drug-ridden city birthed both punk rock and hip hop, two musical styles and broader cultures that have gone on to cover the globe. And Jean-Michele Basquiat was a part of that story.

Speaking of street art, I was happy to spot this mosaic by Parisian street artist Space Invader

Despite his French sounding name, Basquiat was a New Yorker of Hatian and Puerto Rican decent who set the NY art world on fire in the early 1980's with his colorful works inspired by history, voodoo and biblical mythology, African heritage, sports, comics, music and more.

Starting out as a graffiti artist, his eventual acceptance by the mainstream New York art scene signaled the larger acceptance of street art. Basquiat was catapulted into fame, becoming friends and collaborators with Andy Warhol and hanging with the likes of Madonna (the Lady Gaga of her day). Sadly, like many other brilliant artists, he did himself in with drugs in 1988. His work isn't necessarily attractive in a traditional sense, but in a larger aesthetic, the energy and "self" radiating from his works give them an immense magnetism. If you're interested in learning more about this one-of-a-kind artist, there is a feature film from the 90's (with quite the cast), a documentary from last year, as well as an independent film from 1981 staring Basquiat himself.

Paris has more graffiti than I've seen anywhere else

Eiffel Puddle

After we were finished with the Modern Art Museum, we began wandering toward the Eiffel Tower for our first up-close look at it. Even though we were really just walking, it's was pretty exciting heading towards one of the most iconic images in the world, seeing it from different angles and changing light, getting closer and closer.

By the time we got to right up to it, it was nightfall and the tower and I had a pretty nice little photo shoot while Allison displayed her trademark patience.

The next museum highlight was the Musee de l'Orangerie, home to Monet's famed "Water Lilies." Unbeknownst to us, the paintings are massive and there are a lot of them. He spent some 30 years painting about 250 scenes from his water garden, and the collection is spread throughout the world. The l'Orangerie displays four of them in two large rooms with each painting roughly 35 feet across. Not quite the perspective you got when you saw it as a dorm-room poster. The final museum highlight was the Musee d'Orsay, which is full of impressionist and post-impressionists such as Monet, Seurat, Manet, Degas, Renior, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and so many more. It is really worth a full day's visit, and if I had to choose between the Louvre and here, I would take this in a heartbeat. Personally, I could stare at Van Gogh's paintings for hours on end.

Also, we of course took a stroll down the Champs-Élysées and got a few shots in with the Arc de Triumph.

Ok, now that all the boring stuff is out of the way, Allison is insistant that I talk about this fish soup I had one night, which she claims is the best thing she's ever tasted. It was really good, but I'm afraid that with my lack of smelling/tasting ability I'll never know the pleasure of food in that way. The whole trip was peppered with delicious foods.

New Years Eve

Obviously our New Years Eve, which is one of my favorite holidays, was a bit different. We thought warmly about our friends back in Edgewater and of the fun had there in past years, but Paris ain't a bad way to ring in the new year. That evening, we dangerously set out to find dinner without reservations and were fortunate enough to stumble on the nicest little restaurant with the greatest owner/server you could ask for. Ironically, it's located just down from a restaurant whose owner started a conversation with us then literally turned his back to our faces mid-conversation. It was literally the rudest thing we've ever experienced. Anyways, after a wonderful dinner of lamb chops for Al and honey BBQ ribs for me, followed by crème brulée and mousse au chocolat, we took our bottles of champagne and headed down to the Place de la Concorde to ring in the new year overlooking the Seine and the Eiffel Tower.

Enjoying...

... Champagne

Contrary to what we and others were expecting, there were no fireworks, just a sparkly tower, which was a bit disappointing. Still, it was a spectacular scene with people yelling, hand-held fireworks exploding, and hundreds of cars honking their horns. But definitely the most fun part of the night was the walk home. With champagne in one hand and the iPod blasting Girl Talk (a DJ who mixes hundreds of song segments into a dance-paced party mix) in the other, Al and I had a dance party/walk along the Seine for over an hour on the way back to our hotel. Along the way, we met some sauced up French kids, Allison ran into a fellow countryman, and I got hit on.

No fireworks, but we did get a sparkly Tower

We met one American named Tom

Paris in gold

On our final day in Paris, we met up with an old friend from my Florida wilderness days named Micheal. He was kind enough to walk us around to some new parts of the city and treat us to hot chocolate and tea. Hopefully we can return his hospitality back in DC. Merci, Michael!