Paris on a Wednesday

It was really late last night when Nyree and I got home so I didn’t have a chance to write a blog post.

We went to 3 different museums yesterday and all were incredible. We finished the night with a visit to one of Nyree’s friends that lives in the city. It was a good time and really capped off a whirlwind day.

We started in the Rodin Museum. It was once a house for his mistress and in the garden there were many of his sculptures. The 2 he is most famous for are “The Kiss” and “The Thinker”. Both were there and it was amazing to see them in person. You always seem to read about or see pictures of these things but to see them in person is amazing. The interesting thing about Rodin’s’ work was how he would put such detail and “flair” in his busts of people. There was a couple that were TOO close to real.

The other thing about his work was how he seemed to finish BIG or not completely finish. As if to say that the work was going to meet the standards or was pretty enough the way it was. As if it was coming out of the rock like smoke from the water. Either way it is impressive how smooth and detailed he could work the stone.

The next museum was L’Orangerie. It housed mostly impressionist paintings. The best part was on the second floor there were two oval rooms. Not that the rooms weren’t impressive enough, but they had the “Water Lilies” By Monet. It took the guy 30 years!!! to complete the work. It was his masterpiece and it is awe inspiring. He painted it of a pond near one of his homes and showed the different times of day in each of the paintings. You sit in the middle of this big beautiful oval white room and soak in this splash of rich colors. You can almost hear the birds, the ripple of water as a fish breaks the surface, and feel the cold of the marble bench you sit on basking under the soft spring day. OK enough of that.

There wasn’t much other to speak of in that museum so we moved on to the granddaddy of them all.

The Louvre.

The Louvre is immense. It was huge. Like…….ok really big. Inside we decided to hit mostly highlights. We went straight for the Mona Lisa and saw that slight little smile. It is beautiful and sublime. The thing that stands out the most is how small it is compared to the other portraits and paintings it is hung next too. In the same room is “The Wedding Party” which is MASSIVE. The other thing is how you can go right up to other paintings but can only get as close as 30’ or so to the Mona Lisa. Very disappointing. It is also covered in a glass case of sorts. Understandable but makes for bad pictures. Oh Well. I saw it first hand so there!

We moved on the Venus de Milo. It was stunning and almost glowing in its light. With it being snow white marble, this is not a stretch to pull off I am sure. As I stood there in awe a thought struck me. What if this was, in it’s time, a simple little statue posted in a random place without much pomp and circumstance surrounding it. Like it was posted outside a bath house, and the arms (now gone) were outstretched holding towels for the guests. What a bit of irony that would be.

The next stop was the coronation crown of Louis the XVI. On the whole they were terribly UNimpressive and ugly. To think that in a country where fashion is fore front, you would end up with those hideous things. I also got a few pics of other items in the room.
It was starting to get kinda late so we skipped the rest of the museum.

After a walkover one of Nyree’s favorite bridges, we made our way to Xander’s house for a late dinner. The dinner was good and the company was great. We met Xander’s girlfriend named Pascal. She is also the one that set us up with her dentist to deal with my tooth situation. That is going well now by the way.

After a good dinner and bad alcohol (by design), we decided to call it a night and headed home. We stumbled into the house and right into bed. After all, tomorrow is Versailles!!