Dali, Sacre Coeur, food... always food.

Today I went to the Espace Dali in the Musee de Montmartre. The exhibit was a collection of works by Dali dedicated to his best bud/secretary Enrique Sabater. Pretty awesome exhibit. I think the best way to understand how awesome it was is to see it ... so... PICTURES!

I don't know if you can tell from the little photos of these but a LOT of his paintings and stuff in this exhibit were done on the back of something cardboard. The ink drawing it looks kinda like there is reflection in the glass or something, but thats the back of the cardboard with some embossment on it.

Flipped right out over both of these guys. The clock... well anyone who knows dali knows about the clocks so... but the sculpture is based off Alice in Wonderland. If you know me at all, you have probably heard me at least mention my obsession with Louis Carroll. So, to have two of my idols come together into one beautiful sculpture -- epic.

Clocks, crutches, drawers, the dali elephant -- so many Dali things! Gasps abound!

There were loads and loads and loads of dedications in books to Sabater. His signature took on all sorts of forms, sometimes he just drew something epic. Always more than just a signature. AMAZING!

Piano legs! Eggs, ants, clocks, severed ladies -- DALI THINGS! AH!

This giant thing was super cool. I don't quite remember the story behind it, but it was a reproduction of some sort of cathedral that got moved to this museum (which is a basement, by the way.) Watch the video!

Christ St. John of the Cross! STOKED! I did a reproduction of the famous painting of this symbol in an art class -- where I fell in love with Dali. The little contraption over here is honestly pretty hard to explain. There was a little blurb underneath it. It's a contraption to dunk a sugar cube into a shot glass but it's got all sort of other stuff going on. It's hilarious. 

More Alice! And this famous sculpture. The baguette was once-upon-a-time a real one, but people kept stealing it (when it was first created).

Snails and clocks and OF COURSE that moustache. Me and Dali are bff's.

The lips sofa that got him some serious media cred. The little card on it says not to sit on it Seriously... people sat of the couch that was on a meter high platform with no ledge for your feet? Common sense!

More cool sculptures. Giraffe neck + drawer + crutch. Juxtaposition too!

OMG AAAAAAH! Freaked right on out. Sexy lobster phone being all aphrodisiac-y by your mouth. 

One of my favorite things there. He made this really elaborate series' of models and drawings and stuff of the design ideas he had for the home he was going to make his friend. That whale is a toilet, the eyeball a sink, that AMAZING book case, the cutlery... there was also a design of a bidet which was a clam shell.

I wish this photo was better. This was one of my favorite parts of the exhibit. There were all these photos involving his moustache and then the interview questions along with them. This questions was one of my favorites. I hope you can make out the picture! Below is the question a little clearer. 

 

Ants all over the stairs leading out. Aw...

ICE CREAM! Tiramisu ice cream actually. I breathed in over it and choked on the cocoa, as I seem to do a lot with tiramisu-related desserts.

Coolest musician ever. I gave him 2 whole euro, which is a lot for a poor girl in Paris. Pus, everyone else was giving like... 20 cents.

The instrument is called a hang I think, that's what the musician told me at least (I think... conflicting languages have very confusing 'conversations') Listen below to what it sounded like!

I will never tire of panoramic views.

I don't know if this guy was a busker or not but he was juggling like a mad man on this little platform, and it looked super cool with the backdrop of the basilica. 

This guy most certainly WAS a busker. He was not good. He was very nervous, and this is moments before he burnt himself with his heavily tangled fire poi. I think maybe he was trying it out for the first time. 

Ahhhh views...

Ok, so we got some LEGIT New York cheese cake here. SEE? NO crust! Why can't any restaurants in Canada get this right? Wonderful. I meant to photograph my epic 15 euro hamburger as well, but I was too busy eating it. I tried to do it with a knife and fork like the Parisians.... tooooo much work. Especially when the burger is half a foot high. Notably, the ground beef was a lot better than a lot of burgers I've had. Which is ironic, cause I'm from Alberta. It was more the ground consistency of beef tartar, not soooo ground up it was basically mush like a lot of ground beef I've seen. Maybe that's because I would never have bought a 20 dollar hamburger in Canada... holy crap that hamburger was expensive! It came with fries!!!

The tower montparnasse from my window. I finally caught it doing it's rainbow-brite light show on film tonight! Why does this happen? People already hate this tower enough as it is, and they added a cheesy technicolor light show! Well... I like it! This balloon is my favorite thing ever. I will keep posting pictures of it. Notice how there is basically a BUS hanging from it? Can you see that? Take my word for it.

Paper memories of the day! Including my 'quittance', which is basically my receipt for paying rent. I forgot to ask for one before, so it's a good thing my landlord is a wonderful human being and gave me one now. I paid in cash... it would be hard to prove that payment happened without this little guy!

Fun little addition -- I bought these shoes. They were 6 euro at Tati -- super discount store with crappy stuff for really cheap. They were supposed to be like 20 euro I think but then she had to do a price check since mine didn't have a tag and they came back with that price. I did not argue. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't know how to say it in French! WOO!

Well, that's my day in photographs! Tomorrow I think Kendra and I are heading to the George Pompidou centre -- excited! There is a Matisse exhibition there right now. I love that this stuff is EVERYWHERE in this city! Also, that it's super cheap for me because I'm young and live here. WEE!

Degas and Chocolate

Yesterday would probably rank as one of the most fulfilling days of my existence. I woke up at noon, had french toast (made with french bread), blew up my hair straightener (Flames! That experience did not contribute to the awesome day, but it did happen. First use!) and headed to the Musee D'orsay.
Now, some background history. In my old art class, my teacher Debra talked about this museum ALL THE TIME and since I have been anticipating the day I would be able to witness most of my favourite artists in the same place. The Louvre had it's own flavor of excitement -- there, I was thrilled to be in the presence of such history. In the D'orsay, of course the history was there too, but the D'orsay art is where my passion lies. Impressionists give me goosebumps. I can never get over how fearless the brush strokes look. Like, "Yup, this orange table cloth definitely has a splash of blue right there." One day I will have that confidence!
So I walk in to the Museum (After paying 6.50 E... I should have lied and said I was a European citizen to get in for free... I was too excited to be sneaky.) and, I've seen a bajillion pictures of this thing, but AH! In-the-flesh experiences are continuing to blow me away. Of course, no photography in this museum, but I managed to sneak this guy from the stairs by the back.

This is taken with my crappy iPhone camera because I was trying to be inconspicuous. 

So, there, you see the sculpture-filled entrance wing. But, oh man oh man, so many side wings filled with paintings. Including, to my surprise, Bouguereau's The Birth Of Venus, which is one of my all-time favourite paintings by one of my all-time favourite painters. This was another one of those round-the-corner -and-then-BAM moments where I gasped and almost fell to the ground. I did a dramatic hand-to-throat gasp motion a la soap operas. It's HUGE too, by the way. If you aren't familiar with the painting, it's this one. 

My big anticipations, besides of course the Monets... and Manets.... and Renoirs... aaaaaahhhhhh... were the Degas'. I have a huge love for this dude. Some of the first (good) pastel pieces I ever did were reproductions of his work, and pastel now stands as my favourite medium, so, thanks, dude. His sculptures were there too, which I squealed over. The entire Impressionist floor blew my mind, not to mention the rest of the museum. I spent a good three hours at the D'orsay yesterday, I'm definitely going again a few more times. I now have a serious respect and love for Toulouse Lautrec too, when before I had never really seen much. I felt very art-y and knowledgeable at some points. Thank you Debra! I sighed so many times, my shoulders lowered a good few inches. Screw yoga, I've never been so relaxed in my life!

So after that beautiful experience I headed home to check in on facebook with an old friend from dance, Kendra, who is also staying in Paris (for school). We met up around 7:30 in St. Germain and went to Cafe de Flore. Kendra had been told she had to go to this place before leaving, so we shelled out the euros for that meal!

I was pleasantly surprised how nice they were to us when I was butchering the language and had my shellfish allergy and all that. The waiter definitely thought I had a thing for him because I smile and giggle a lot and I make a lot of eye contact -- all signs of flirtation in France. Dammit. But, that made him super nice. And I got some winks out of it. 

We both kind of panicked with the french menu, but the waiter offered to help us look through it and we ended up with some good stuff. I took pictures of my food. Oh man. What a feast.

This is the place mat. I was so stoked on this Cafe I took pictures of everything.

Immediately after our food arrived (which got there really fast I might add!)

Ok, so I thought Canadian restaurant portions were bonkers. It took me a good hour to eat this salad, without breaks. That ooey gooey goodness on top is the dressing, which I swear was probably just melted butter. The lettuce you see poking out, there was not a whole lot of that. It was mostly emmental. Which, I am not complaining about! I love cheese! But I was not prepared for how much cheese there was! There was like... 2 cups of cheese, chopped up into little bitty slices. SO GOOD! But my heart is aching from this meal today. The other half was ham, eggs and tomatoes. BEST tomatoes ever, holy crap. Anyways, I was VERY happy with this salad. Also, that wine was the cheapest on the menu (That is not saying it was cheap though, of course) and it was AMAZING.

Here's a close up of the madness. It doesn't even begin to show how much cheese is in this thing. Just picture that everything you can't see, is cheese. 

The most beautiful experience of my existence. I don't know what this thing was called, I just got it off the waiter's description (of course he suggested THE most expensive dessert... who cares.)

Dessert arrived and my reaction was similar to that I had to the Bouguereau painting. This thing is bigger than my face. There is like a litre of chocolate sauce in there, it is chocolate soup. There are these dainty little creampuffs with fresh vanilla bean gelato in them. The cream-puffsNesquik version. This chocolate sauce blew my mind. It definitely had like cream and goodness in it cause... oh boy. I was in heaven. I devoured that plate in like... an eighth of the time it took me to eat my salad. I couldn't finish all the chocolate sauce, despite my best effort, as I was exploding out of my high-waisted pants. Impressive. I did use the remaining chocolate sauce to draw Kendra a diagram of my apartment with my spoon, though. Class. 

We also had Cafe Cremes, which was slightly different than the one I had in Montmartre. This one was the traditional style, I think. The coffee in one little jug and hot milk in the other. In short, amazing. Best coffee of my life. You will see that I didn't take a picture till after I had finished it. 

The coffees in Paris come with little paper wrapped sugar cubes. This time, I stashed them in my purse. Score.

The coffee was supposed to be decaf but I was up all night revving with excitement anyways. I ended up spending two days worth of budget on this dinner, but it was well worth it. And the company wasn't so bad either ;)! Today Kendra and I are going to go grab some FREE gelato for National Women's Day (Paris knows how to appreciate a woman) and then grab some art supplies. I'm so stoked! Paris gets better every day!