"We'll always have Paris"

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2284671&id=11832732&l=86f040cb2a
Photos: 98-149

Today was a museum day - we started off by visiting the Louvre. Interestingly, we came via the subway, and so didn't go in via the giant pyramid, but right beside the "Pyramide Inversée", the inverted pyramid. I found this amusing because it completely contradicts the Da Vinci Code, which implies that the body of Mary Magdalene is buried underneath a 'right-side up' pyramind underneath it. In actuality, the right-side up pyramid is pretty small, so unless the body was forced into a fetal position, it wouldn't fit (and even then, it might not). Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures until later, and I was unable to get close again or else I would have had to re-go through security to get in the building, which would have meant waiting a long time to get through all the school groups in the line. I did take as good a picture as I could, which is shown later in the series.

The first thing we saw was the Mona Lisa, since we expected there would be a crowd later wanting to see it. I saw it, and it was impressive - virtually everyone knows the Mona Lisa, and I saw it in person. It actually looks a little different than what people expect it to be - there is less contrast in the actual image than the various reproductions seen of it, and it is darker (not a lot, but noticibaly so). After admiring the fampus work of art, we turned to leave and just as we were, a hoard of people came in (they were not actually a barbarian hoard, but they seemed like it and in such a large mass as well. We looked at a few more paintings in this section, including a few more by Da Vinci, then proceeded to look at some Roman statues of Emperors. After proceeding through the museum, I got to see the crown worn by Napolean at his coronation, as well as his apartments when he lived at the Lourve.

After Napolean's rooms, I was very impressed to see the "Code of Hammurabi." For those of you who are not as familiar with world history, the code of Hammurabi is one of the first set of written laws known to exist, from almost 2000 BC. The laws are quite harsh (if you accuse someone of a capital crime and they are found innocent, you are put to death instead), but it was significant in the fact that they were written down/recorded. That is it still visible almost 4000 years later impresses me.

After wandering through a bit more of the Lourve, we went to the "Musée de l' Orangerie", an art museum whose primary function is to house the "Nympheas" by Monet, the 'waterlillies' paintings. These are a series of paintings Monet made of a pond from different times of the day. I greatly enjoyed this place - I like impressionist artwork because it is just that - the artist's impression of what they see. There is not as much emphasis on "hidden meanings reflecting the trouble and angst of the human condition", etc... rather, it is a painting to look at. After spending some time looking at these 8 paintings, we walked through the rest of the museum; which was interesting, but not as inspiring for me as the Nympheas.

We then walked up the Champ-Elysees again, although this time towards the arch on the portion we had not walked before, then rode the subway back - not a bad day for a last day in Paris.

One thing I want to mention is the creativity of (presumably) French disobedient teens in law breaking. Where most teens do graffiti in convenient locations, the French take this challenge to a whole new level, grafitting the inside of subway tubes (meaning that they have to walk inside the tube making sure not to touch the electric rails or else they die from electric shock. I found this hightly amusing.