We're in Paris! We rode the train from Barcelona to Paris practically all day yesterday. It was a good train experience, nothing bad happened! Nothing got stolen, no scum of the earth puked in front of us, we didn't miss our connection. All in all a good trip. We rode by a lot of the French country side, which was really beautiful. Lots of fields of rolled hay, sunflowers, vineyards, etc. It was very scenic. When we got to Paris, we didn't have any trouble with the metro and finding our hotel, which was another miracle. We ate dinner at a little restaurant down the street, and I tried French onion soup for the first time. It was very good.
Today, the first thing we did was go to the Louvre. It was kind of cloudy this morning and we thought it might rain. It would have been the first rain we've seen in Europe, and we've been here over two weeks, but it held off and hasn't rained yet, which is good. It's also a whole lot cooler here than it was in Italy, the riviera and Barcelona. It's in the low 70s, and gets down in the 60s at night. The Louvre is massive. I don't know what I expected, but that place is huge. We went in through the big, famous, glass pyramid in the courtyard. The line was pretty long to get in, but it was moving really fast, so it took no time to get in and get tickets. I really didn't know where to start once we got in. I obviously knew I wanted to see the Mona Lisa and some of the more famous stuff, but I didn't really want to start off with that, so we headed off in the direction of the French sculpture and Mesopotamian art. That was pretty interesting and we walked around there for a while. There were dozens of French sculptures. Napoleon's apartment exhibit was over that way too, which was really cool to walk through. It was really extravagant.
After a while we were over that section, but we couldn't figure out how to get out. We must have walked through it 3 different times, but we finally figured it out, and headed towards the Italian and French paintings and Greek and Roman sculptures. We saw the Mona Lisa, The Nike (or Winged Victory) of Samothrace, and a whole lot of other things that I studied in school that were really awesome to see in person. Most of them are huge. When you see it projected on a screen in a classroom, most of the time you don't realize how huge it is. We definitely only scratched the surface at the Louvre, there is just so much to see. It's extremely overwhelming. The people waiting to see the Mona Lisa is pretty comical. She has her own wall, and she is very small, hanging behind glass. Honestly, very anti-climatic because people are shoving and taking pictures and you can't get close enough to get a good look at her because she's at least 8 feet away from you and they don't let you get close. I'm glad I got to see her, even though some rude woman was shoving her kids stroller against my legs the whole time, but there are some great Titian's on the back wall that nobody pays attention to. One more thing, and this is my soapbox for the day: I can't stand people touching the art. I will tell them not to touch it too. I saw this one guy slapping the legs of a sculpture, and I wanted to go up and slap him in the face in return for being so asinine. When you're looking at artwork that is hundreds of years old, you just don't touch it. You just don't touch any art, period, but especially not ancient art. It's not necessary to feel art. It's not scratch and sniff. It's not a puppy. If everyone who came in the Louvre felt the Mona Lisa, she wouldn't be smiling anymore. Don't touch art, got it? Soapbox ended :)
After we left the Louvre, we got a bite to eat and headed to the Eiffel tower. We took the metro there and didn't have any problems again. France has plenty of signs that are easy to read, and the stops are painted in huge letters on the wall at each stop, so you know where you are. We made it easily to the Eiffel tower, walked down the park and took some pictures. The tower is a lot browner than I thought it would be. I guess I thought it would be more silver or something. It's still a very awesome sight to see. There were tons of people in the park. Lots of them were lounging, there were people playing music, some were sleeping, etc. You see all kinds of people in Europe. I really wanted to climb to the top of the tower, so we went to see about tickets. We tried to book some online before we left the hotel this morning, but it said they were all full for the next 3 days for the elevator to the top. We wanted to take the stairs anyway so we thought we might be able to get tickets. The line had a sign at one point that said, "approximately 30 minute wait at this point" and it was about 4 times as long past that point. It would have been at least a 2 hour wait. So, we might try again tomorrow, but we didn't get to do it today.
We walked around the neighborhood that mom stayed at when she was here with some of her friends in November 2010. Now we're at the room and hopefully going to go do some shopping and eat dinner. Tomorrow I want to see Notre Dame and Musee d'orsay, and possibly take a boat ride down the Seine river. I really wanted to go to Versailles, but we won't have time.
Best things about today: Seeing all the awesome things in the Louvre, seeing the Eiffel tower, being in Paris!
Worst things about today: Not being able to climb the Eiffel tower
On the train
Sunflowers on the way to Paris
French countryside on the way to Paris
French onion soup
I don't know what it was, but it was really good
Entrance to the Louvre
The Nike
What up Mona
Mom in Napoleon's apartment
Mom with Bacchus, the wine god, haha
Me, eating freedom fries, really stepping outside the box with my food choices.
Mom in front of the Eiffel tower
Me - Eiffel tower
Park around the tower.
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