Keith Haring in Paris

I love street art, this is already a very well known fact.  So, when I found out Keith Haring had an exhibition in Paris, I was thrilled and it became a "must-do" while in Paris.  If you're not familiar with his work, see the imagery below.  He was very involved in statements of political, religious and sexual freedom.  The awareness that he created through his art was immeasurable and the Musee d'Art Modern was housing his biggest exhibit to date.... over 250 pieces.

Keith Haring - The Political Line Exhibit

Its amazing that Parisians let you take photos of everything!

An entire canvas of Penis'

Keith Haring was actually arrested for creating this piece.  But the mural remains as an icon leading into Brooklyn.

Crack is Whack, suckas.

There were sooooo many penis' in this exhibit, it was almost comical.  Keith Waring was gay and a huge advocate for safe sex and a pioneer toward the progression of the equality movement, which 15 years after his death is still in its infancy.

diarrhea cha cha cha??

This was my favorite, although unfinished

After Keith Haring, I ventured through the rest of the museum as well.  I found this lovely mural that spanned an entire room.  It was painted by Claire Bartoli, I think it was called La Fee Electicite de Raoul Dufy...but, I don't speak French, so I'm not sure what that says :)

Amazing Dessert

I thought this worthy of its own post.  It will be very simple for you all to recreate on your own.  Who knew the French could deliver such joy in something so simple....

Vanilla ice cream over warm caramel corn.  Fucking Delicious!

Normandie!!!

We decided to sneak out of the city and head 2 hours north to the country....to Normandie we go!

We started off with a little town called Etretat (Et-twa-da), a small port town on the northern coast of France.  

The town was quaint with cobblestone roads and narrow streets.  I had the most wonderful crepe ever for lunch.  It was filled with andouille sausage, potatoes, onions, cheese and cream...YUM

After walking through the town, we went on a hike past the beach...

...and up the side of this cliff to the overlook.

We're hiking up that???

Almost there!

Made it to the top!!!

Next up, Honfleur! The buildings had exposed brown beams surrounded by white limestone or stucco, I'm not sure what.  Everything was very old and very sturdy.  The ceilings of the rooftops were made of straw and grass and it looked like I had stepped right into Robin Hood's village.

Panorama of the hotel's grounds

These hydrangeas must have been over 50 years old...

 Dinner ended up being a 4 hour affair.  And, yes, I do mean an affair.  It was 7 courses of OMG... over and over again.

Obviously, we started with champagne, then the amuse bouche was a small plate of sushi, breadsticks with cream and some nut filled puff pastry (argh, forgot to take photos, sorry).  The second course was a cool asparagus soup, followed by my main course of fish, which was delicious....I think I had cod.  Then they came out with the cheese board.  I sampled 7 different cheeses and was in absolute and then they came out with dessert, which I did remember to photograph.  It was a chocolate mousse cake with raspberry sorbet served in several different ways...

My date got an apple tart with vanilla ice cream and some VERY potent liquor delivered as a do-it-yourself syringe.

There was another course of small dessert petit fours as well.

Stuck in the loo!

Oh dear, I visited Mont St. Michel the other day and we stayed at the Auberge Saint-Pierre on the island.

Since, this was a surprise day trip, I didn't know that it was 40 minutes away or I would have used the loo before we left St. Malo.  Had my crystal ball been working (or if I even had one), I definitely would have gone if I'd known we were going to drive 20 minutes in the wrong direction first, essentially doubling the length of the journey.  Furthermore, had I know it was a 500 meter walk (1/2 KM) to the island and another 500 meters to our hotel room, I definitely would have used the bathroom.

So, you can imagine when i got into the hotel room, I needed to pee pronto.  I dropped my bag, gave the hotelier a oui, oui, merci and bolted to the loo, locked the door and released my bladder.  When I went to exit the 2'x3' quarantine, the door was jammed.  The lock would not unlatch!  Holy shit, I was stuck in the loo.

I banged on the door and called out to my friend that I was stuck in the loo to which he laughed then called the front desk.  How embarrassing, right?  The lady from the front desk came down about 10 minutes later with some WD40 and sprayed it into the keyhole.  That did not help. I was still stuck.
She insisted we needed a screwdriver (which I had already suggested in English, not French).  So, she left, leaving me imprisoned in the loo for another 10 minutes.  During that time, I decided to sit down on the toilet, what was I going to do?  Stand?  So I sat and put my feet against the wall, to which they would not stretch out all the way because it was so small.

Through the door, I overheard a phone conversation that Mickael was having with Marc that went a little like this, "blah blah blah (in French), yes, I swear, she's stuck in the toilet....no I'm not kidding....blah blah blah (in French)" plus some nervous laughter.... "oui oui oui, au revoir...what is taking them so long."

Then I started to look around.  I wasn't nervous so much as starting to get bored and therefore crafty. Then I started to think, Holy Shit, this was a castle, everything was made of limestone and solid materials from the 16th century.  Even the door was solid wood, not particle board.  If I were MacGuyver, what would I do?  I began thinking about taking the rivets off my shoelace holes to use as a makeshift screwdriver to take off the handle and imagines prying wood off the moulding to create a pick lock. That's when it occurred to me that I carry a Swiss Army knife everywhere I go.  So, I called out of the loo and told Mickael where he could find it and I was rescued!

Mark, you saved the day!  Best. Present. Ever