paris, day four and five

ancient sculpture of nike at the louvre



both of these days i was overtaken with a cold. it was a little something that started in amsterdam, when we got caught in the rain (and i was walking around all day in soaked shoes). this cold mainly consisted of a cough and stuffy nose, but worse, it made me feel very tired. so, when we decided to go to the louvre, i didnt have the best time. perhaps it was my own attitude which made me not have a good time, but when youre not feeling well, youre not feeling well, and thats it! so i wasnt feeling well, and basically forced myself all around the museum. the place was huge, much too big for me to handle in one day. although i made sure to get in a lot of the sculpture (mostly by french artists, but nonetheless, still great), and most of the paintings. i saw the mona lisa, and a three other great da vinci paintings, including my favorite, the st. john the baptist (which, except for the title, has absolutely no resemblance or context to reveal it as st. john). there were also some neat frescos by botecelli, and two by el greco. i missed the ruebens room because i was too exhausted and tired to go looking for it. so i certainly missed something. (i didnt care about missing the vermeer or other dutch painters since seeing them in amsterdam, and coming to the cconclusion that they are boring, no matter how good craftsmen they were).

after the louvre, which seemed so boring to me (i think that after a month of touring europe and seeing so many museums, besides my feeling under the weather, i also think that we were just all museumed out, and our brains couldnt take in much more art), we went to see a movie. paola wanted to see the ‘skeleton key,’ and yesterday it seemed like it was out, but they change the movies on wednesday, so they no longer had the movie, and we ended up seeing ‘charlie and the chocolate factory.’ we both liked it (it was in english with french subtitles), and it was a good relax from all the walking around anyway. we also decided that we didnt want to stay in paris for an extra day, as we had thought we did (upon coming to a new city, we are always very excited, and think it is the greatest city yet; after being in any of the cities for a few days, we get bored, and want to move on to the next one). so we told our hotel two days in advance.

the next day, and last day in paris, we tried to take very easy. we went to a park called place de vouges, which was neat enough. upon entering, i heard a street violinist playing my favorite piece by bach, the chaccone from violin partita in dm. i later felt bad that i didnt give him any change, nor wait around to hear him play the whole thing. from there we walked to the picasso museum, just to see the outside (remember, i was all museumed out). we then just walked along st germain, got something to eat, and went to sleep.

it was also interesting how we planned our getaway from paris. we had initially wanted to take a train, thinking it would be good rest time, and cheaper than flying. it turns out that by train, it takes about 12 hours to get from paris to barcelona. not worth it. we then went online and bought a cheap (enough) flight ticket for the next day (my time is valuable, after all, and i am willing to pay for it if need be). i was also excited to find a hotel that (according to our travel book) was right in the middle of the hotspot in barcelona with only one day advance notice. being a two star hotel, it was cheap, so that works for me.