Jewish art and French smoke

Today didn't start out so great when I realized that I didn't have my credit card that I've been using the most. Fortunately, I had another credit card that I don't use very much and they don't know that I'm in Europe so I hope it still works and using it doesn't trigger a fraud alert. So I just called the credit union and canceled the card.  It is  annoying when people ask where did you lose it (this is the fourth thing lost on this trip)? Well, if I knew where I lost it then probably it wouldn't be lost, right?

P.S. I found the card the next morning! It had fallen to the floor between my bed and the night stand!

I am getting better with the Metro! This morning I went to the big station, Gare du Nord, to prepare for going there to get to the airport. There I was able to take only one train and go only one stop (instead of the regular subway where I would have had to transfer) to get to Rue Rambuteau which was very busy. The Centro Pompidou had an insanely long line. An older Peruvian man flirted with me, just like the old days! "Where is your husband? How many children do you have?" He was selling friendship bracelets and didn't speak French. 😔 

The Museum of Jewish Art and History is the last time I use my 4 day Paris Museum Pass. There was a lot of security but no line. Do you know there are 130 museums in Paris? So I have seen only 4 or 5 museums, depending on your definition of a museum! At this rate, I would need 26 days to see all the museums!

I realized I really was more interested in the art than the relics so I was happy to see some Chagall but I also discovered art by Issachar Ber Ryback, a woman named Esther Carp, and Erwin Blumenfeld, a famous photographer for Vogue.

by Esther Carp, as are the following two

Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelli by Blumenfeld

Henri Matisse by Blumenfeld 

Part of a series on Hitler that Blumenfeld did. He was in an internment camp but managed to flee with his family to Morocco and then the U.S. 

The covers he did for Vogue magazine 

I found a good little restaurant nearby to try a croque Monsieur sandwich. When you get an egg on top it's called a croque Madame so that's what I got. They squeeze the tables in and there is always someone smoking nearby. Here I am at Cafè du Fusée.

Next I took the Metro (subway) to a new station (to me) in Montmartre to climb a hundred million stairs to the Dali Pariz Museum. No line, no security check! Dali sculptures were there plus a short film he made for Disney. He made some pretty raunchy art that strikes me as being like some of R. Crumb's sexual lusts and use of women in his art. No pics of it!

I liked the section about his wife, Gala.

"I love Gala more than my mother, more than my father, more than Picasso and even more than money."

I hung out at Cafe La Boheme drinking wine and a decaf latte, watching the never ending crowds and talked to (another) Chilean couple sitting next to me. They are spending 4 days in Paris and then a week in Rome. They have to travel with a lot of luggage (4 big ones and two smaller ones) in part because of her medical supplies to do dialysis on herself every 6 hours. It amazes me that she is able to travel!