The Last Few Days Away

We’re home! I love Air Transat. They’re always time and they’ve never lost my luggage. However, you do have to wonder about the wisdom of an airline offering a “waterproof ipod pouch with free head phones” as part of their in-flight duty free shop selection, on a transatlantic flight. Am I going to need that?  Soon?

In our last few days, we finally made it to the Pompidou Centre – a remarkable building, easily recognizable as all it’s plumbing / electrical / heating pipes are housed on the building’s exterior. You would think that a building that looks like the one on the left would be hard not to see, but we wandered in circles, just missing it, repeatedly.

The art work at the Centre is eclectic. We saw a lot of “eclectic” art this week as a friend from my high school days who lives in Paris also got us invitations to the vernissage of the international contemporary art fair (FIAC), the following day. So without further ado – here is some of what we saw over the two days.
      

I love art, but after a few hours at the Pompidou, I needed a break – it’s dizzying. We went to a cafe across the road and that was when I had “the scary washroom experience” - I got locked inside the cubicle, in the cafe’s basement, unisex washroom. The floor to ceiling door prevented me from crawling out under the door (had I been so inclined). Two German-speaking ladies tried to help, but eventually they went and got the manager. He spoke no English, and I’ve never learned words for things like “handle” and “lock”. He was clearly irritated. Many words were exchanged, not all of them nice, but eventually he returned with a gadget and voila, the door opened and I scooted out. When I asked Daniel why he didn’t come looking for me, he said he just thought I was having “problems” (what with all that cheese I’d been eating).  The next day at FIAC we saw this piece of work, which I thought would  be fitting to include.

Despite the experience, the fountains at Centre Pompidou made it really hard to stay annoyed. – check these out!

And the view of Sacre Coeur from the top floor was exceptional, as was the Edvard Munch special exhibit.  

 

So my friends that’s it for this travel bog. For those of you who don’t know, I’m on leave from work for 5 more months, and I think I will keep blogging on random thoughts and ideas while I’m on this break. I’ll see if I can figure out a way to make this more interactive, as some of you have asked about adding comments.  It’s all part of my learning curve. Thanks everyone, for your feedback thus far.