Le Louvre

Thursday, July 5, 2007
Paris, France

Julia and I met pretty early this morning at the Metro station by the Louvre, where I found a place to eat a crepe quickly. It was my first Paris Crepe, and it was darn good. After I ate, we headed off toward the Louvre.

Ohhh the Louvre. We started off our day at the Louvre with some good old Starbucks, and while we drank our caramel macchiatos, we discussed our favorite artists and art work. I raved about Poussin, my favorite artist to date. Well as soon as we kicked off our roaming of the Louvre, starting on the top floor, we ran into three or four rooms filled with work of just Poussin. The Louvre is also loaded with Jacques Louis David, another of my absolute favorite artists. We spent a good five or more hours looking around, and did not even see all the paintings we wanted to see, so we decided then and there that we would have to come back. Yes, we saw the Mona Lisa, and no, she was really nothing special. If that painting was one I were to walk by, not knowing how popular it was, I would not even take a second glance at it. And the rumors about it possibly being a self-portrait or a homosexual lover of Da Vincis cannot be true, because up close it really does not look manly at all. Another one of the coolest things we saw today at the Louvre was Nike, the goddess of War, perched high on a ship.

After the Louvre, we set off in search of lunch, where we each had a delicious chicken panini and paid 3 Euros 50 for a few ounces of water. My french frieds (there were nineteen of them) were four fifty. The panini itself was less than that.

After lunch, we set off for the Arc de Triumph. As we could see it from the Louvre, we decided to walk. It ended up taking well over an hour (the arch is so thick that it looks a lot closer than it is at all times), and when we got there there were guards everywhere and it did not look like anyone had gone up or anything. We took a few pictures, hit up a few shops on the Champs-Elyess, and called it a day.

I went back to the hostel, where I met the new arrivals, a couple of girls who go to school at Emory, and I hung out with them for a bit before taking the Metro toward the Moulin Rouge to meet up with Emily Ward. We went to a bar right next to the Moulin Rouge and she told me everything good and bad about Paris. It was a lot of fun.

After a couple of hours talking at the bar, we said our goodbyes and I went back to the hostel to crash.

I am finally updating this thing--I am only a week behind now!!