Le Mur Vert
We saw the coolest green wall in Paris on Sunday. Check this out: the whole side of the Musee de Quai Branly is a garden. I've wanted to make one of these forever, and even got as far as having Buphalo create the infrastructure (my design will integrate a sundial, as well, bien sur) but got busy with this and that and never finished. This one is an inspiration.
The rest of the day was spent in pleasant strolling. We picnicked at Les Invalides, an old army barracks converted to a museum and park and home of, I believe, Napoleon's tomb. For some inexplicable reason, twenty or so guys in the uniforms of the army from different eras all lined up and had everyone take pictures at one point, so we joined in that fun.
I also found another sundial inside. There were several, actually, and I think I may have missed one, but I took a picture of the description of it in hopes of translating it later.
We also found a couchsurfer's meet-up on the lawn (we had read about it on the site) and hung out with them for a little while. All very sweet people, mostly from Paris, but a few guests from elsewhere, as well. It was someone's birthday, so there were a few home made cakes and some wine. Perfect afternoon snack!
We finished the day over at the Grand Palais where there was an awesome exhibit on design and furniture, Design Contre Design. The pieces they had were just so cool, and they did a really good job of showing how different pieces in different eras influenced each other.
The pieces ranged from traditional to a bar shaped like a giant metal cat, but our two favorite pieces were:
a complete...room? house? shaped like internal organs and a womb: it had a shower, toilet, a kitchen, and a bedroom that you crawled in through by a tube, and it all looked like internal organs. I wish we could have taken pictures, but it wasn't allowed. There's a video of it being unveiled on this page, though. - A room that you could crawl around in that had a very colorful, playful quality. I stole a picture from the exhibition's web site to the right. I loved that they let you actually crawl and play in it.
We bought the catalogue, you can check it out when we get home.
