The Louvre 5/23/08

In the morning I got up and took the metro down to the park area around the Louvre. It was friday so it was free tonight after 6pm for students under 26. This being the case, I decided that this was going to be the day I spent at the Louvre. However, It wasn't free till 6, so I still had a bunch of time to hang out in the city. I walked through the park, and made my way up towards the Arc du Triomphe.

The Louvre and the famous Arch are connected by a giant pedestrian street which goes right through the center of the city. It takes forever to walk it, but it's certainly worth the walk if you've got the time. Along the first stretch of it is just a dirt path, through parks, gardens, and fountains. Every couple of meters, it seems, there are gelato and crepe stands. There's no shortage of people walking their dogs, jogging, letting their kids play at the swing sets and just pain old walking just to walk. The mood of the day was peaceful. The sun was rearing through strategically placed clouds, and a gentle brease was cooling as I walked. I stopped often, to sit down on a bench in the shade of the trees and check my map for things I still wanted to do. I felt I'd mostly done (or was already planning to do today) what I'd wanted to do in Paris. So it seemed I had the privilege just to walk.

When the dirt path ends, it turns back into a street, but a huge bustling one. This is what seems to be the main street of Paris. Several lanes of cars fill up the center with walkways on either side, lined with shops and cafes of all sorts. I stopped for a crepe at a stand somewhere around this are (because I'm addicted to them now) and scoped out the merchandise set up in the windows of the shops. As I looked on ahead to see the Arch in the distance, I was reminded of the old WW2 photos of thousands of Hitler's stormtroopers parading down the very street I was looking at, after they'd conquered Paris. Back then, the Arch was draped with a Nazi Banner, which must have been just absolutely enormous. In the pictures, it looked like the Arch of Constantine, and this Arch were about the same size. However, this Arch in actuality is several time larger. There's an area where you can go up on top of the Arch and get an awesome panoramic view of the city. Looking at the people up there standing at the top, they looked like tiny ants. Just the presence of the Arch was astounding, and it was placed like an art exhibit, in the center of I don't know how many lanes of a giant roundabout.

I wanted to go up and walk under the Arch, but I couldn't seem to find a way over. It seemed secluded out there in the middle of a sea of passing cars. I didn't see any sort of bridge or crosswalk. How did all those other people get over there? Maybe you just have to go out and sort of "frogger" your way over, but I looked at the road in the roundabout several lanes deep, and I didn't see anyone else trying to get over there that way. I finally noticed, on the other side, there were people coming out of what seemed to be a metro exit. I looked around, and noticed that there were several metro exits lined up all around outside the Arch. "That must be it!" I thought, so I walked down into one of the stations. Once inside, I looked for any sort of clue, or sign pointing to the Arch, but couldn't see anything like that right off the bat, so I chose a tunnel in the supposed direction of the Arch and followed it. Underneath the earth, I wandered through tunnels for what seemed like days, and still had gotten no closer to the Arch. Everytime I poked my head out of a new exit, I just ended up on another side of the same outside circle I was in. I felt like a mouse in a maze, looking desperately for the cheese, but failing miserably. I kept on until I'd gone through and out of every combination of tunnels down there. Finally, at the surface after I'd finished exiting my last tunnel, I saw a separate entrance off to the side, pointing towards the Arch and saying: Arc du Triomphe. "Well that's probably it," I said to myself. I felt a little silly for going through all the trouble of the mazes, when it was just right here the whole time. I entered the underground entrance, and walked through the massive hallway, but was stopped midway through by a line of people. I looked over top of people's heads and saw a ticket booth at the front. Evidently, you have to pay an entrance fee, and wait in a big line just to get up to that little island and walk around. I just wanted to wander around the Arch a bit, but it wasn't worth an entrance fee to me, so I just passed by and came back up through the other side. I looked back one last time to see if I was making the right choice, or if this was one of those things you just have to do when visiting Paris. Then I looked up at the people hanging out on the island. They didn't really look like they were having all that much fun. In fact, they looked a little like prisoners trapped out there trying to make the most of the money they spent trying to get there. It didn't feel like something I really wanted to do all that badly, so I moved on.

I headed down in the direction towards the Eiffel Tower. I'd seen it already on my first day here, but my mind was as much on the tower as it was trying to figure out where I was going to stay. Upon reaching the Eiffel Tower this time, I made sure to hang around and look at it from all different angles. It really is a beautiful structure. It's one of those things you can't believe you're actually standing next to. I felt that way with the Pyramids of Egypt and The Roman Colosseum. There was also, right below it, a ticket booth where you could pay to take a lift up to the top. I really probably would have payed the money to do that (I get a discount anyway because of my student I'd card), but the line was unbelievable. It was twisted all the way around the Tower and then some. It was like, "is it worth it to wait here in line all the rest of the day, or do I just forget about it." Honestly, if one of my life goals was to sit at the top of the Eiffel Tower, I probably would have spent a day waiting in line. However, I really wasn't all that excited about it. There's much more I'd rather see and do in Paris than waste a day standing it line to take an elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I continued walking.

As I was crossing the street, a little boy stumbled over someone's wedding ring on the ground. He picked it up and showed it to me, asking if it was mine. I said no, and we looked around to see who's it might be. No one was really around, who seemed like they may have dropped a ring. The kid shrugged, and then dropped the ring in my hand, "good luck to you," he said. I stood there with my palm open, and the ring sitting in the center. I didn't know what to do with it, and I didn't want to take it. The little boy, before he left, turned around and pointed to my pocket, and then touched his mouth asking for food. I was still standing with the ring in the center of my palm, dividing a glance between it and the little boy. Something seemed very wrong, but I couldn't figure it out. Finally, backing out of the whole situation, I opened the little boy's palm, placed the ring in it and closed his fist. "Here, sell that." I walked away wondering where the hell I got the nerve to say something like that. That was pretty cold of me, but I tried to figure out what I could have done as an alternative and nothing came to mind. It wasn't as if I could go on searching for the owner of the ring, and from experience I know that pulling out my own money to pay a beggar in a big city is just a bad idea. Sometimes it's the kids who call in the most trouble when they find out someone has cash in their pockets. Still, I felt weird about brushing a little kid aside, and sticking him with a stolen ring. I thought about it and debated going back until all of the sudden a man stumbled over something in front of me. "Is this yours?" He held a gold ring in the palm of his hand. I stared as him with a confused look, and slowly turned my head to one side. "Well good luck to you," he said as he offered me the ring. This was all vaguely familiar, and immediately my hands shot into my pockets. "No, no no" I said as I backed away, and just kept on walking. I checked the contents of my pockets to make sure everything was accounted for, and it was. "I don't get it," I thought to myself. It was apparently a scam, but how does it work? They didn't touch me. I totally fell for that little kid's act, but nothing in my pockets is missing. What happens if I take the ring? See, I would think that the ring is a distraction, so that while you're fixated figuring out what to do with it, they go through your pockets. However, nothing was taken, and the little boy never even came within pick pocketing distance. Maybe I was lucky and the kid screwed up, and forgot to close the deal while my head was turned. That's a pick pocketing technique I hadn't come across yet. However, in the course of the next 5 minutes, I saw it done 3 times.

I passed this poor tourist woman who was sitting there as I was just a couple minutes before with a gold ring in her hand, and a bewildered look on her face. The man was trying to persuade her to take it, and bless her heart, she was trying to figure out who dropped it. I stopped a little ways off, and watched the man's hands carefully, looking for a moment when he'd make the pick up. He didn't seem to do anything, but then I'm sure he realized I was watching him, and was waiting for me to leave. Instead, I walked around the other side of him so that his back was to me, and I could see the woman's face over the man's shoulder. I signaled to the woman with my face to look over here. I shook my head, and motioned for her to get out of there. With my lips, I mouthed "It's a scam," and cocked my head for her to leave now. When the man looked over at me, I stood silent. I could see he was now getting distracted with me standing there, and the lady began to notice it too. She handed him back the ring, told him no, and walked away. When he saw that she left, the man looked over to me. I gave a small shrug and began walking away too. I kept an eye over my shoulder though, because I'm not always sure what kind of fire I'm playing with.

I walked on, following the river back toward the Louvre, but on the opposite side. I remembered Carolyn had talked about the Pantheon being a pretty cool and interesting site. Apparently that's where Victor Hugo was buried, as well as several other famous french men. It was off in the direction I was headed, so I figured that might be a cool place to go. It was a lot longer a walk than I anticipated, and I got lost once or twice. However, I love getting lost in Saint Michel. There are so many cool little things in that part of town. It's truly the hidden jewel of Paris. Once I finally made it to The Pantheon, I knew it right away. Whenever you find a huge historical structure, you can usually tell. It just stands out completely from everything else. Apart from being another massive structure, the Pantheon in Paris is also extremely beautiful. However, it doesn't so much look like something that should be in Paris, but Washington DC. It's got that whole Romanesque, capital-city sort of look. Unless I'm mistaken, it also looks very similar to our House of Representatives. Maybe ours was designed after theirs. I unfortunately didn't get to go inside, because it was closed by the time I got there, but I walked around it, and saw it from the outside. I wasn't really all that bummed for not being able to see the inside though, because by this point, I kinda feel like I could guess what it might look like inside.

By this point it was well after 6pm, so I made my way back across the river to the Louvre. Not really knowing what the rules were on the free entrance thing, I just held up my student I.D. card and walked through waiting for them to stop me if I did something wrong, but no one did, and I just walked through the entrance to the exhibits. Once inside, I didn't know where to begin. I've been told there are so many exhibits inside this museum that it would take years to see everything. I didn't have years, so I walked through, not wasting time with things that didn't so much catch my attention, or that I'd seen at other museums. I walked through the exhibit they have of the history of the Louvre, which is quite interesting, and they still have the intact base of the original medieval building. Afterwards, I did the Egyptian exhibit (which I mostly breezed right through having been to the Cairo Museum), the art exhibit, and then finally the sculptures. In each exhibit, fearing I might not have the time, I first raced over to the thing I most had to see (I.e. The Mona Lisa, and Venus de Milo), and then leisurely wandered through the rest of it. The Mona Lisa was really hard to find. It's buried in maze after maze of exhibition. It's not put out there right in front like I figured it'd be. I guess they want to encourage you to look through some of the other paintings rather than just running right toward that one, and then leaving. However, once you do find that particular spot, you definitely know you're in the right place. Hundreds of people, it seems, are packed into one tiny exhibition, crowding around the one painting which looks quite small on the full wall that's dedicated to it. Around is a huge glass casing, a roped off section, and a full time guard staff. At the divide, people are clamoring to get to the front, and pictures are being taken from every direction. None of the other paintings in the entire Museum seem to have so much attention as this very humble portrait of some lady. It is, exactly how it looks in every photo, and poster, and advertisement. It's funny because I guess I expected it to look somehow different. It could be just a photo copy from the internet, and It would look just the same. They wouldn't let anyone close enough to see brush strokes, or imperfections. From where I was standing, viewing it from behind glass, it was The Mona Lisa, and looked like I suppose it should. Something I noted when staring at this Masterpiece which holds so much controversy was that when taken in context, it didn't look really any different from anything else which was hanging in that room. In fact, I wouldn't have picked that as my favorite. I probably would have just passed it by. I suppose it's really more the man who painted it, who holds so much appeal. Or perhaps it's the famous enigmatic smile, which I have to agree with Eddie Izzard, really looks quite glum. I guess I'm no art critic. There's, I'm sure a lot of backstory, and symbolism, and of course the question of "what's her special secret that she smiles about?" It was really nice to see the Mona Lisa though, because now I can say that I have. Although as far as DaVinci goes, I think I found more value in walking his tuscan forest.

The Venus de Milo is definitely beautiful. I don't know why I thought she was just sculpted without arms for some reason, but apparently she did once have arms and they were broken off. This is why we're not sure whether it's a sculptor of Venus, or some goddess of the sea. Supposedly whatever she was holding in her arms would have decided that. Again, it was really interesting to see this famous work of art right there in person. However, also again, had it not been famous I probably would have passed right by. I found a lot of cool things in the Michaelangelo area though. I really like Michaelangelo, so far he's my favorite sculpture. He captures actions, and emotions in his sculptures that I think no one else does. You can begin to make character judgements about the figures he sculpted. They look like they have intentions, and thoughts, rather than just glossed over eyes and deadpan faces. Like real life, rather than cold stone.

I wandered around in the Louvre, as I've done in most great museums, until it closed. When it did, I was ushered out by the staff, and just across the way, I sat at a cafe drinking (super expensive, but genuinely french) Perrier, as I watched the sun go down.
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