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Published: September 15th 2011
Space Elephant
Seriously. Dali <3Monday was a cut above usual Mondays. I was in my element, as we spent the majority of the day touring art galleries. Happy James. But I'll describe that bridge when I come to it.
Morning was routine; wake up, check emails, shower, French baguette and tea, Tom and Mama fighting over the iPad... The usual. We cleared up and buggered off to Montmartre. (There I spelled it right, for the little people who complained. That is not a grammar error. Little people were involved.)
Montmartre is a superbly quaint bit of the city, the artisans quarter. Through it's history it has seen the likes of Dali', Picasso, Van Gough, Monet and loads of other magnificent people, and then we went to visit too. (Yes you are allowed to mime throwing up now.) The streets are full of artists painting or selling their wares, and also full of con artists ripping you off. Very pretty. After meeting the dear cousin again we went to the Dali' exhibition.
When one views Dali's works, one needs to keep in mind two major concepts. Firstly, the man is a genius. Secondly, he is batshit insane. These two qualities make him one
At the Sacre-Coeur
I can't spell Coeur. Or can I? No idea. of the greater artists who ever lived, and naturally his exhibition was fascinating, space elephants and all.
After Dali' it was off to the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart - the famed Sacre Coeur. The church is an imposing structure, looking over the city. Paris seems to have quite a few magnificent Churches. Up with the Protestant burning. :P The Cathedral was very pretty, more so from the outside than in however. even so, it was quite marvellous. Gothic too.
I would like too diverge, at this particular moment, to add some more information about the French. We've already confirmed the more basic stereotypes: smelly, smoking, ridiculous accent. I would also like to confirm that they have an unhealthy obsession with cheese. It comes on everything, in no small amounts. Where in Malta you would order a sandwich, in France you order a sandwich with cheese by the side. Also, they drive like terrorists. I must make a few clarifications here. On the road, they drive like maniacs. Don't try doing anything funny when crossing the road, or they *will* run you over. That's almost acceptable however. The major issue I have with French driving is that they
TADAAAA
Flying clown thing from afar! try to run you over ON THE BLASTED PAVEMENT. Someone has neglected to tell the motorcyclists of France that motorbikes are standard road vehicles and should thus obey all the rules of the road, like, for instance, driving on the damn thing. The easiest way to bypass traffic is to drive on the pavement, sending pedestrians flying in their wake. This is apparently a very normal thing to do. So remember, in France, you are never safe. Stupid bastards.
Back to our day. Next was lunch. This was not, unfortunately, one of our better lunches. In fact, this lunch was not even good. The only highlight of the experience was the live piano music, which I assume is only there to drown out the screams from the kitchen. For starters we had what was listed as an onion soup. Either they've got it all wrong or we're terrible at French, but I can swear that what they gave us was dishwater. For a start, there was no onion involved. And then the cheese. I was under the impression that the correct way to add cheese to onion soup was a simple procedure in which good cheese is added to
Before the Meal
Before we decided to kill ourselves. a hot soup and consequently melts. According to the esteemed chef, I was wrong. It seems to be the case that the true art of onion soup cheese preparation involves cheap rubbery cheese added at the very last minute, so as to save it the indignity of melting (if that was even a possibility in the first place) and elevate it's status to cheap, rubbery and wet cheese. Scrumptious. My main course, some "traditional French duck dish" was essentially the duck version of KFC. It was edible I suppose, but greasier than Snape. Thomas's bolognese was tasteless and liquidy, and the parents' mussels were fishy (ha ha). All in all not our greatest meal ever.
That was quite a rant wasn't it? Anyway, on with the show. So to speak. The mother and siblings decided to venture home for a short rest (weaklings) while father and I proceeded to take the George Pompidou centre by storm. The aforementioned building houses the city's modern art gallery, and is fascinating inside and out. It's an interesting building in that all the utility pipes are colour coded and placed on the outside of the building. It seems a bit out of place
in the heart of Paris but looks wicked.
The highlight of our visit was obviously the paintings. Phenomenal works of art, including (but not limited to) Picasso and Braque, a Mondrain and a few Duchamps, even a Pollock and a Rothko. And the Kandinsky's! Kandinsky everywhere. That man was such a genius. I adore him. You can see where this is going. I enjoyed it immensely, as did the dear father, though he voiced the often quoted sentiment that some of the contemporary art was complete and utter hogwash. Ah well.
We got home to a tirade of "where have you been?" as our basking in the culture excursion overshot our estimate by around an hour, and began to wash and prepare for a traditional evening pig-out. We went to a little Moroccan type place couple of blocks away - made up for the fiasco that was that afternoon. We then went home and continued the tradition of collapsing into crumpled heaps. This exhausted collapsing affair is why my posts have been so greatly delayed, and I do apologise to anyone who is actually actively following this, but not even I can keep myself awake after some brain-busting
Braques
The Man with the Guitar - hello cubism. xD days. Finishing this now is only possible due to Red Bull, an espresso, and no regards for my own health. Off to write Tuesday before I forget what we did then xD
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