art paris

We were lucky enough to check out the Art Paris art sale at the Grand Palais, a gorgeous building from the 1900 World's Fair. Which to Europeans is rather modern. They sell stuff from the 1800s at flea markets for pennies, while in the US it gets them onto Antique's Road Show.

At the art sale we saw Picasso's line drawings going for 12,000 Euro and a Max Ernst for 60,000 Euro. There were other newer artists with smaller pieces. A few that I even liked, but didn't like that much to walk away with.

Next we jumped on the Red Bus, which for 22 Euro basically takes you to the 9 popular stops in touristy Paris for 2 days. The hubby's legs were wearing down after a week of nonestop mileage, so we hopped on board the double decker. I sat atop and clicked away with the digital camera. What can I say, Art Paris was inspiring, just makes you want to look for art everywhere you go.

1 April in Paris is absolutely gorgeous with the temps in the 60s after a first few days of cold lightly wet weather. Not so bad, the wine is yummy everywhere and every other corner sells sandwiches and pastries. Had a delicious Pear/Chocolate pastry this afternoon. While the US only sells these things in the morning, Parisians eat them all day long! I love this place!

Online, I found that we skipped over the Rodin museum. Hmmm...we'll see if we make it there. The plan tomorrow was to go climb big buildings: Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower. Then Tuesday when we leave for Madrid to go hang out at Hemingway's cafe haunts. Maybe we'll leave it for another day.

I was going to email folks but the email server is down, thus I'm blogging instead. I do enjoy watching French TV as the sports section includes everything from the world swimming championships to rugby to handball. And since one of the main players on Florida's team is the son of a famous French tennis player now musician, the Final Four scores came out here as well.

World News still covers the Iran capture of the British sailors. I've come to understand how the US is used in these kinds of negotiations. That while sometimes we see the US as balking against the world stage by always going our way instead of joining with the rest of the world on worldly matters, there actually is a purpose and role that America is playing. We are basically the bad cop. And mostly the bad cop to Europe's good cop. While Europe takes diplomatic actions and works on long negotiations, they often ask the US to take on what one commentator called the role of the "growling dog".

OK rest time is almost over. Time for dinner.