After a short 20 minute walk, we arrived. Thanks to our museum passes, we were able to skip the line and head straight towards security and into the museum in no time. One really cool thing about the Pompidou is that it has these escalators that are encased in clear tubes running outside the building. When you ride on them, you can see amazing views so Paris. Who needs the Eiffel Tower?
Our stay in the museum turned out to be lovely, with both of us matching the other one's pace and finding similar pieces of interest. I saw both Yves Klein and Ben (see post from Nice's MAMAC) again. Ben, it turns out, was a single person who ran a record shop and also dabbled quite a bit in art. Thanks, Mom, for the research! We also enjoyed Picasso, Duchamp, Mondrian, Matisse and many more. As good as the Pompidou was, I still think I prefer the MAMAC in Nice.
Afterwards, Alex was itching to head back to the apartment to rest, but I used my trusty persuasion skills to convince him to hang out with me at a bar across from a movie theater and then go to the theater for an early evening film. We chose one called Happy End, a film in French with no English subtitles. I really enjoyed the experience of trying to suss out the plot and the motivations of the characters without understanding what they were saying. Alex did, too, though he was also really into viewing the film cinematically as art, seeing the types of shots used by the director to convey the story. Later at home, I googled reviews about the movie and we were pretty spot on with our assessment. I'd recommend this exercise to those who are into film.
Post film, we decided to have a sushi dinner. It was my first time eating it, but Alex is an old pro. He loves sushi. I always associated it with raw fish, and since I'm a vegetarian, it was not something I ever considered eating. Turns out there's vegetarian sushi too (duh says most people). And it's delicious. Also, thanks to George for teaching me how to use chop sticks. I can report that almost every piece of sushi was managed with little chop sticking error. We also drank Japanese beer, which was quite tasty. And edemame rounded out the meal.
A weird thing happened right after we got back to the apartment. I had the window open to help dry some clothes on the drying rack and from outside, this chanting noise started. Quite quickly, the street was filled with protesters who were throwing garbage cans into the street and really pissed about something. Of course, I have no idea what it was since they were speaking in French. Most of them had their faces covered with bandanas. They passed by pretty fast and then congregated a block away, still chanting. Then, not even 3 minutes later, the street was filled with police in riot gear. Maybe the police knew the prostest was going to happen. Otherwise, I have no clue how they could have assembled so quickly. And as soon as the police were there, the protesters disappeared, scattering into the city streets. In under 10 minutes the entire event was over.
This was one of the best days we've had on the trip, filled with activities and fun. Paris is being quite a friendly host.
Your viewing is similar to a technique that is recommended to film students of watching a film with the sound off, to get a better understanding of the visual story telling.
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