Buying a painting and then trying to get it home...

One Saturday we went to Marché de la création Bastille, an outdoor artists' market. The very first booth I saw was this one, manned by painter Eric Laprade.



I bought this painting, my biggest souvenir...



Then I spent happy hours preparing to pack it. Paris is full of devoted trash collectors - they came to our street twice a day - and everybody just puts corrugated cardboard out on the sidewalk for them. So I snarfed up a few big big boxes, bought an X-acto knife and some packing tape, and went to work.

It was hard to get it to the airport - it was so big I had to hold it up off the ground with one hand while I rolled my suitcase with the other. I was a little hunched over because my fiddle was sticking out of my backpack and I didn't want it to fall out in the subway.

It's a good thing I packed the painting so carefully, because US Airways lost it; I just got it back this evening, two days later. The guy who delivered it looked very harried. "You pretty busy?" I asked. "I've got twelve guys working and we just can't keep up." "What's the problem?" "The Philadelphia Airport."

I also bought this print:



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