Days 13 & 14

Only four weeks left to go! Yesterday was a super busy day. I barely had time to eat. I woke up and went to the Musee' du Vin with my Wine Marketing class. It was pretty boring, but the actual building was cool. It used to be a quarry for stones used to build bridges and whatnot in Paris in like the 1800's. And the tour guide says it goes back 7 kilometers.

Where we were treated to complimentary wine at the end of the tour. There's also some fake monks in the background. Apparently, the museum was once occupied my monks who made wine to sell to Parisians in the surrounding areas.

It reminded me of Pirates in the Caribbean in Disney World.

There were a lot of really neat old bottles. I took a few more pictures that I'll show you when I get back.

So after lunch we hurried to le Centre Pompidou. My visual arts teacher wanted us to see two of the temporary exhibitions (Lucian Freud and Women Artists) and the permanent collection of Modern Art.

Outside the Pompidou

Amazing view from the Pompidou. I could see the Eiffel Tower, Napolean's Tomb, Notre Dame, and Sacre Coeur. It was spectacular! (I have more pictures of this too)

We weren't allowed to take pictures of the Freud exhibit, and I'm not sure I would have posted the pictures anyway. They were mostly of graphic nudes, but he also did incredible paintings of plants. Really, all of his paintings were incredible. Just really graphic. He was Sigmund Freud's grandson.

The women's gallery was spotted with really cool work, but there was a LOT of just weird, gross, shock-value, cliche' art. I really wouldn't call it art. They had this huge poster on how the Met only has 3% of women artists in it...blah, blah, blah...but if that's all the women's art that's out there...no wonder it's like that. There was probably only 3% of work worth viewing. The rest was either borderline pornography, or pictures of self-mutilation. Really bizarre stuff.

 

This was one of the best women's pieces I saw. It was inspired by a jet engine. Done by Lee Bontecou in 1966.

I don't know why it's sideways...but there was a lot of weird stuff like this. I actually liked this one.

And there was a design room in the Women's exhibition too. I thought that bicycle table was awesome! 

Then we got to see all the modern art you could think of from the 1900's...

I saw a ton of Matisse...beautiful!

A whole room full of Picasso!

I loved this Kupka. 

And we got to see some Marc Chagall too. Overall a really great museum.

I am definitely starting to feel that Museum Fatigue set in...I go to one almost every day! I know it's worth it, but I'm scared I might stop appreciating what I'm seeing...

After the Pompidou, we went home and packed. We left for Barcelona in what we thought was going to be a nice, "hotel" train with a room to ourselves. Wrong! We had to sleep with two crazy Spanish ladies. Florentina had a mouth of gold teeth, peppered with what were probably Cubic Zirconias. And the other lady was considerably older, and considerably crazier. She woke us all up at 5 a.m. (3 and a half hours before the train got to Barcelona) with her cell phone...that she let ring...for at least 10 minutes. Then she woke up screaming in Spanish. She stepped on me as she climbed down from her bed, even though there was a ladder provided, and then continued screaming until she left 5 minutes later. I thought maybe she had left the train until she came back for her things right before we left. Needless, to say, I didn't get the best night's sleep...but that's okay! Check out our pad for the weekend!

THE BEST PART!! A TUB!!!

Pretty awesome right?? So far we've just checked in. I took a long bath while Alyson took a nap..actually she's still asleep...but that's okay. It's kind of rainy, so I'm sure this afternoon we'll go find a great place for a late lunch. We aren't far from the port, so maybe we'll get some seafood! Talk to you tonight!

Love and miss you!

Allie