(37): Où se trouve le Louvre?

(37) is Friday, 12 February 2010.

I spent a little too much time on Friday getting signed up at the local library. I don't mean for that to sound like the process isn't worth my time-- far from it-- but rather that if

--I show up at 1:15 PM on a Friday...

--I want a hot chocolate...

--I have all the right papers...

--I'm at all intelligent...

then,

--They should open before 2.

--The adjacent restaurant/cafe should serve drinks (instead of just lunch) before 2.

--Signing up with the receptionist lady should have gone just as smoothly as it did.*

--I should have saved myself 20 minutes by finding the Hitchcock DVDs sooner and then realizing before going back down 3 stories that I needed to get the actual discs upstairs.

But the point is, for 20 euros, I have yearlong membership to a library that lets me take out DVDs, books, and other things that will let me write my Hitchcock paper and do other fun academic (or movie-watching-ic) things. The free membership wouldn't have let me take any DVDs out of the building, and that's no fun.

So, after that, I found my way to the Louvre** along with Victoria and Dan (VWPP kids). We spent 3 hours (more or less) wandering the antiquities section. Lots of neat stuff: a mummy, a pillar from the palace of... I don't remember his name (and apparently I'm too lazy to even Google it), but he was the father of Xerxes and he lived a long time ago. There were also some great figurines and miniatures and such. We also found the Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa, Winged Victory (there's a great picture of me and Dan in front of it somewhere on Facebook), and more. Yeah: we kinda' mixed in some more classical European art, too.***

All in all, it was a fantastic afternoon, and I have decided that I will henceforth spend each Friday afternoon at a different museum (or different parts of the big ones like the Louvre). Those of you in a position to join me on such outings, do take note, and tell me where you'd like to visit.

At your own risk, however.

After the Louvre, we went over to Rue Mouffetard and Verre À Pied, the café Rhiannon, Yael, and I found the first day on that wonderful street. We had hot chocolate (delicious, as before), I had the best slice of apple tart I have yet had in Paris, and Victoria and Dan split an also very good crȇme brulée. We sat and chatted for about an hour or so before Dan left for host family dinner and Victoria and I rounded up supplies (like spaghetti, cheese, and cheap but good wine from wine sellers-- not cellars, mind you-- also on the street). Victoria had invited a few other VWPP people over to her host mother's apartment for a pasta dinner later.

That dinner, which didn't properly start until around 10, was great. We had spaghetti and wine, stir-fried broccoli and string beans, and these surprisingly tasty packaged Madeleines (which are lighter, but otherwise taste just like individual pound cakes). It was like we had dinner and French fortune cookies. About six of us just sat and enjoyed a great meal and conversation (both of which we made all by ourselves!) for a couple of hours. This is what young people do, right?

I then got a call from Kirill and Liz, who invited me along to a bar near Chatelet. I decided to say my goodbyes and tag along, but by the time I found this neat little bar (whose address and name I missed), I was more in the mood to catch the last train home.

It's neat to have that option... I would take the Noctilien the next night (also from Chatelet), because I made the decision to stay out late with friends. While my college experience in the states doesn't exclude that choice, it never feels quite as clear when classes are more impending and you're always close enough to where you live to feel that magnetic pull of your bed and the responsibility symbolized by having to get up out of it (also feeling the bed's magnetic pull) the next morning.

Here's my point: one of my favorite days so far in Paris was composed of seeing a museum, conversing with friends, making and sharing a simple dinner at someone's apartment, and going out for as long as I felt like. Paris is where I am learning, if little else, how to be young.

-Andy

-----------------------------------------------------

Footnotes.

* Bet you thought that one was gonna' be a complaint. Didn't 'cha. Yeah. Yeah, you did.

** The title, courtesy of Jenae Cohn, is a tounge-twister, a sentence made more maddening by the fact that it translates simply to "Where's the Louvre?"

*** A warning for my dear readers... Never go to a museum with me. Unless I'm seriously into whatever exhibit (remember, that's exposition) I'm looking at, I will crack jokes-- very few of them funny-- about whatever decides to sit on the wall in front of me. Combined with my relatively quick cruise speed of most museums, I can guarantee you this. Touring a museum in my company will be one of the least satisfying, most obnoxious, and-- except for my rare moments of lucidity before a work I find striking-- intellectually degrading experiences it will ever be your misfortune to endure.