Last Tango And Cash In Paris

October 17, 2010
Kathy and I have been in Paris a week now. Four days to go. It really is Disneyland for adults who like art, history and good food. Still, I miss the desert. Ain't that sick?

Yesterday we took the Botabus (boat bus) to the Eiffel Tower, then walked to the Monhattan Museum to see a slew of Monet paintings showcased in the former home of a tycoon who collected Monet's. The most inspiring thing to me is they posted the sketches for some of his big paintings next to the framed canvases and they were so simple, and actually resembled the sketches in my sketchbooks. I know this is presumptuous but it's comforting to realize that even the giants put their pants on one pantaloon at a time.

Walked back to the Eiffel Tower, a different way, up a gaggle of different streets, sort of trying to get lost, but as Kathy, Charlie and Linda have nicknamed me, The Nose, I have a pretty good Norsky compass lodged up in there and we saw some pretty neighborhoods and came back to where we started. The only problem I have is with their street names, which are quite exotic, like Rue de Ben Franklin (an actual street), but then half a block later it turns into Quei Le Pussy (not an actual street, that I know of), then into something else with no street sign to tell you of the change (they tend to put the street names on the side of a building, but not always). Maddening, but no doubt as we like to say in the middle of our Phoenix summers, "It keeps the riff raff out."

Lots of art (both mine and theirs) to show when I get home.

"Draw what you see, not what you think you see."
—Old Masters Saying