Wednesday’s work gave way to Thursday’s fancies. To spare you the details of Wednesday without missing a post, I will write about Thursday in two parts. This is Part I.

After my morning’s duties, I headed to the 16th arrondissement (“ah-RON-deez-maw”) via Mº Victor Hugo. I had an appointment to meet with Sylvie, one of the directors of Au-Pair Paris, at France Langue language school at 2, rue de Sfax. Also joining us was another new au pair, Danielle, from San Francisco. Together we walked to Starbucks (for familiarity’s sake?) and talked about generalities and specifics. Basically – “Have a good attitude’ and ‘Be flexible’. We also met two other established au pairs briefly, who came by to say hello, though they seemed to have adopted the rude aloofness the Parisians are rumored to project. (So far, I have met only with kindness, if not always outright friendliness, from the Parisians.) I’m not sure why, exactly, but I had no real interest in meeting other au pairs or learning too much about their situations. Anti-social, perhaps, but I’d rather not focus on the au-pair aspect of my being in Paris any more than I have to. (Seems I’m not alone in this!)

Despite this disinclination, I felt somewhat elder-sisterly toward Danielle because she was sweet and very young and had had a rough morning figuring out the Metro for the first time on her way to the meeting. As she seemed to be much more disoriented than me, I figured she could use a little amusement before unraveling the train system again on her way home.

FIAC, the newly re-energized international contemporary art fair of Paris, had officially opened that morning, and I was eager to check out the fifth edition of SLICK, which is an affiliated fair of emerging artists featured in new and established galleries from around the globe. Since I was in the 16th already, I figured the chunk of time I had free before the afternoon would be a perfect time to visit the Palais de Tokyo museum, where the event was taking place. I invited Danielle to tag along, and off we went!

[For more on FIAC, read this overview from a Los Angeles-centric perspective and see this video interview of FIAC director, Jennifer Flay.]

Another Metro adventure later, we made it! (I think I proved to Danielle, who said she is prone to panic attacks, that, really, there is no cause for alarm on the Metro: one is never lost; just temporarily headed in the wrong direction!) SLICK was actually being held in tents on the esplanade connecting the Palais de Tokyo (so named for its original street – Avenue de Tokio) and the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, the two premier contemporary art museums in Paris. The actual buildings have been around for quite a while, serving as a royal tapestry factory, an orphanage with on-site soap factory, and a military outpost. They are situated on the northern side of the Seine river, just across and with a fantastic view of the Eiffel Tower.

With our discounted student tickets, we entered the white-tented area, which was striking under the bright blue sky and jacuzzi-sized yellow balloon floating overhead. Most of the booths were for Parisian galleries, but there were many from Berlin and other parts of Europe, a good number of constituents from SLICK-Orient, and only a couple from New York City and Philadelphia.

Danielle, it turned out, is an artist, so she and I were totally in our elements! Here’s what she and I encountered:

Video art from SLICK X from Nicole Garton on Vimeo.

Video Art #2 from SLICK X from Nicole Garton on Vimeo.

p.s. In case you are wondering – I believe the “X” refers to the Roman Numeral  ten… as in SLICK 2010.