we tried to go to the musee orsay yesterday, but the louvre was closed. how are those things related, you might ask. and the answer is, when the louvre is closed, everything else in paris is super packed. so we went today. plus, now we have museum passes, which i totally recommend, as you get to SKIP THE LINES!!
i kind of want this bag, but not enough to pay 255 euros for it. i am the cowgirl, obviously.
GUESS WHAT??? you can't take pictures at the musee orsay this year. it might be because it's being renovated, which was a bummer too (more on that later.) LUCKILY, when we were here on our honeymoon, we took lots of photos, which i share with you now. please keep in mind-- these photos are from almost 2 years ago. and i don't remember names/artists all the time.
oh come on, like you're researching art history on this blog! actually, let me clear: if you're researching for art history on this blog, you're going to fail your paper.
starry night. bad photo. great painting.
van gogh (why are the best van goghs at the musee orsay and not at the van gogh museum? we'll never know...)
ryan loveslovesloves this painting. we broke the rules to bring you this:
that was a sneaky "oh, la la, i'm texting on my phone, la di da... CLICK!" and then you run away. works like a charm. (but i didn't want to risk it for photos we already had...)
whistler's mama.
view from the top of the museum, which was closed this time, so i'll show you what it looked like then.
i don't remember the name of this sculpture, nor who sculpted it. but i do remember that when it came out, people thought the artist didn't sculpt this; that in fact, he made a cast of a woman's body and then copied it. but no. he really carved it, ol' whats-his-name...
maybe she should see someone about that...
this is my favorite painting: le cirque, by georges seurat. it's in the pointillism style, which means it's made of tiny dots of color. here's what makes this my favorite: there are only 5 colors of dots: red, blue, yellow, black and white. you can't really see how cool it is in this photo. AND I DIDN'T GET TO SEE HOW COOL IT WAS EITHER!!! it's hiding during renovation! so sad!
she's a total monet!
love degas!
(obviously...)
i love this. look at her hair!
then we had lunch in the little cafe downstairs.
i had yogurt. i hate my stomach right now.
this is for tourists, so they know where to go. how could i tell it was for tourists? um, well....
is it? is it really?
notre dame! we actually made it inside this time! thanks, museum pass! (me and my camera aren't really super tight yet. these photos are the best i could show.)
that's the organ. i know-- it's blurry. just trust me.
see? i went into notre dame, and it didn't burn down. my mom will be so proud.
that's the rose window. that's original medieval glass. i don't recommend playing baseball anywhere near here.
some candles we lit for my dad and nana jeri.
see that guy holding his head under his arm? that's st. denis, an early bishop of paris. when the roman cut off his head because he was christian, he just scooped it up, washed it off in a fountain, and kept walking till he found the right place to lie down and meet his maker.
facade in front.
we had to wait in line for the tower, even with passes, because they only let 20 people up every 10 minutes. i actually was fine. the woman in front of me was super entertaining, because she wrote, in english, in her notebook about how pissed she was at all the tourists around her. and i totally read every word over her shoulder. hilarious. i didn't take a photo though. i'm not that rude.
climbing, and climbing, and climbing...
i think i'm trying to look scared? anyway. we're still climbing.
some pigeons, you know.
made it! not quite to the top yet, though.
ryan is a little scared. he is a little (really) scared of heights, even though he is taller than everyone else, so he's already at higher heights. i guess it's not so much how far your head is from the ground as how far your feet are from the ground.
(incidentally, one of the things i love about ryan is how often he forgets this fear. so, while he had to convince me to climb christopher wren's monument on our honeymoon in london, as soon as we got to the top? he was too scared to get a good look. silly)
most famous gargoyle in paris. don't you stick your tongue out at me, sonny!
sacre coeur. we're going this time!
some canadian kids took our photo. and we bonded over the weird guy to the left who tried to photobomb us, and then them, when we took their photo. this connection would help me later...
now we're at the very top, and ryan's very scared.
that's the highest heights. and i kept singing "you and i", especially the part about making everybody look like ants. (if you click that link, you can hear it).
this is the best picture i took. and it should have been, because while i was taking it, i didn't realize there were about, oh, 18 people trying to get around me. sorry, strangers. but it was worth it. if only it weren't so smoggy.
my verdict on notre dame. (this will briefly change in a minute, but just briefly.)
that triangle down there is the memorial des martyrs de la deportation. we went there on our honeymoon. i tried to go there after we finished, but it was closed.
SO! here's the story about making friends with the canadian kids, and why it mattered. you can only stay at the very top of notre dame for 5-6 minutes. then you all go down, and the next group goes up. cross traffic on spiral staircases doesn't make for very smooth climbs. but the man down there started letting people up as we all started down, so there was this huge clusterf**k by the stairs, as people came back up, so they could let the climbers get up, and then we would all climb down.
so the crowd (which is now double the number of people the sign says are allowed) starts pushing, and i start getting pushed back... and back... and i'm okay, it's fine, i get it, there's some nonsense happening, no problem. but they kept pushing. and i couldn't get out. and finally i was literally trapped up against that railing, and they kept pushing, and i started to think i was for sure going to die, either by suffocation or falling off notre dame.
luckily, though ryan had been moved about 20 feet away, there was a canadian near me. i grabbed his arm. "YOU HAVE TO LET ME BY. RIGHT NOW!" and he did. and then it was fine. i don't get claustrophobic often. notre dame wasn't really my choice for that to happen. ah well. c'est la vie.
then we had ice cream at berthillion, only i had sorbet, because dairy is not my friend right now. i looked up how to say, "excuse me, can you tell me where i can find berthillion?" and practiced and practiced. so when i asked the crepe maker, he must have thought it sounded right because he gave me directions in french. i'm sticking to the old, "parlez- vous anglais?" from now on. way easier.
loooong line.
cerise and framboise for me, chocolate noir for my sweet.
then we walked back to our hotel, passing these:
and then we went into a little french pet shop (yup, they are sad in france too), and saw these kitties.
awww, so cute!
oh. and also they're cheap. only 1350 euros.
he's persian and pricy too.
that's a scottish fold. i assume it's because his ears fold over, but i'm not in the cat naming business, so i couldn't say.
he's a bargain.
we had dinner at auberge du clou, which i recommend highly. it's not too expensive, the waiters are really nice, and the food's yummy.
this was mine. i ate some of it. most. it was my first real meal here.
and then there was mille-feuille... i thought i could, but it turned out 2 bites was plenty. curse you, stomach. we walked 10.6 miles today!
this tea looked like a pretty present, and tasted like gummy bears. it was delicious.
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