Paris: Part Five which is part one of the Louvre (confused yet?)

Yuan set his alarm to go off at six so he could shower. Mike set his alarm to go off at seven so he could wake up Courtney and get ready. The plan was that I would get up after Yuan’s shower and shower myself before Mike or Courtney were up and needed the shower. Now, the thing about Paris that is strange is that its time is an hour different from the time in England. You would think they’d be in the same time zone, but then, nope. Yuan, while aware of this time switch, had forgotten to change his clock alarm to accommodate the new hour. As such, I was awoken on Saturday morning by the cacophony of both Yuan and Mike’s alarms going off simultaneously at the French 7am.

I immediately jetted into the shower to get ready since we had now lost an hour (but, happily, gained an hour’s sleep and giving us a grand total of four). By 8:30 we were all out of bed, relatively cognizant of our surroundings and eating a quiet breakfast in the hotel’s dining room. It was a classic French breakfast of baguettes, croissants, jam, butter, orange juice and hot chocolate (or café, as Mike and Courtney had). It wasn’t very invigorating but it tasted good. Still rather sleepy, we set off for the Metro to get to the Louvre. After completely giving up on the whole thing the day before, Mike had decided perhaps it was just best to go and wait in line and buy the tickets at the Louvre when we wanted to go. I agreed simply because going through the pyramid is something not to be missed, especially for Courtney’s first time.

We arrived outside the Louvre by a little after nine and headed through the courtyards towards the pyramid. It was still a bit chilly from the night before but the sun was already up and the Louvre would have to try really hard to look bad. We got into the relatively short security line and snapped some shots of us with the pyramid or with the fountains. The lines moved very quickly and it was only about fifteen minutes later that we found ourselves proud possessors of four maps and four reasonably priced Louvre tickets.

The Mike/Courtney/Yuan theory of Louvre-seeing is quite different from my theory of Louvre-seeing. The Mike/Courtney/Yuan Theory (hereafter the MCY Theory) involves doing that which tourists do and seeing all the things the Louvre map tells you that you absolutely must see. Highlights of the MCY Theory include the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Since I had already had the happy experience of doing the Louvre in the style to which I am accustomed and had already started to relish in just being a tourist, I agreeably went along with the MCY Theory and we started off to find the Mona Lisa.

We passed by the Winged Victory of Samothrace on our way to the room where the Mona Lisa is now housed. I personally adore the Winged Victory. I don’t really understand who chooses that the “really good art” is the Winged Victory, Venus and the Mona Lisa, but they certainly knew what they were talking about when it comes to the Winged Victory. The carving is amazing and her position looks exhilarating. You can almost feel the rush of the wind pushing her tunic close to her skin. I love it.

We then entered the Italian paintings hall. We were almost to the Mona Lisa room (yes, she now has her own room) when I turned to look at a painting on my left. Mike, Courtney and Yuan were right next to me. When I turned back to find them and enter the Mona Lisa room, I was alone. Crowds ebbed around me, but no face was familiar. I couldn’t believe it. We hadn’t been in the Louvre half an hour and I had already been lost. I was lost in the Louvre. It was not a good feeling. The Louvre is enormous, they would never find me again. We would never meet up again for the whole day, I would have to go back to the hotel and just wait at some point. I acutely felt the downside of not having a cell phone for probably the first time since arriving in Europe. We had absolutely no way of contacting each other or finding each other once detached.

Feeling rather unloved, I wandered around trying to think where they could have gone. I was in the Mona Lisa room for about ten minutes, assuming they had come in and had to be around somewhere. I stayed in the vicinity of the place where I had last seen them and hoped they would come back since it was also presumably the last place they had seen me. After a bit, I just gave up and sat myself down on a round plush sofa to wait for them. I flipped idly through my map, thinking about the places I’d like to see. The Mona Lisa was exactly the way I’d pictured her. Most people say she’s a disappointment and that they expected her to be bigger or somehow more impressive, but not me. She was exactly the size I was expecting. It’s a fine painting, it wasn’t outstanding to me. Perhaps it was because my expectations were so mediocre that I wasn’t let-down. The way her eyes follow you, however, was quite the accomplishment in terms of Da Vinci’s painting ability. One wonders if he meant to do that or it just sort of happened. It probably just sort of happened; the man was a genius.

Thinking these thoughts and looking at my map, I kept looking up and around. It must have been very obvious to anyone watching that I was waiting for someone. After a bit, I looked up randomly and there they were! All three of them! Giddy and mildly annoyed at my abandonment, I rushed over to them. I was greeted with distinct unconcern for my well-being. They figured I would be around here somewhere so hadn’t been too worried. I rolled my eyes and rejoined the group, just happy to be with them again. As it turned out, they hadn’t seen the Mona Lisa yet at all (so much for my waiting in there for ten minutes) so we went in again.

After the Mona Lisa, we wandered into the Large-Format French Paintings hall. Courtney and I plunked down on another bench for a seat and Mike and Yuan headed off to find a bathroom. After a bit, Mike returned. “Where’s Yuan?” he immediately asked us. Puzzled, we replied that we thought he was with Mike himself. Come to find out that Mike had waited by the bathrooms for ten minutes but there was no sign of Yuan so he had come back to us since he assumed Yuan had returned. No such luck. So we had lost Yuan. This was to happen many times, so many times that we joked around that we need some kind of “Oh no we lost Yuan” hand gesture to use in quiet places or across rooms.

Mike informed us that there was a good sketches exhibit near the bathroom and said he would wait in the French paintings room for Yuan if we wanted to go check it out. We did and set off. The sketches were completely wonderful and by far my favorite part of the whole Louvre experience. It was a special exhibit in a temporary hall, so it was doubly special. It was sketches made by a man named Hubert Robert primarily of landscapes but with little bits of people in them. They had wonderful movement and personality and we all loved them. As Courtney and I wandered among the sketches, Yuan suddenly appeared. “Yuan?!” you might well be asking. Yes, indeed. We still to this day have no idea where he went or how he ended up in the Hubert Robert exhibit, but there he was. We immediately sent him back to the French painting hall to fetch Mike and told him to come directly back with Mike and not to lose himself or Mike along the way.

They both successfully reappeared a few minutes later and we all finished up looking at the exhibit. At this point things get blurry in my mind. At some point we went back to finish looking at the French paintings hall, lost Yuan again and then ended up seeing the Venus de Milo, Greek statues and then meeting up with Yuan again at noon at the Winged Victory of Samothrace. I think it was after that that we decided lunch was in order since breakfast had been so unfulfilling. So we decided to check out the Café Mollien located at the opposite end of the French paintings hall since it was probably cheaper than the museum restaurant. We once again traversed the French paintings hall (one painting of Napoleon haunted me particularly) and got in line at the Café Mollien. As we moved up in the line, we suddenly realized that the line stretched out onto the outdoor balcony. We were going to be eating on the balcony of the Louvre, overlooking the pyramid and the Tuileries. Understandable giddiness ensued. It was like some supreme power felt genuinely bad about everything going wrong the day before and was hell-bent on making it up to us.

Lunch was quite good. We all had chicken salad sandwiches on baguettes and I got to order for everyone. Throughout ordering and conversing with the waiter in French, Mike was looking at me a little strangely, sort of bemusedly. When the waiter finally left, he grinned and said, “It’s really very cute when you do that, when you speak in French. You have a cute accent.” I nearly swooned on the spot but managed to just thank him and turn a little red. I internally vowed to speak more French when at all possible.