Sunday - Louvre

Our weekly pass for the metro expired today and we had to get a new one. no big deal. I wanted to go to the Louvre, which would take 15-20 minutes on the metro, except I couldn't figure out the computers because they were in french, and no one was at the window. So being a beautiful day, I decided to just walk there because it wasn't far, and I could mess with getting a ticket later after the museum closed. So on to the museum, our passes don't work there and I actually had to pay to get in. I entered through the main entrance of the huge glass pyramid. There are 3 pyramids like in Egypt. The smaller ones are what you see in da vinci code where there forms an inverted pyramid below ground level. I thougth it was the big one, but I was wrong.
So after stopping to eat at a cafe inside, I first took off to the egyption part--going through the Medieval Louvre to get there. I guess the Louvre actually used to be a castle long ago, and the moat area is still there, which I walked through--literally the Medieval Louvre. Then winding my way I found the Egyption section with a lot of heiroglyphic writings and old things. These looked all the same to me, so I kept walking to find the mummy and sarcoffagus. Those were pretty cool to see real ones, not just pictures.
Next I the Italian art was around the corner. I knew I didn't really want to spend a lot of time here, because I don't like it. So walking quickly throught the perfect images of people, saints, and thousands of Mary's I found the Mona Lisa. Boring. What I did like about this section was the actual building. It was really amazing. A lot of carving and beautiful paintings on the ceilings and walls. So that's what I looked at and took pictures of. I found the Apollo. She was nice, but headless of course. So I kept walking to the Apollo hall with beautiful ceilings and walls, along with some crown jewels. You're not supposed to take any pictures in here...so I did. I'm sneaky.
Then I went on to the North and South American, African, and Oceanic part. It was very small, but had some interesting things.
Then it was on over to Napoleon III's chambers. These kings were way too rich. No wonder the people hated them. Les Mis popped into my head of the beginning and the poverty of the peasants. Jerk french kings. But all of the gold was amazing.
I wound my way through some other parts of the Louvre which were fairly boring, finally finally finally finding the right floor for the mesopotamia art to see Hammarabi's Code. That was really cool.
Then I found the Northern Europe art section. Much better art. Not so many pictures of a perfect Mary. I of course had to find one of the pictures from my history class this past semister, Popular Culture of Early Modern Europe, by Pieter Brueghel, "Blind Leading the Blind". Too bad it was on the top and I could barely see it. Then I found a piece by his son, which was really small, but at eye level. I saw a giant picture of a guy and a dog and took a picture for Carrie. I thought she'd like it in her house. It could fill up a whole wall. So that was the Louvre in a few hours. Fairly boring.
After coming back home, I went out and got some dinner, and walked over to see the Statue of Liberty that the US gave to France. Much smaller than the one in NYC. I guess we're cheap. It's just down on this small island/sandbar in the middle of the Seine by a bridge on the south part of Paris, by the Eiffel Tower. Walking down there, there were several tents with hobos under the bridge.

Day 7 - Sunday