Skip to my Louvre

Monday, since virtually every museum in Europe is closed on that day every week, we went to the Louvre. Because it's open. Originally, when Ross and I had been planning our trip, I stated that I wanted to see the whole thing, and figured I could, since I've been to so many museums in Italy and felt pretty museum-conditioned to last even the Louvre. I took a little offense when Ross said we couldn't see the whole thing in one day, thinking that he was attacking my museum-endurance. However, once we got there, while I didn't burn out, as I had expected, I didn't realize that what he meant was that the Louvre is freaking huge, and there are simply not enough hours in one day to see everything (especially when you're walking with me, and you have to stop every time there's a sword in a painting--and in Europe, lots of paintings have swords). We spent six hours at the Louvre, from noon to closing, and saw one entire wing plus the medieval remnant foundations of the Louvre, minus a couple of small rooms in the 18th century Spanish paintings corridor. Unfortunately, Ross and I were alternating cameras, so I have a lot of photos of him, and he has a lot of photos of me...we'll swap at some point.

This is a street (rue) down which Ross and I had to walk to get to the little cafe/brasserie where we had breakfast (petit dejeuner). The funny thing about it is that the sidewalk to the right is actually a serviceable road, and we almost got hit by a car that was riding down it while we were walking the other direction thinking it was for pedestrians only. That's a statue of Joan of Arc at the end in the middle of the road, too. European roundabouts are so much cooler than ours...

Treasure baaaaath!

We're pretty much as confused as he is.

Here Venus(?) is obviously angry because the cherub thing is doing that thing where you flick the flab on girls' underarms.

Verte tuum caput et tussi. ("Turn your head and cough.")

Mona Lisa. I didn't want to push through people to get closer to take a picture. I've seen it. You can get better quality posters than I'll ever take a crappy photo from thirty feet away through plexiglass without a flash.

Judas! Try the mold wine, it's terrific!

This reminded me of the giant chess set at the Seattle Science Center. But I don't think you'd last very long if you tried to play dressed like this guy.

Master Robin, you've lost your arms in battle! There were too many people on the other side, and too much other good art in the museum to bother waiting for a spot or standing in front of someone else's picture. Again, I've seen it, and I can get a much better picture than I can take somewhere else. I like to think I got her better side, anyway.

Bad picture, neat room. Lots of really big, really cool statues (bronze and marble).

"Okay, Pete, but seriously, you can not wreck this car..."

Kind of. Turns out that's a really good shirt/pants combo.
Scale photo.

Aptly followed by snail photo. Knock knock (who's there?), Escar (escar who?) Escar go beep beep! (I doubt that's original, but I prefer if you let me think I'm clever) And yes, I ordered them, yes I ate them, and yes, they were delicious. Chewy, pretty much just tasted like pesto and butter, but like chewy chunks of pesto and butter. Which happens to be amazing.
Ross and I actually ran into a girl from UW while we were wandering about the Louvre, and she met up with us for dinner that night (when I had the escargots). She had just finished a law program in Ireland and was wandering about by herself, so there was mutual welcome company.

My hotel in Paris.

Needless to say, it was a pretty long day. Ross and I were still a little tired and not quite totally adjusted to the time thing, so after a more successful dinner than that of the night before (at least for me) and a little hanging out in Paris at night, we got some crepes and went back to the hotel, stole some internet from MacDonald's, and called it a night.