Shake Your Louvre Thang

Moi et mon sandwich

My Paris by Site professor is attending a conference in Los Angeles this week, so I didn't have any class today. My classmate Patrick and I decided to hit up the Louvre. Right when we met there, we decided that we should eat lunch first. We thought we'd have a true Parisian lunch and headed to the markets to get stuff for une pique-nique. We got salami, chorizo, brie, and a baguette to make sandwiches and these delicious little chocolate-covered dried crepe cookie things for our dessert. We took our nourriture and made our sandwiches at The Tuileries Garden, right next to the Louvre. I don't think I'll ever get over how wonderful and fresh the food is here.

After filling our bellies, we were ready for some hardcore art gazing. The Gospel according to Rick (Steeves) recommended an alternate entrance to the Louvre that doesn't have such long lines, so we gladly went there. We got our free student tickets (woop!) and went in. You can imagine my dismay when I brought my big camera all the way to the Louvre then realized I had left my memory card in my laptop. However, the show must go on. We spent a couple of hours in the museum looking at pieces from the Classicism and Neo-Classicism periods. Yes, of course we saw the Mona Lisa. Personally, I don't understand all the fuss. No doubt, it's a great painting, but I don't entirely get all of the hype (and bulletproof glass) surrounding it- there's nothing particularly special about it. I feel like at this point, the Mona Lisa is simply famous for being famous. There were plenty of other pieces of art that I enjoyed more than the Mona Lisa. Once again, Patrick was a wonderful person to have at the museum. His knowledge of art history makes the paintings and sculptures so much more interesting. All of that art wiped us out, so we decided to hit up the McDonald's (yes, they have a McDonald's at the Louvre) to get some ice cream before heading to our respective homestays.

We had quiche for dinner. I lucked out with a madame who is a good cook, just like my real mommy. I'm going to gain so much weight here, because they always offer me seconds on the salad, entree, bread, and dessert. I don't want to be rude, so I always accept, even if I'm full. I know it's not that rude to say no thank you, but I want to show them that I appreciate them cooking for me.

Today is Ash Wednesday, so my host family invited me to go to mass with them. I accepted; I thought it might be interesting to attend a French service. Additionally, I didn't want to deny their invitation and come-off as the antichrist living in their house. I found the French Catholic mass to be a bit more traditional than the American Catholic masses that I'm used to, but that could be attributed to the specific church we were at. Who knows. Their church has a big Portuguese population, so they always have little pamphlets with translations in French and Portuguese. I was happy about that, because my reading skills are much stronger than my listening, so I could understand much more than I would've otherwise been able to.

Affecteusement,

Katie