This weekend for Easter our friend Lauren Bonds came into Paris to escape her job at RBS in London. She was the friend we stayed with when Cameron and I went to London the second weekend we were here and also one of the people we met in Barcelona three weeks ago. So, when I met her at Chatelet Les Halles train station, that marked the third country in which I've picked her up on a random street corner. She was a little late getting in, so we got her situated in our apartment and then for dinner we settled on one of the cafes right in our neighborhood looking out onto the plaza in front of the Pompidou Center. We went super French and between the three of us got quiche, a croque monsieur, and steak tartar.
The next day we went up to Montmartre so Lauren could see the Sacre-Coeur cathedral and the artsy areas that make up the neighborhood around it. We stopped in one of the squares near the cathedral where a bunch of free-lance artists work and got a couple of rounds of coffee and a light lunch from one of the many cafes there. We also took her (in the same area) the Moulin Rouge, but we couldn't get very far into it. 
We then attempted to go to the Musee d'Orsay, but when we got there the line was so unbelievably long that we bailed on the idea and decided to walk home via the Tuileries gardens and the Louvre to see if the line at the Centre Pompidou was any better. I take a book or something to the Tuileries all the time when the weather is nice, but it was both Lauren's and Cameron's first times being there, so they enjoyed it. We got back to our neighborhood and then went to the Pompidou but were thoroughly unimpressed. There was a big collection on display by some supposedly reknowned artist named Lucien Freud, whose works haven't been showcased since the 80's. It was apparently a big deal that these works were at the Pompidou and available to the public, but we were thoroughly unimpressed. His specialty was ugly and otherwise deformed nudes, so I didn't care to spend more than 10 minutes in the entire thing. The rest of the museum, minus perhaps Picasso and the rest of the cubism works, were equally as underwelming. I have trouble looking at something that could have taken me 2 hours and $16 worth of materials at Hobby Lobby and calling it museum-worthy art. In the spirit of saving money, we had a pretty low-key evening. Cameron and I cooked a big feast, starting with some fresh baguettes, cheese tray, and some nuts and fruits. For the entree we had teriyaki chicken with a buttery and sauteed vegetable medley of mushrooms, onions, and cucumbers. For dessert, our third consecutive fresh-baked loaf of banana bread. After dinner, we just had wine and watched a movie as no one was in the mood to go out and spend a bunch of money.
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