Le Marche and Modern Art

Salut mes amis!

I can't believe that two weeks have already gone by and we are down to our last week here in this amazing city!  We have to carefully plan our days now so that we don't run out of time and get to do everything we want to do before we head back Stateside.

Yesterday was a day packed full of events!  We started out the day by heading out to another very large flea market located at Porte de Montreuil, which is on our Metro line and only a few stops from where we are staying.  Very convenient!  This one was more low-key, but still bustling with activity!  Since it was Monday, there wasn't the usual weekend crowd and the dealers were more willing to negotiate since this was their last opportunity to sell the items until next Saturday.  Half of the market was made up of new items being sold at deep, deep discounts, such as jeans for 10 euros.  The other half of the market was made up of tables that could have been transported from a neighborhood garage sale.  These were the best!  

Colin found a guy who specialized in hardware and tools and hanging from the top of his booth were several rings of very old looking keys.  He started first going through them one by one, but then asked me to see if the guy would take 100 euros for all of the keys.  The guy counter-offered at 180 euros.  Colin then put the keys down and started going through them one by one again, so the guy came back with another offer of 150.  Colin accepted.  What a deal!  He got them for less than $1.75 each in the end...after conversion!  

What a steal!  

He also ended up getting a weird little tea set made out of bullet casings and a plastic dog made by Mattel in the 70s.  We had a lot of fun looking through all of the bazaar items on display!

Afterwards we headed over to one of our new favorite Bistros for lunch, Les Funambules.  Where we drank a bunch of wine and had our fill of steak and chicken and a delicious dessert!  Our server was super nice and Colin ended up giving him some Ladies Choice CDs since the guy said he really like La musique de grunge!  Awesome!

After lunch we decided to head over to Le Musee Pompidou, which houses France's modern art from 1905 to today. We saw some great street art on the way.  Check it out!

I'm not sure who this artist is, but we found two of his/her pieces on the way to the museum.  See the photo below as well.

 

This one obviously belongs to The Invader.  I guess he's had some problems with people destroying his art...not cool!

 Here are some photos of the museum itself.  As you can see it was built during the movement known as high-tech architecture, where the insides are on the outside.  Very cool!

Cool sound sculpture in the courtyard.

Here are some of our favorite works of art on display in the museum.  If you'd like to know about the art and the artist, just comment and I'll post the addition info!  I am just ready to eat and don't want to type it all out at the moment!  Bistro Paul Bert is calling my name!!!

But first, check out some of the gorgeous views from the top floor.

Now to the art:

This is sewn, not painted!

After an amazing and exhausting day, I was so happy to come home and have some of Colin's amazing lentil soup!  Yum!  Don't these pictures make you jealous?  You should be!  It was so good and there's leftovers for tonight!  Woo!

 

Off to lunch!  Then we're going out to Le Musee Gourmand du Chocolat followed by a trip to L'Arche de la Defense where we will take in a film at the HUGE mega-complex located in the massive plaza.  

A bientot!