“Te Amo”: Graffiti That Just About Sums it Up!

Today will be an art day.   Our feet will take us to the Musée Rodin.   No doubt The Thinker  is pondering when we will arrive but we are in no hurry so we leave Soleil leisurely.  It is always hard to leave her.  She has pretty much everything we need.  The péniche is the epitome of a room with a view.   Even as we walk the bridge we look back at her.  There she is, the only houseboat with a weeping willow on the right bank of the River Seine.  See her?  

We must past the Eiffel Tower to get to the museum.   The mass of crisscrossed steel (9,441 tons of it) fascinates me and many stops are made to photograph her up close and personal.  She welcomes us.   She amuses us.  She holds  our camera lens captive.    She serves as a background to a couple that just got married.   Seems like a popular location for couples; we saw another recently.

I don’t know how these players can concentrate on the soccer at hand having that structure as background.  But soccer players are fanatical and they pay no heed to anything but the game.  I love seeing it played.   

But not all is Pollyana.  A middle-aged woman goes through the trash in the park. 

We continue on.  A flash of gold attracts our gaze.  What is that?  It’s the Hotel des Invalides. The dome is quite spectacular.   So is the structure.  I wonder how it must felt to enter through such a grandiose door.   We sit on a bench and just enjoy the sunny day.  Museum workers are out on their lunch break.  An elderly person on a wheelchair is soaking the sun with his caretaker by his side.

We move on and not much after that arrive at the Musée Rodin.  A column has many stickers on it giving it a festive look.    People that leave the museum get rid of the sticker (proof of ticket purchase) there.  After a bit of a line we enter.  I immediately feel the same thing I did when I visited first, which is a sense – in spite of the crowd – of calmness.  Out of the bushes comes a new age type of music, an installation by Erik Samakh.  Not everybody’s cup of tea as is noted when a Brooklyn couple that is sitting in front of  The Gates of Hell,    expresses in a not so soft voice.: F#!x music is morbid!”  I focus on a detail of the door.

This sculpture, Monument to the Burghers of Calais, always draws me in.  Faces in despair.    

We go towards the garden  where on the wall is a scene of the artist at work.   On a very irreverent note, I am still collecting butt images for a bathroom collection, so since getting real ones to pose is quite difficult and frankly unappealing to me I content myself in taking shots of those that can’t say no.  

A class is in session and I am hoping no one saw me zooming in on the butt of the sculpture!    

A gelato break before we enter the museum itself. 

Not much commentary from me for a while, just follow along, will ya?

   

The Kiss 

The sculptures are certainly the central point but the ceiling captivates me almost as much as the view from those beautiful windows.             Back to the sculptures.

  Balzac  

The Cathedral  

And the artist  immortalized by others.   

As I leave, a sculpture made me feel great sadness.  I was going to continue but I came back took a photo and a second look.  Misery  

We leave and I’m back to noticing what is unusual and cute to me.  A gas station on the side of the road.  

Paris’ doors.   Paris’ windows.   Another wedding and is that Air France’s headquarters?   A last look at Hotel des Invalides.  

A chance encounter with my favorite bridge in Paris, Pont Alexander III.        

Yep, Paris je t’aime! 

I have mentioned I like this bridge, right?

But I tear myself away and back into the metro we go.    Meeting with a production assistant for the short.  I wait at a café, and capture the “frenchness” of it all.

   If I wasn’t sure where I was, I look out to this monument and a waving French flag.

  I get picked up and as we cross the street I love seeing this couple on a bicycle.  She in the highest of heels.      Instead of going into the subway my stomach starts grumbling and we dive into a Thai restaurant that was actually really good!      After this we cannot avoid the metro but I oh, so don’t mind, because on our walk home this is the sight that awaits.

We hang around the terrace.  It’s a mild night and Parisians and tourist alike are out in full force.  There’s tango at one of the terraces that reminds me of a few friends back home.  They would love to perform/dance here.         A photo shoot is being shot.     This time the Eiffel Tower takes a secondary part.  It’s the car that is the star.  

I feel so content that this is our route to return to our houseboat.  Don’t think I would ever tire of it.   We cross the street and the United Nations road reminds me of my dad who worked there for over 25 years.   Back on the quay a little boat at the foot of Eiffel Tower.

And before we go into Soleil a last look at Eiffel and our weeping willow tree for the night.

I will sleep with the biggest smile ever.