Paris Day 5 (11/18)

Day 5 Paris, Saturday. The morning was spent getting organized. Nancy and Pascal packed up their things. They were leaving to spend a few days with Bastu and his family who live just south of Paris. It was kind of sad. We had spent five weeks together. We had a great time and got along really well. We each had our different prospective and enjoyed sharing them. We also were able to accommodate each others different styles, needs and desires. We started as friends and finished as friends. A really great sharing experience.

After Nancy and Pascal pulled away Tai and I went to look at one last museum, the Picasso. It was very near the apartment though it took a little looking to find it. More little streets that twist and turn every which way. I was rather surprised by Picasso. I had always seen his famous cubist paintings but had never been able to understand them. I can’t say that I understand the more extreme ones but after seeing more of the full scope of his work, I can appreciate him a lot more. This was another one of those museums that had way more things to see than we had time to see. After a couple of hours, things were beginning to blur.

We left and walked back to a restaurant we had spotted. It was not crowded. The food was ok. Tai got a beef stew and I got a mediocre onion soup. Afterwards, we wandered around the Marais some more. Eventually we stumbled upon yet another Museum. It was the Musée Carnavalet, the history of Paris museum. We decided to check it out. It was interesting and certainly had a lot of paintings and photographs from Paris’ beginnings to after WWI. I found it to be very poorly organized. Various time periods seemed to run into each other in a confusing jumble of rooms and floors. One interesting part was the French revolution on the upper floor and photos from more modern Paris on another floor. I think if I had more knowledge of Paris and French history, the museum would have made more sense. Also, I think we were done with historical paintings.

We made our way back to the apartment and made a simple dinner. Then we finished packing. We were really glad that Nancy and Pascal and loaned us an extra suitcase. All three were very full and very heavy. Tomorrow would be the big day for heading home to Santa Cruz. A good nights rest was in order.