MY FAIR LADY!
The pyramid inside the Louvre:
and up:
I got in for free because of my Student Visa (SCORE), and we proceeded in the entrance where we were barreled over by a group of Asian tourists that were sprinting to keep up after taking ridiculous amounts of pictures. Seriously, the Louvre was SO BUSY with school kids from Japan. I hate school groups from any country, but these kids did nothing but live up to the Asian tourist stereotype. It was a long visit.
This sculpture made me crack up. Four guys standing around in a circle staring at their man parts. I will be doing some research to figure out what it really is, because I feel like there is probably a better explanation than that. Lol.
Winged Victory
Venus de Milo was cool…Rick Steves gave us some good info about it and some other paintings in the museum that I otherwise wouldn’t have known. Pretty sweet.
I LOVED this sculpture of Aphrodite. It looked like a woman in a wet gown, the detail was phenomenal. And I am not an art person.
A piece from the Parthenon in Greece:
My apartment overlooking the Eiffel tower will also have ceilings that look like those in the Louvre:
I recognized this painting:
I understood why people said plan on spending the whole day…it went on forever! SO HUGE! We definitely had to bust out the map a lot. Although my preference was the maps on the wall with the big “You Are Here” dots. I like those.
A da Vinci, Cleopatra being bitten on the nipple by the asp that killed her. Odd, but whatever.
The Mona Lisa. So cool. It had it’s own wall and everything.
This picture rocked. It was a picture of the wedding in which Jesus turned water into wine, and everyone is going crazy, and Jesus is just sitting in the middle with a WTF face.
I feel like I remembered this sculpture from that Greek Mythology course I took.
A Michaelangelo painting:
Cool two-sided David and Goliath painting.
All the stages of the Passion of the Christ…really cool detail:
Jesus dying
Mom and baby
This painting was gorgeous, with the couple in the front and the disapproving people in the back in the dark.
Lady Liberty!!
The naked woman
This was the guy asking the Sphinx something. I remember this one from my Mythology course, this painting exactly:
Napoleon coming into power
The crown jewels room…pretty sure they preserved it, so it’s actually pretty close to how it was when the Louvre was a palace:
Crown jewels!
Stamps in the oriental artifacts room:
We went down to the History of the Louvre exhibit before we headed out, and also because it said there was a medieval moat, which I thought was AWESOME and badass, so I was excited.
A model of what the Louvre looked like as a castle, I believe?
They hired Russian artists to come in and be inspired and create works of the Louvre…I liked this one because it was on cardboard box remains:
Looks like real fire, yes? Nope, projection. Pretty sweet. More of the Russian artists.
I was getting all bummed cuz where was the moat?? And then Kimbre was like “we’re IN the moat” and that was ok, but I was still bummed…I wanted to see a moat.
Last thing we saw was a sphinx tomb from ancient Egypt:
Another reason Starbucks in Europe rocks…they sell pancakes:
Outside the Louvre:
We attempted to go into the Comedie Francaise, but alas, you have to book a tour in advance. BUMMER!!! Comedie Francaise was the theatre directed by Moliere…we just wanted to see the theatre, and the chair he died in onstage during a show…no biggie…:-(
Rue Moliere!
National Library original door
Royal Palace from far away…we were walking by and just poked our noses in:
An advent tree like the one Bap Bap made!!!!
Government building:
Beautiful sandwiches…I don’t know, I didn’t go look, but I’m glad France also serves beautiful sandwiches:
Pretty church:
Big round glass building near pretty church:
Lunch of baguettes for the pidgeons and small birds:
We were heading for crepes but were super hungry, and apparently mussels steamed in a white wine sauce served with French fries are also a typical French meal, so we decided to stop for that (I’m doing the escargot when I get back to Moscow…Lame, I know, but West of Paris is amazing food, I know they’ll be legit):
Our beers:
My mussels in an escargot butter sauce covered in cheese…low fat, definitely. And I got a second plate to share with Kimbre for only a Euro more! Success!
Kimbre’s bucket of mussels served the traditional way, in the white wine sauce, but it also had cream:
Leave no mussel uneaten!
Then we headed off to the flea market!
I had to pee so bad at this point (took us a while to get to the market), and we stumbled across this toilet machine. It was like a room in the middle of the street. You pushed the button to open the door, then you closed the door from the inside…then you did your business, then you washed your hands with all the motion sensored everything, then you exited the machine, and then you waited for the door to close and then it washed and sanitized the toilet, sink, and floor. Then the next person could use it. So weird.
More market:
We saw some amazing stuff…my favorite was the antique Chanel jewelry. We couldn’t take pics unfortunately, but it was SO pretty. And only about a semesters worth of college tuition, so nothing bad. The cool thing was all these things were legit antiques from like 1900-1920’s, and all in gorgeous condition. Also a gorgeous pink tea set…if the price had been affordable and I wasn’t afraid of it breaking, I would have bought a cup. All ridiculously expensive, but still fun to look at.
My HUGE hunk of meringue that I bought at the pastry shop; prolly the size of both my fists together:
Me with my nutella crepe finally. So yummy. I even ordered in French. (She totally smirked at me, but whatever).
Bought my last small bottle of French wine here:
There were Asian food delis ALL over our neighborhood. They looked SO good, but who eats asian when they’re in France?
Last French dinner consisted of more meats, cheese (BRIE!), wine, and one of the macaroons. Success!
My French Éclair I ate at the airport that I’d bought the night before. It got a little smushed, but it was yummy:
