Yikes, I’m a little late with my blog!  Well, that just means ya’ll will get several this week.  Aren’t you guys lucky?! 

So, this weekend was very productive in terms of seeing things before I leave Paris in a week.  Wow, time has flown! 

Friday morning I returned to the Louvre and explored the Sully wing.  It took me about 3 � hours, but I got to see everything in every room on all levels in that wing.  This is my plan until I leave and I have about 3 more visits and I’ll have seen every room, including the Renaissance exhibit that is happening now.  They even have a Lady Gaga exhibit in one of the rooms!  What the heck!?  The pictures below are from that visit.

This is what is left of the original Louvre, which was built as a fortress.  Where the wooden walkway is now used to be the bottom of a moat and all the rest that you see here would have been underwater.

On this stone, you can see the mark that the worker who cut and placed the stone left.  At that time, workers were paid by the piece, so each worker carved his mark into the stone so the overseers knew how much to pay each one.

This is what is left of the dungeon.  It is all filled in now, but it was located in the center of the courtyard of the fortress.  Today it is under the courtyard where the glass pyramid is.

After the Louvre, I met some friends and we went to the Arc de Triomphe de l’Etoile.  Just think, after only 268 steps, you’re at the top!  I know, I counted.  And wouldn’t you know, when we got to the top, it began to rain, but these pictures still came out pretty well.   �toile in French means star and as you can see by the pictures, all of the roads radiate away from the Arc like a star.   Inside the Arc, just below the roof level, is an interactive display that has mapped out all of the triumphal arcs across the world.  You tap the icon in the country that you want to see and it brings up a picture of that Arc and a brief history of it.  Very cool!

I got up early on Sunday and went to the Musee l’Orangerie, which is inside the Tuileries gardens.  On Sundays, entry into all municipal museums in Paris is free, so they are usually very crowded.  I got there about � hour after it opened and the line was already about 100 feet long.  Luckily, I was inside in about ten minutes.  Say what you may about the French, they know how to keep a line moving.  Anyway, the whole purpose to going there was to see the two rooms of wall to wall Water Lilies paintings by Monet, and it does not disappoint!  Speechless is all I can say!  They don’t allow pictures inside the museum at all, but you can google some images of the museum and see some photos of these rooms.  I stood in the middle and very slowly turned 360 degrees.  Of course, I did several revolutions in each room for several minutes because it was simply amazing.

This week will be busy with more tests and papers due, but it is becoming more of a preparation for our final exams.  Yay!  Yes, that was sarcasm.  Good gosh, how the French love to have students write papers.  Some professors pile on the homework, tests and essays, while others don’t assign anything for homework; a mid-term, a final exam and one long paper and that’s it.  Quite the disparity there. 

Well, I will be posting again in a few days, so I will sign off for now!  Lots of homework, but tomorrow is our last day of classes!  Wooo Hooo!

Mary

Location: Paris, France