Day 3--Centre Pompidou

We travelled by Metro (the subway, basically) to another part of town where the Pompidou museum is. This picture shows me sitting in a station waiting for a train. Notice my muddy shoes? Part of the "danger" of tromping around a cemetary in the rain, but it was worth it! The Pompidou is Paris's modern art museum. However, we did not go in as neither of us had much of an interest in modern art. We are in the area of town mainly to see the outside of the building which was differnt and interesting, and to do some shopping, which we had been told we quite reasonable in this area of town.

This photo shows the street side of the Pompiou, and it's unfortunate that I used black and white film for this particular shot because the museum is very colorful. The designers of the building put all the ducts, pipes, and vents on the outside of the building and color coded it all based on function. Lifts and escalators are red, electric circuits in yellow, water in green, and air in blue. The building is designed this way in order to leave more room on the inside of the building for galleries and exhibits.

This is the opposite side view, which was next to a large plaza surrounded by shops and small places to eat. You can see how large of a building it is. Near here, we grabbed some lunch and I had my first crepe, ham and cheese. It was delicious! One thing I will miss is the food, I never ate a single thing I did not like.



My friend finished eating before me and left to check out a small nearby store while I finished my crepe and did some people watching. When I finished eating I went into the store she was in and found her being hit on by some weird French guy. He asked her, "What are you doing tonight?" and she answered, "Nothing with you," which he seemed to think we really funny. He would not leave her alone, even though she told him she was married and had five kids (all of which is true). We left quickly and he was called out after us, but we just ignored him. He was really quite freaky, but at least he gave us something to laugh about for days afterwards.

Near the Pompidou on one side there was a pool full of interesting fountains that were actually on. Since is was still winter during my visit, most fountains throughtout the city had been turned off, one disappointment of travelling in Paris during the off season. All of these fountains are very modern in nature and I thought they were really fun. Here you can see an elephant squirting water out of his trunk.

It took me a while to figure out exactly what this fountain was, but I eventually decided that she is a mermaid. Yes, that is water shooting out of her breast.

This one is a springy snake that was spinning around.

Here is a skull with water shooting out of its head. Don't ask why, I don't know, I just thought it was neat.

This bird type creature was the largest fountain in the pool. It has water shooting out in all directions from it's head.

We noticed this street very near the Pompidou, and is very typical of most Paris side streets. Notice how the road is really one wide enough for one car. This road, or alley really, twisted back quite a ways, but it was really a pretty little street.