With J coming back from London Sunday night, a chunk of the weekend went towards getting lots of groceries and cooking. Saturday morning is spent shopping in the neighbourhood: the bi-annual sales are on (in a very organised manner, everywhere at once), so it's busy but the deals are good. Several gifts and a huge bluegreen necklace acquired.
Saturday afternoon is spent panicking over the fish that died in the fishtank. What happened? My fault? The little corpse looks pretty sad ... considering excluding fish from my diet.
Sunday, I check up on the little house since we're giving back the keys the day after, and go to Georges Pompidou nearby (would be a shame to live right next to it and never go!) - the national museum of modern art, they say, although there's also a museum of modern art elsewhere. Quick lunch of a spinach&goat cheese quiche isn't very tasty (goat cheese doesn't work for me, after all). The guards make me finish my drink outside; they wonder if I'm Brazilian so they can rub in the victory of France over Brazil the night before.
Pompidou is _huge_. Two large boutiques, restaurant, movie theatre, many exhibitions (at least 6) ... I peek into the smaller boutique and make my way to the 4th floor where the art exhibitions are. It's the first Sunday of the month, so admission is free! It does take some bravery to get up so high, however: the escalators are on the outside of the building, with see-through walls right next to them. Just as you happily get off them, you have to cross a bridge under which there is 4 stories of empty space. Oof ... luckily there's a bunch of couches at the entrance to let the vertigo dissolve. The couches are covered with Persian rug - style fabric, btw, quite soft and cozy.
Three exhibitions on this floor: one about the movement of images in art, sort of a "it's not just in cinema!". Lots of curious installations and videos; people wander around with mouths wide open, confused and amazed. Labels present titles and short lessons in art theory/philosophy that explain the works. I don't like art theory very much, but I wander around for a good hour and a half looking at everything.
On the other side of the floor, there're two (more traditional) exhibitions presenting two abstract painters/drawers. Abstract drawing - I think I've never seen that before. I like the drawings of tree trunks. Lots of interesting pieces but my brain is overloaded by now. Good bye, 4th floor; hello, sweet solid ground.
I browse the second boutique that's more like a typical art gallery store for a long while 'til it's time to run home and get J from the subway (he doesn't know where the new home is yet). J arrives at 6:smth as promised, exhausted and overheated. An evening of eating and chatting follows; two weeks is a long time to be apart!
PS There is also a gift exchange: J gets a USB optical mini-mouse that miraculously works flawlessly under Linux, and I get a vegetarian cookbook (green, in English, picture for every recipe - awesome!) and a red t-shirt that says, in white, "London, England" (perfect colours, just a tad too small, hopefully will stretch).
And here we are, just over half way into the trip!