Paris Day 3

My last day in Paris it was off and on raining and we had meetings in the morning. Fortunately we finished early (at lunchtime) and then we all said our goodbyes and headed off to home or sightsee. I’m going to miss my new friends in France and England...especially the French team. It’s not often I find two interesting people who want to talk about concrete 12 hours a day for 6 days in a row, are very technical and science based, and have a witty sense of humor! 

As our meetings that day were held in the French institute for art conservation, which happened to be across the street from the Louvre, I headed to the Louvre. Thinking it was going to rain all day I was excited to spend the afternoon wandering halls of art. However, the entry line was super long and then the sun came out. So I decided to walk along the river and see all that I could until my feet hurt enough to go back to the hotel. 

That Saturday was also Nuit Blanche which is an annual arts festival where there are street galleries set up and even a highly anticipated parade which happened to end only a couple blocks from our hotel. So following my independent sojourn through the Tuileries and along the Seine getting glimpses of the Eiffel Tower and admiring Napoleons urban planning (which is actually kinda creepy with how standardized it all is...another story another day) I met up with a couple other members of the “US team” although one is Scottish and just moved to LA six months ago to work at the Getty and the other is from Brazil who came to the US for grad school and an internship at the Getty. We grabbed dinner and then headed to the Bastille to watch the end of the Nuit Blanche 2019 parade. The parade was everything a French art parade should have: a giant mirror, Maraichi band, naked women, giant balloons that were superconfusing, bagpipers, marching bands, and of course a float the sprayed cotton candy into the crowd.