A chance meeting...

Today has been another amazing day, but I thought I would share the best part of my day first... I was reading a sign at the Pompidou Museum, telling that the museum was closed for the day (ZUT!) when I turned around and saw a familiar face!!! Our mouths both hung open and I couldn't believe I was seeing someone I knew, in Paris!!! It was Penny Baker, and her husband Pete, old, old friends (not them, but the time period) who are the parents of my old elementary and high school friend, Mitch Kamin. I grew up since 4th grade knowing their family and though I haven't been in contact with Mitch for many years, I have run into Penny at our local Trader Joes recently. They live just about a mile away from me in Beverlywood. Holy crap, is that unbelievable??? We were both speechless and after the initial shock, and exchanges of stories of what we were doing in France, we hugged and laughed and couldn't stop talking about the small world we live in. They had just said goodbye to some friends of theirs and now were off to another museum which they invited me to join them on. It was such a relief to have some human interaction, plus the years of catching up we had to do since it really had been more than 15 years since we had sat down together and talked. It was about 1 or 2 pm when I ran into them and we ended up trekking around together all the rest of the day and they invited me to join them for dinner tonight, my first dinner out (that's sad). They'll be picking me up in an hour. It was great!!!

Now to the early part of my day: I slept in again till 9 am and remembered that today was the day of the Market around the corner. So I pulled on some clothes and went downstairs and wandered through the market (just like one of our Farmer's Markets, but with yummier cheese, breads, fresh fish, meats, and the most beautiful produce I think I have ever seen in my life). I bought myself a baguette, some brie, and so fresh strawberries (all by speaking French, since none of the merchants spoke English). Here a picture of the most delicious breakfast I think I have ever had:

I ate at least half of the baguette and probably 2/3 of the brie (didn't feel at all guilty since I hadn't eaten dinner the night before). The brie was incredible and I don't think I've ever had such perfect strawberries in my whole life. How do the French do it???

Later on, after my yummy breakfast and a shower, I headed out for my daily excursion. My plan was to go to The Marais, the neighborhood, near my apartment, most know for chic shops, the jewish quarter, and the rising gay culture... what more could a single girl want??? I first wandered around and visited Victor Hugo's house (yawn). Since I love the musical Les Miserables, I thought it would be interesting... not so much. Then I walked a mile or so and found the Picasso museum, which was interesting and pretty crazy to see so many paintings by such a famous artist. Apparently, this collection was a part of a government seizure of Mr. and Mrs. Picasso's back taxes at some point. None of the hugely famous pieces are there, but to see such a wide variety of Picasso's work, was nonetheless amazing. Although, as per usual, my short attention span brought me in and out of that museum in less than 30 minutes.

After window shopping around the Marais for awhile is when I ended up at the Pompidou, the modern art museum. Apparently there was some kind of demonstration that was going to be happening (I don't know why), so they closed the museum... my bad luck... however my good luck when I ran into Pete and Penny there. We then went together to the Branly Museum which is one that displays the art of many cultures. A beautiful museum (the architecture) and it had some nice cultural artifacts, but thankfully, Pete and Penny have a short museum attention span too, so we were in and out pretty quickly. This museum was all the way over by the Eiffel Tower, so we had a bit of subway hopping to do, which Pete is great at navigating. It was loads of fun to be with them!!

Now I'm resting before dinner. It's pretty cold here (in the 40's) and there's talk of the possibility of snow this weekend. Does it have to snow on every single one of my vacations (minus the summer ones)?????

My pedometer reads: 13,477 steps so far (5.31 miles) Tomorrow, I'm not sure what I'll be doing. I'll decide tomorrow. Hope everyone is well and keep in touch.
Holly