Vagabond Artist

So yesterday I played hookie and did not go to work, it was gorgeous. I have justification for riding around on my bike all afternoon, I needed pictures of Paris. It was too grey when I got here and there were no leaves on the trees or flowers in the gardens but yesterday the sky was blu with little fast moving clouds and the green on the trees is not yet that summer green but the fresh green of spring.

Most of the flower beds were anhiliated by the storm on Sunday evening but that also cleared the air of dust and pollen and the too early summer heat.

Yesterday my plan was to go to the Arc du Triomphe, I hadn't seen it yet in real life only in pictures. I remember studying Italian rennaisance art for years in books later then seeing it in Florence with all of the smells, sounds and tastes of that fabulous city. A recipie for Stendahls syndrome. I must say that the arc du Triomphe didn't do it for me. Perhaps it is the Champs Elysees that is just too noisy; uncomfortable, an assault on the senses, or perhaps it was the attack of cramps that hit just as I crossed the Ponte Alexander.

I love the pont Alexander with the baroque adorments and the gold leafed statues and the view of Les Invalides and the Grand Palais and the curve of the Seine that lets you see all the monuments to the east on the curve of the river and and and... the sky is blu, its spring. I think it is the image of a painting by John singer Sargent in my mind of the gold leafed statue that makes me love this bridge.

I knew I was close to the arc du triomphe when I was at the Grand Palais but I had already started to feel the cramps coming, awful stuff it is. I walked up the sidewalk then stopped at a pharamcy to get some asparin, to my surprise it only cost Euro 1.60. I was prepared to pay 5 Euro. The pharmacist was telling me not to leave my bike in front of her store but then I realized she was telling me not to leave it unlocked. She even offered to watch it for me because she had seen people come into the pharmacy leaving their bicycles unlocked then in less than 30 seconds it being stollen. The Champs Elysees is all down hill or uphill with cramps in my case. I had locked my bicycle so she was relieved.

I trodded up the super wide sidewalk between designers and macdonalds with the outrageous noise of evening traffic. It's like an amphitheatre, the Champs Elysees. Who coud ever find it interesting? I thought alot about that but then it is somewhat like Times Square, big and loud and expensive. Finally I got close enough to take some pictures of the arch with tourists bulgeoning off the top. Then I turned around and pedalled home missing a nice dinner at the Closerie because the Champs Elysees gave my such cramps.

See that spot on the picture to the upper right. It is a worm in my camera. It moves around but it is always there.