Friday in Paris

This is an experiment of sorts. Journaling by blog. So I will record my European trip here, in my blog, which is read by no one except my family.

(This blog will be somewhat limited by the fact that I am using a French keyboard - these people have no idea what querty means. Imagine that)

Today we went to the Louvre. A magnificent museum, far too big to encompass in a day. Of course, we saw La Joconde (the Mona Lisa) and the Venus de Milo. But I have to admit that they're really not all that interesting live. La Joconde because you can't get closer than 10 feet to it, and it needs to be seen up close; the Venus because it's just plain boring. But you still have to see them.

We speed toured a good part of the museum, mainly because Sean can't read French. But even so, some artworks just demand that you stop and look. David's consecration of Napoleon is one such painting. It's monstrously big, for one thing, but it also tells a story when you take the time to read it.

We had lunch in the museum's cafe, where I could have a salt-free salad. They even had olive oil & balsamic vinegar! Sean had pizza ;)

We then hit the floor again, and wandered through various salles (halls) until we were too tired to go on.

Afterwards, we went to the Virgin Megastore, where Sean was thinking of buying the French version of the Back To The Future trilogy, just for fun. But cooler heads prevailed, and we walked on by. There's a very nice shopping arcade underground outside the Louvre, filled with extremely expensive shops. It was fun to look in the windows, but of course we couldn't buy anything.

By the time we dragged our tired bodies back to the apartment, all we could do was scrounge some dinner, and watch a little TV. There are two English channels on Armelle's cable box, and one of them is the poker channel. And lots of American programming, dubbed into French.

Ah well, enough of that for now. Til next time.

Tom