Well on Friday morning the warden decides I can go out for a while, if I promise to go home and rest if I get tired. I agree. Though at this point the anesthesia from the surgery is messing with my sleep patterns and I’m only sleeping three hours a night and thirty minutes if I nap. So rest is hard to come by for a while. We started with breakfast at the hotel, at which point we begin to suspect that French coffee au lait may not measure up to café con leche in Spain. Over the next few days this suspicion was confirmed. Neither on of us can understand why neither the States, nor France can make coffee as good as that in Spain. They all use espresso machines. The only variables are the milk, the water and maybe the coffee beans.
Friday morning we head out early in the morning to go to the Rodin Museum to visit John and Paul’s friend, The Thinker. We decide to do it on Friday in honor of John’s birthday which was Thursday. I think it was still Thursday in the States when we arrived at the Rodin Museum. Anyway, we went first to The Thinker and thought with him a while. After all that thinking, which quite frankly gave me a headache, we headed indoors to see the rest of the collection. In addition to the works of Rodin, the collection included works by Camille Claudel, Rodin’s lover. Personally I liked the works of Camille better than that of Rodin. Both artists were extremely talented, but Camille’s work had more human emotion, whereas to me Rodin’s work was more about capturing body movement.
We were also amazed at the beauty of the former hotel in which the collections were housed. The fireplaces themselves were works of marble beauty. I fell down a couple of times trying to get down to photograph the fireplaces. It was not graceful I assure you. I’m glad Leea didn’t have a video camera but she probably wouldn’t have captured very good images because she was laughing so hard she almost fell over.
After the Rodin Museum we moved on to the Museo de Orsay. By this time I am getting really excited. The last time I was in Paris, about ten years ago, all of the major museums were closed due to a strike. So I didn’t get to go to the Louvre or the de Orsay. We had bought a museum pass, which not only let us into all the museums and many other sights for free, it also let us go in the museums and sights without standing in lines. It was wonderful.
Before we went to the Orsay we had figured out which artists we wanted to see and most of them were on the fifth floor, so we went there as soon as we got to the museum. There was already a long line out front which we got to skip and the museum was getting crowded. We wandered through Manet and Monet, Matisse and Gauguin, Van Gogh and all the various artists of the impressionists and post impressionists. It was an afternoon delight. By the time we got to the Van Gogh room, a whole room of Van Gogh’s paintings, it was crowded and we could not savor each work. We did get a pretty good view of each work and that was a joy. We both decided immediately that we would come back another day early when the museum first opened and spend some time in the Van Gogh room. So we left in the late afternoon saturated with the glorious works of art we had been privileged to see.
We had a rest at the hotel and then got ready to go on a dinner cruise down the Seine. We took the Metropolitan to with a block of the boat and got in line to board for dinner. We were seated next to a retired couple from Colorado, Nancy and Bob, and we struck up an entertaining conversation. Bob was the head master or principal of a school and Nancy had retired from being a high school teacher and multi media coordinator. Their educational philosophy was a lot like John’s. We chatted all the way down the Seine and back again as we looked at the lighted buildings on the shore, including the Eiffel Tower and fireworks, while munching on a very tasty dinner. We were served a variety of appetizers. I think there were five. One was a smooth and tasty pate, another was a melon mint crème that was the consistency of pudding and was just flat delicious. There was another paste made from small bell peppers. One of the appetizers was a creamy cheese concoction and the final one was chicken salad with a crispy crust. We each received a small portion of each of these. Then we had the main dish. Mine was duck l’orange and Leea had salmon. They were both five star quality. Dinner was followed by three sensational small desserts, a raspberry sorbet, cheesecake and something chocolate. My only regret was I could not eat all of everything, because doctor’s orders were to eat small amounts six times a day until I healed. Phooey! But then again I’m alive. Yea!
We strolled from the boat dock to the Metropolitan and made our way back to the hotel. The Metros in Paris, as in Spain are not scary at all, even at night. However, in Paris there were all kinds of homeless people whom you recognized through your nose before you spotted them with your eyes. Sometimes they would be sitting on the floor in their own urine. Parisians seem to take this all in stride, with not much more than a glance to avoid slipping in the urine or vomit. Lucky for me this cold started before we arrived in Paris, so I couldn’t smell much. Leea tells me that the rumor about the French not using deodorant is still true, though they do pour on perfume that remains in the room long after they have left. I couldn’t smell the ugly smells, but I almost choked on the perfume.
Well after discussing art, gourmet food, urine and vomit, I’ll sign off.
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