Old Lady Noises or My Hair is Seven Times Bigger than in Atlanta

The Hotel Alane, Sept. 23, 2014

My hair is HUGE!!! I thought that, in Atlanta with its world-renown humidity, I had stretched the bounds of big hair to its limit. I was wrong. I'm sporting an Afro that would make Wilt Chamberlain back in the 1970s envious.

Meanwhile, Yvette is having an unprecedented run of good hair days (two in a row now).

What the hell?

Today got off to a slow start.  After yesterday's record-breaking walking/stair-climbing activities, we slept until after ten.  Slowly, we roused enough to get dressed, coiffed (yeah, for me that was easy), and out the door.  First stop, "our" Metro station, Gare de l'Est. It should have been an easy business to get to the Orsay RER stop.  Get off the Metro at Austerlitz, hop the RER and end up right underneath the museum. Yeah, that didn't happen.  Onto a train going the wrong way, damnit! But, wait, it gets worse.  Two old men from deep in the heart of Dixie asked me if they were boarding the right train to get to Versailles.  I said "yes," with my best smile.  But "no" was the correct answer.  These two old guys, whom we labeled as Bartels and James, will go home to the South and tell everyone that they got screwed over by a hot American redhead and her exotic Polynesian friend.

Anyway, we got turned around (and I presume Bartels and James eventually arrived at Versailles). Arrived at the Orsay and found ourselves welcomed by none other than Lady Liberty.

How nice!  Ironically, I'm taiking a picture that also includes another woman taking a picture, and I promise you we weren't two feet from a sign that read "no photography."

We feasted on the works of Ingres, Daumier, Millet, and Manet.  Then, before hitting the Impressionist superstars, it was time for another kind of feasting. Next stop--museum cafe.

Here we will send a shout-out to two of our most devoted readers--Anita and Dorian.  Anita, Yvette wants you to know that she drank coffee from a place other than Starbucks.  Dorian, when I proclaimed my mocha the best I'd ever had (and it so was), Yvette laughed and said I sounded like you.  You are clearly a woman of the most refined linguist prowess.  

Coffee not from Starbucks and the

best mocha EVER

A salad for Yvette and mini-eclairs for me (I'm living on sugar while I'm here), and we moved into the colorful world of Monet, Renoir, Degas, and others.  Then Gaugin came along with his beginning steps into post-Impressionism, followed by Van Gogh and Cezanne. We looked at sculptures by Rodin and others, especially enjoying Rodin's Gates of Hell. And we got some amazing shots that show just how beautiful the Orsay actually is.

Yvette could get a job doing the cover

art for the Orsay guide book

This woman is wondering why she

came to Paris with such a dud

Hot satyr ass

Strangers in a pretty background

Me in a pretty background

From the Orsay, we ventured off to conquer the next artistic époque--modern art. And I have a few comments to make about the Pompidou Center.  Really, it sucks!  It is ugly outside and inside.  It is confusing as hell, with galleries on two floors that are difficult to access.  The art is laid out without rhyme or reason, the layout of the galleries are confusing and lead to dead ends, and there is a lot of wasted space.  

Still, we saw some good works of art.  We saw works by Mondrian, Picasso, Leger, Kandinsky, Klee, Matisse, and Dali.  We looked at Jackson Pollock and were unimpressed, and Max Ernst reminded me that he was one of Peggy Guggenheim's lovers.

Yvette was pretty much enraged the moment we got to the museum by the publicity posters up everywhere for a special exhibition of the works of Marcel Duchamp. The modern art didn't impress her much, especially the stuff that was non-representational.  But I found pieces that I could admire, and Yvette liked Matisse, so we did O.K.

Yvette took charge of dinner arrangements tonight, so we caught a cab to take us to Blend, reviewed by both Yelp and her Paris guide book as having arguably the best hamburgers in Paris. Those reviewers were accurate.  The burgers were totally yummy, and the company was even better.  In such a tiny place, it is not unusual to be seated at the same table as another party.  We sat down with a young couple from, you won't believe this, Chapel Hill, North Carolina!  She's some kind of chemist, and he works for a software company.  They are amazing world travelers, who last year went to Peru and have been to London and Rome among other spots.  We enjoyed the best dinner conversation with these young people, talking about travel, about home vs. abroad, about San Francisco weather (too unpredictable and too cold), and about the weird gun culture in the U.S.

Our dinner companions

Back in the cozy confines of the Hotel Alane now. Through my keen historian's eye for detail and Yvette's analytical deductive reasoning, we have determined that the disreputable sandwich shop is actually a disreputable gay sandwich spot.  When only men frequent the place, and some of them are dancing, you gotta think some hooks up are being made.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

So, good night from Paris, the city of lights, the city of lively conservation in burger joints, the city of thought-provoking art, the city of disreputable gay sandwich shops.

P.S.  Yvette says, "Who knew you could find a great burger in Paris!  The experience only made more great by the wonderful company we had for dinner."