Relâcher

Relâcher, it's what the weirdo yoga teacher here always used to tell me to do. Apparently I moved to quickly for his liking. He's more into the zen yoga, not the Vinyassa flow I have practiced before. Anyways! I feel like that word nicely encapsulates what I have been doing lately. Which is... Well nothing! 

 The weather has been kind of gloomy and drizzly which just adds to how nice it feels to stay in bed. I've also been trying to study some for my remaining final, which doesn't add to the unproductive nature of my days. Its funny, I have done most of the necessary touristy things in Paris, so I've been spending a lot more of my time just hanging out in my neighborhood at the local cafe and what not. I really like my little neighborhood and its nice to feel at home here.

So it may have been an exaggeration when I said I have done nothing. I have done final things that I needed to cross off my list. For starters, I finally went up la Tour Montparnasse. It is a 59 story building in Paris that everyone hates because it ruins the otherwise perfect skyline of Paris. It towers absurdly over all of the normally 5-7 story buildings that mark the face of Paris. In fact, it was after the completion of Montparnasse that Paris ruled that skyscrapers were not allowed to be built in the city center. A rather wise ruling. There is something a little gross about standing looking at the beautiful eiffel tower and seeing this massive black building in the background. 

But regardless of how ugly it makes the sky-scape look, it sure has great views of the city from it! I haven't been up to the top of the Eiffel tower, and now doubt that I will, but its cool to see the city, and all the sites I can recognize from above. Plus from Montparnasse you can see the Eiffel tower (duh), but that's cool. 

After hanging out on the roof for a while, we decided to go to dinner at our favorite restaurant, but had some time to kill so we wandered over to the Luxembourg gardens to just hang out for a while. It was quite peaceful and relaxing and just generally nice to get some time just hanging out with people while I still can!

We then walked to Chez Gladines and had some wonderful, cheap, decadent french food. The place literally never disappoints. Its too damn good.









Mark and I then planned to visit the Georges Pompidou Centre the next day and see the modern art exhibits. It was cool and bizarre, as I believe modern art should be, but realistically the stuff is just wasted on me. I enjoyed it, but I sure as hell don't understand any of it.

Side note. It may be ignorant of me (or rather, probably was) but I had absolutely NO clue that Picasso wasn't that old. I definitely thought he was from a time long long ago, but no. He died in 1973. What? Blew my mind. Anyways, it was cool to see some of his work as well, but just continually makes me question what the hell was going on in his head. He must have been one hell of a strange dude....