I was crabby at the Louvre

The Grand Museum is gigantic and that's because it was a palace once, home to the Kings and Queens of France. It began as a fortress but was expanded and modified into its present state until Louis XIV decided that Paris smelled too much like a sewer in the summer time and built up Versailles instead. The Louvre then became a location used primarily to exhibit art...which it still does today. There are nearly 35,000 objets d'art displayed over 652,300 square feet. You definitely can not see everything in a few hours (not even a few days), but we did our best.
Did I mention that I was crabby at the Musee de Louvre? Correct that to ragingly PMS onry...we'd walked miles and I had cramps so heaven had to be prepared to help anyone who looked at me cross-eyed cuz that was reason enough for me to chew them up and spit them out. So, to spare everyone the dubious honor of my company, I walked the Louvre alone and now that makes me sad because I saw beautiful things all by myself. It was probably better for everyone, but still...sniff! Well, if there is one thing that is a cure for PMS it is corridor after corridor of exquisite statuary. I did go into the hall of Italian masters and see the Mona Lisa (no big) but other than that I looked at statues to my heart's content. They were so beautiful! Here are a few things that I saw in the first statuary hall:
After I had walked around a bit I stumbled upon something that thrilled me to the bone:
The Winged Victory of Samothrace is a statue of Nike, built around 190 BC. The interesting cement base she stands on is not part of the original statue. If you had been at her unveiling 2,200 years ago, you would have seen her alighting on the deck of a ship, as the statue was commissioned by the people of Rhodes to celebrate a naval victory. This beautiful statue of Nike was almost destroyed by an earthquake and was found in pieces by a French vice-consul in 1863. The right wing is actually a plaster copy of the left, and her arms and head are gone. Her right hand, however, was found in 1950, and the way it was carved gives researchers clues as to the statue's original look: they believe she had at least one hand raised in blessing, bringing with her the favor of the gods. I stood and soaked it all in, what an amazing piece of art!

After I had reached the end of the first statuary hall, I felt obliged to go see the Mona Lisa. I made my way to the hall of Italian masters and admired the paintings. Most of them were focused on Biblical themes (I've never seen so many depictions of John the Baptist, but they were mostly gory, head-on-a-platter scenes) the favorite motiff being Mary and baby Jesus. You'll see what I mean.

Mary and Jesus.

Mary and Jesus, Elizabeth and John.

Mary and Jesus - nativity scene.

Mary and Jesus.

And just to change things up a bit, here is a depiction of the annunciation. The angel Gabriel is greeting Mary and the Holy Ghost flies overhead in the form of a dove.

All the paintings were so rich and vibrant in color, really amazing! I tried to get a close-up of one figure, a small child with tears in his eyes. The tears were so realistic looking, almost as if I could wipe them from the child's eyes, but my crappy camera hardly did it justice. I was so excited that we could take pictures of the Louvre art, but there was, of course, a "no flash" request. I scrupulously obeyed that rule (even deleting the one picture I took by accident with the flash on) so it was really annoying to see flash bulbs popping all over place. It made me want to kick people, which actually could have happened if my PMS had been any worse. The flash photography idiots were especially bad in the Mona Lisa's room. My picture of the famous painting was pretty bad, so I am posting Sandra's instead (complete with Sandra!).

What is up with the chick giving Sandra the stink-eye?

I had done my due diligence with the paintings, so now it was back to the statues! My inadvertent discovery of Winged Victory helped in the decision to more closely examine my museum map. I had given up on it because it was all in French and trying to decipher the language was giving me a headache, but who knew what other amazing works of art there were to see? I didn't want to find out later that I had missed something neat, so I carefully examined the French words and saw La Venus de Milo. I stood for a minute staring at the words...was the Venus de Milo really in the Louvre? Wasn't it in Greece on some mountain top or in Italy somewhere alongside Michaelanglo's David? I hadn't spent the weeks prior to my trip reading up on the venues we were going to visit, I had been making freezer dinners and scrubbing every inch of my house. I could hardly believe I would have the chance to see such an icon. I carefully traced out my route on the map and then started speed walking toward my goal. Pretty soon I started to see little pictures of the statue with arrows pointing me in the right direction. I turned a corner and found her, all by herself, in a beautifully lit hall.
I felt like crap, I missed my husband and my kids, I was tired, my feet were sore, I had been cross with my family, I'd hardly had two minutes to myself before running away in the museum, and I was hungry too, but standing in front of the Venus de Milo something happened that I probably won't be able to explain, but I'll try. There was hardly anyone there, not like the horde that surrounded the inexplicably popular Mona Lisa, and it was quiet and peaceful. In the presence of something so sublime the weight on my chest lifted, I took a deep breath and breathed in beauty...that breath tingled all the way down my lungs and filled me with warmth. It lodged itself into my heart, turning around and stretching like a cat until it found a comfortable spot, and I felt different; changed by my encounter with a touch of heaven on earth. I am absolutely convinced that the Venus de Milo was divinely inspired, the unknown artist's hands guided and blessed, the statue itself protected from harm (except for those missing arms, and who knows if we'd like it better with them), and now it stands to breathe life into all come to see it. I didn't want to leave.
After finally discarding my seriously considered idea of pitching a tent at the base of the Venus de Milo and living there forever, I went to see more statues. Based on my sketchy French, I had deduced two things; Cupid and Pysche were nearby and there were some honest-to-heaven Michelangelo statues somewhere in the statuary hall. The hunt was on.
It is still a marvel to me to think that I saw all of these things...cuz I'm a home-body from a small town. Here are a few more and then I'll have to stop because this could go on forever!

The Louvre is a magical, beautiful place. It can change you.

I'm Too Sexy For My PJ's!

This is what happens when we let our 4 year old pick out her own clothes. It's a good thing her everyday clothes aren't as bright and interesting as her pajamas or we'd be in real trouble. As it is she insists on wearing one pink sock and one blue sock and dressing in shades of pink that don't quite match. Grace is so awesome!

Snow Day

It snowed today, which put me in mind of pictures I took when it last snowed and we had a snowball fight and made a snow man and Merritt made snow angels (but I did not because I have no snow pants and wet jeans are the worst). I should have taken a picture of the back side of our snow man because Grant kept patting snow on and it had the biggest snow booty in the history of snowmen! In honor of our snow today I will post those pictures, which got muscled out of the way by my need to post about my trip to France. Back to that later, but for now...enjoy the snow!

That's good, cold fun!

Paris isn't for lovers...the Eiffel Tower is!!!

People say that Paris is for lovers. They say that, but I don't agree. I didn't see couples strolling hand in hand along the Seine. No one was making out in the shadowed corners of the Louvre. Maybe Paris in November isn't for lovers...maybe. In actual fact, the lover's magnet of Paris is the Eiffel Tower and they come out in droves be it rain or shine, spring or winter. It was fascinating and repulsive all at the same time.
While certainly not Paris' oldest or most grand tourist stop, La Tour Eiffel is definitely the city's most recognizable symbol and every time we caught sight of that famous spire we gawked and snapped a picture. (Especially Sandra ;) There is not a building in remotely close proximity that even begins to rival the tower in height and for that reason it is even more striking in its appearance. Nothing, however, can prepare you for it's sheer size, or for the number of Jamaicans hawking little metal replicas attached to large iron rings. Don't look those guys in the eye...I'm serious!! They'll follow you everywhere if you do! It's the attack of the persistent and slightly creepy vendors. Thankfully, there seems to be a type of anti-vendor force field that keeps them a certain distance from the tower. By the time you see this...you are in a vendor-free zone.

La Tour Eiffel was built between 1887 to 1889 by Gustave Eiffel and was designed as the archway into the 1889 World's Fair. It was originally intended to stand for 20 years and then be torn down, which pleased all the Tower-hating Parisians. It's funny to think that something so iconic was so universally lambasted by the French...they absolutely despised it. One funny story involves Guy de Moupassant, a French author considered to be the father of the modern short story. He claimed to hate the Eiffel Tower and yet he ate at one of its restaurants every day. When asked why he did so, Moupassant declared that it was the only place in Paris where he couldn't see the iron lattice eye-sore. My how opinions change! The tower is now the most visited paid monument in the world and a symbol for France.

We got into one of several lines for tickets and met our first pair of lovers: a Brazilian girl and a Parisian boy. My dad started talking with them, cuz he's never met a stranger, and then she and Jaime spoke to each other in Portuguese. They were a very charming couple, but I could tell that our efforts to be polite were cutting into their face time...every time the conversation took a break they started kissing. I turned my attention to the massive legs of the tower and away from all the spit swaping that was occuring around me. Luckily, the tower is quite the attention grabber. It is immense. Maybe it's just me, but the Eiffel Tower always seemed like a fairy spire or something, you know...dainty. No sir it is not. The base is 410 feet across (I could tell you that it is 125 meters, but that means nothing to me) and the first level is 187 feet off the ground. We actually turned up our noses at the first level and went straight to the second, which is a fear inducing 377 feet in the air. The 360 degree view is impressive.

After admiring the view we got into yet another snaking line so that we could take the lift to the top. This meant that we kept meeting the same people over and over again, and the image of all those lovers is burned into my brain. There was the French/Brazilian duo, an American couple, a handsome gay pair that were velcroed together (one of them kept winking at me), and many, many others all holding hands and gazing at each other with googly eyes and hugging and kissing. It was truly a sight to behold.

The second line for the lift to the top was definitely the longest and the weather turned from bright and blue to cloudy and cold. At a height of 377 feet, the wind has a lot more bite to it as well. We wrapped up tighter in our coats but I kept pulling my hands out of my pockets to snap more pictures. In the process I knocked loose my ticket for the lift and was going to have to step out of line when my father gallantly offered his. Of course, this generosity served two purposes because Dad's fear of heights is much greater than my own and, having already been to the top while serving his mission in Paris, he was happy to stay on the second level. We finally made it into one of the lifts and I was left to contemplate my sanity as we rocketed to the top...905 feet from the ground. If the observation deck had been outside, I probably would have fainted, but it was all enclosed in wonderful plexiglass and warm to boot. I walked around and admired the city, but was taunted by the final climb...a set of stairs that led up and out into the open air. I gathered my courage and then went up, out and all the way around, hugging the wall the entire way. I don't have a single picture from my expedition because I would have had to let go of the wall. These pictures come courtesy of Sandra...who isn't a chicken.

nice pics Sandra!

We spent quite a bit of time in the Eiffel Tower gift shop, the one place I didn't mind the outrageous tourist prices...I mean, come on, it's the Eiffel Tower. I bought little replicas of the tower for my kiddos and by the time we had descended to the bottom of the tower, it was dark. Minutes after arriving at ground level, the special lights display that had been engineered for the 120th birthday of La Tour Eiffel came on. They were amazing!

courtesy of Sandra...again!

Then, to commemorate our visit, Sandra laid down on the ground and took this picture of all of us...
After once again braving the hordes of souvenir sellers, we headed out into the Paris night, bound for the exquisite Louvre. I snapped one last pic on our way to the metro. Au revoir Tour Eiffel!
La Tour Eiffel Facts:

Nickname: The Iron Lady
Height: 1062+ feet
Weight: 10,100 tons
Number of Metal Pieces: 18,038
Number of Rivets: 2,500,000
Number of bulbs for the tower: 20,000

The tower is painted every seven years and 60 tons of paint is required to do the job. The tower is currently painted bronze: dark at the bottom and lighter toward the top. The tower was originally reddish-brown and was also ocher-yellow.

The Eiffel Tower was the tallest building in the world from 1889 to 1930, when the Chrysler Building was completed in New York City.

Though huge, the Eiffel Tower actually has a very low density. It weighs less than a cylinder of air occupying the same space.

I didn't see a hunchback but I heard an ugly noise.

I know...there is a random French guy in my picture. I tried to cut him out with my red border, but it made the picture look weird so "Monsieur Picture Bomb" gets to stay. At least he's not flipping the bird or picking his nose or whatever. I have a story to tell about Notre Dame, about the first time I saw it actually, which was not on our Friday tour of the city - it was on Thursday. We had traveled from the Chateau Brou to Paris at a good pace with Jaime and I in the front seat as navigators. Dad encouraged us to find a way into Paris that would drive us past some of the famous sites, which we were eager to do. Everything was going well until we hit major traffic and learned that Paris is hell on wheels. We quickly threw our plans to see the sites out the window and instead focused on getting to our apartment in time to meet the landlady. We diligently tried to direct our flustered father aright, but Paris is cursed with rond-points (the infernal round-a-bouts) and poor signage and we were lost for two or three hours, I can't remember for how long because it all started to blend into a nightmare. We definitely weren't following Elder Wirthlin's counsel to "Come What May And Love It" (more's the pity). After finally finding our way, we dragged our bags into the apartment through the pouring rain and all I wanted to do was lie down and forget we ever drove through Paris, but Dad needed to take the mini-bus to the Alamo station. My faith in my navigation skills were nill, but Jaime needed to take care of squish-face Chase, so I offered to go. Dad, Mom, Laraine and I made our way toward the Hotel de Ville where we understood the Alamo station was located, but of course took some wrong turns and ended up on some one way streets, so I unexpectedly got to see some amazing sites. The first was the Paris Opera House which popped into my view all gilded and ornate. The second was the The Louvre. We drove under a massive stone archway and the next thing I knew I was staring at the hideous glass pyramid and the amazing architecture of the winter palace. It was gone in a flash, but the image is burned into my memory. The last site I saw (before we got stuck in a tunnel heading under the hotel in our attempt to find the stupid Alamo Rental and had to drive out backwards and then went down another tunnel and scraped the top of the mini-bus on the height clearance bar and then finally dropped off our vehicle before Dad lost his mind and drove us all screaming into the River Seine) was Notre Dame. We crossed a bridge that gave us a clear view of the back of the cathedral and it's amazing flying butresses. How ironic that an architectural support designed to fix a flaw makes the back of the church more amazing than the front. As aggravating as driving in Paris and returning the car were, I'll never forget those first glimpses of some of Paris' most amazing sites and the sense of wonder it instilled in me that in the midst of the hustle and bustle, the red light districts and the endless smokers and the grafitti, there was treasure that would come up unexpectedly and leave me breathless. So, back to Notre Dame!

Notre Dame de Paris, "Our Lady of Paris" in Anglaise, is a Gothic, Roman Cathedral and unfinished to boot. It is also O-L-D!! The first stone was laid in 1163 AD (in the presence of Pope Alexander III no less)...that is 847 years ago people! Bishop Maurice de Sully felt that the extant Cathedral of St. Stephan was too pedestrian to be the "parish church of the Kings of Europe" and had it demolished. The story goes that the Bishop then had a vision of the new church and scratched out the design in the dirt on the very spot where it would be built. The cathedral was built in stages with the eastern end (choir, high alter, etc.) completed first so that the building could be in use even while it was still being built. The whole was "finished" around 1345 AD, 182 years after it was started. I say "finished" because a building that old has undergone many restorations and refurbishings, but also because the final spires that were originally planned were never added, leaving the the two front towers flat on top.
The front of the church (or West Facade) has three portals over which are different scenes. The Portal of Saint Anne is on the right (which apparently has not much to do with St. Anne since the scene above the portal depicts Mary and baby Jesus), The Portal of the Last Judgement is in the center, and The Portal of the Virgin, which displays scene's of Mary's death, is on the left. The Portal of the Last Judgment has Christ in the center flanked by his apostles, and then the scene of the Last Judgement from the Gospel of Matthew above.










Above the Last Judgement scenes are all the Kings of Judah (descendants of Jesse), which later became a representation of the Kings of France, and then there is a Madonna and Child flanked by two angels in front of the circular window toward the top. Whew! My head was spinning - there was a lot going on with this building and we weren't even inside yet.
We entered the church through the Portal of the Virgin (no final judgement for me yet!) and were instantly greeted by the most hideous and annoying sound known to man...an organ being tuned. Here's the thing. Someone, maybe a demon from hell or something, would play an off-key note (and they started with the piercingly high ones) and hold it for a really, Really, REALLY long time. At the moment you thought your eardrums would burst, the note would come into tune, there would be a blessed moment of silence, and then they would start again. I looked at over-priced nativity scenes and then I tried to look at all the statues in the gallery, I really did, but I ended up practicing my speed walking just to get away from the noise. The only things that really made an impression on me were the statue of Joan of Arc (cuz I shielded Jaime and Chase with a blanket beneath her stern protection while they did a quick diaper change) and the Rose Window (cuz not even the horrible shrieking organ could take away from it's beauty).
Once outside, once again listening to the blessed sounds of horns honking and people talking, we walked around the church to see all it's features, stopping for a brief time to eat at the most darling sidewalk cafe. We unthawed with creamy hot chocolate and devoured Croque Monsieurs - the most heavenly ham and cheese sandwich known to man! I took another picture of the Rose Window (this time from the outside):
admired the flying buttresses (built to stop the walls from bulging out the back) up close this time:
and posed for a picture with my sweet sisters.
As we headed for the Eiffel Tower, we saw a fascinating sight. An elderly gentleman was on the grass along the sidewalk with his hands full of birdseed. He stood very, very still as birds flew in to eat from his hands, and he was surrounded by a veritable flock of tiny beaks and wings. Yet another unexpected sight around the corner on a day in Paris.