Sunday Cont.

I am sitting in a hotel in Santa Rosa, CA on yet another wedding jaunt. My body tells me it is almost noon while the clock says 9. I am wide awake and have been for about an hour. I decided to tackle the rest of the Paris trip.
I need to get this down before I start forgetting it. Plus I need to start complaining about things that are happening right now! I can't do that until I finish my Paris story.
We left Cafe Americain and headed back to the hotel. We were due to meet W & J for dinner. We swung by the Jau de Paume so that C could buy his Pierre & Gilles print that he had obsessed about over lunch. We stopped by l"Orangerie to check out the Monets. This is a museum that has been in the process of being refurbished for about five years. It finally opened last summer. It is a museum that was designed exclusively for Monet's Waterlillie paintings that he donated to the French government early in the 20th century shortly after he finished painting. I had seen a couple of them at the MFA a few years ago. They let them tour while the museum was being built. They are quite stunning to see all together.

There is another gallery built underneath the Monet rooms housing the private collection of a French couple who were dealers for Picasso, Gauguin, Pissaro and others. It was okay. A lot of things by people who made some pretty famous works but these were clearly the things that didn't sell. Mediocre paintings from great painters.
We hung out at the hotel for a while. The guys came over and we had drinks then heading out. The place we had wanted to go for dinner was closed on Sundays so we let them pick the place. It was a nice little bistro and we got to sit out on the street. J was not too pleased at this as you tend to get harrassed by street venders when you do this. Some guy walked up and down playing an accordian - we gave him a Euro - then a couple people selling roses came by, saw the four of us men sitting there and didn't even bother coming over. Slightly offended. Food was great of course, J and I shared a beef carpacio which I had never had. Tasty. Couple bottles of wine as well.


We walked around for a bit looking for a place to have a cocktail, window shopping. The St Germain neighborhood is perfect for this. It is full of fancy shops full of gorgeous things.
We ended up having drinks and this "trendy" art themed bar.


Another couple bottles of wine and then we all stumbled back to our respective hotels. W & J were leaving Monday for the States. Tearful good byes and promises to visit Paris together again. (Not True - but sounds nice eh?) We ended the evening with W showing us his favourite courtyard in Paris. It was a tiny, simple, little park with four chestnut trees surrounding a lamp. Perfect. And, of course, it was surrounded by fancy shops selling gorgeous things!