Ketchup

Ok, so if I've been a little behind with posting our day-to-day activities, it's because Paris is very time-consuming. Friday we went to that museum of museums, the one all the little galleries want to be when they grow up: the Louvre. It can be described in one word: BIG. I was reminded of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's entry on space: "[the Louvre] is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is." You really don't get an impression of how big it is, even as it looms four stories above you, and you realize there are two more stories underground. We're talking over 1.3 million square feet of paintings, sculptures, natural history relics, and a fully reconstructed medieval fortress that takes up only part of the double-basement.

It was another gray and rainy day in Paris, as it has been every day since our arrival. I should be noted at this point that while Walker and I both brought our wool coats, but neither of us remembered to grab a rain slicker or even aa hat. It's been a very wet five days. Thankfully, we haven't had to wait in line for more that five minutes since our tenure in the rain at the Musee d'Orsay, thanks to the generosity of Eliot and Melisa, who kindly gave us their 4-day museum passes when they left for Heidleberg. This means we've gotten to jump hundreds of yards of lines to get into the Louvre, Notre Dame, and many more. They're going to get one hell of a fruit basket from me when we get home.

Anyway, we saw the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, Victory on the Barricade, and all the other really big names. That being said, I found that I preferred the Musee d'Orsay! At the Louvre, each wall would have three or more rows of 12+ foot tall paintings, the one on top hung so high you couldn't make it out even standing against the opposite wall. It was all just so overwhelming that I didn't feel connected to the art at all.

After four hours or so, Walker and I bid farewell to the masters and headed back to the hostel to rest for a bit. Rest had me bored soon, so Walker and I decided to exlore our little neighborhood and ended up walking a few miles to the Hotel des Invalides, where we rested in the little garden before turning around to find a grocery store before they all closed. We threw together some delicious grilled chicken with cilantro and garlic and then managed to grab at least a little sleep before our drunken dormmate stumbled in and turned on all the lights.