Hier Soir

Yesterday evening was one of those nights (which are becoming more frequent) where I wipe all things homework out of my head and proceed to have a damn good time. For my art history class, we visited the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (art school) to check out the grounds and the current exhibition, a very cool collection of drawings and rare books all collected by a man named Jean Bonna. The drawings ran the gamut from Ingres and Van Dyck to Gauguin and Picasso. The drawings were interesting because they did a good job of showing the artistic process - these weren't huge paintings, but ideas and studies sketched out and occasionally colored (it reminded me of the Jacques-Louis David exhibit that just finished at the Jacquemart-Andre, because one can see a lot of his sketches and smaller "tester" paintings of huge pieces like The Oath of Horace). Also there is an exhibition of student art, which was either exceptional or incomprehensible for me. One of my favorite things was this tactile piece that was a video screen with a sleeping woman. When you touched the screen in a certain way, she'd move. Very realistic, it was almost like I had a real girlfriend.

After, I checked out La Doree, home of the best macaroons in Paris, sans blague. After, I kicked it high-class at Cafe de Flore, which does have amazing hot chocolate, and is right on the Boulevard St. Germain. I'm going to try and organize a breakfast trip there next week.

At 8, I checked out the opening of Videodanse 2006 at the Centre Pompidou, because my host dad had passed along to me an invite. Let's just say I'm not in the habit of leaving movies ( I don't think most of the 20+ people who left as well were either), but it was just really uninteresting and weird for the sake of being weird. Plus, the production values were nonexistent.

After, Tiffany and I took a walk down to the Marais to go to another cafe I've been spending a lot of time at - Cafe Hugo on the Place de Vosges. Despite its prime location, it's not overly touristy, and has damn good coffee, real mint tea, and a decent selection of grown-up drinks ( I had an "Ernesto," which was Jack Daniels, fresh mint, and citron presse), plus good food.