Friday, August 30, 2013

Le Louvre et Le Musée d'Orsay

GUESS WHERE I AM?! I spent all day Saturday at the Louvre with my friends! This place is absolutely massive! From seeing pictures I had no concept of just how huge it really was. This was a last minute trip so we really did not have any plan when entering the museum about where we were going to go. Instead, we kind of just wandered. I saw a lot of really awesome sculptures, as well as full rooms of decoration that were stunning. It was hard to limit myself on how many pictures to post here, so I tried to pick my favorites!
I'd say this photo is ALMOST a success. My OCD really kicks in when I zoom in and see that my finger isn't on the tippy-top. I figured this was close enough, though. The weather looks gloomy but it was actually quite nice out this day! I got to wear one of the 13 scarves i brought here (that's right, 13!!!), and didn't need a jacket. I had a hard time narrowing down the scarf collection for Paris. Hopefully I'll wear them each at least once!
 This is the first weekend brunch I cooked and ate before the Louvre! I am really enjoying being able to cook and am already dreading going back to living without a real kitchen at school :( ALSO, I FOUND TOFU! There is a health food store right outside the back entrance of our courtyard with a whole row of REFRIGERATED tofu products! I mention the "refrigerated" part because I have only found brownish-yellow tofu on a shelf by itself in a store. It really weirded me out, so I'm SO happy to have found a better option! I've noticed that a lot of things here are not often refrigerated, such as eggs and some butter. Not really sure what that is about; it's just something to get used to.
The first room we entered in the Louvre! I loved how much light was in this room. It was so grand and beautiful. I like how the people in this picture look so small compared to the scale of everything else. For example, take a look at the woman in the white shirt toward the right, and compare her to the statue slightly in front of her! So crazy!
This is just a dog that I really liked on one of the statues (:
I found myself looking at this piece for a while.  I loved the detailing of all of the bones and muscles. It was one of my favorites!
To be honest, I can't really remember the significance of this room. We walked through many additional rooms decorated like this (kind of like an apartment set up). There was so much detail that I found it hard to know what to look at. It was actually very overwhelming, but quite awe-inspiring. I wish I had gotten a good picture of the ceiling because it was so intricate.
Nike of Samothrace. I think I was playing with the settings on my camera when I took this picture, but I actually really love the way it turned out. This was definitely one of the highlights of the day!
Candid shot of my friends enjoying the ceiling art!
...And a selfie with the Mona Lisa, just because. We snuck in to see her right before the museum closed and there was very few people in the room, which was nice! We were checking things off the bucket list, left and right! My first visit to the Louvre was such a great experience. I have four months to go back as many times as I want to explore, and I am so excited because of that! I love this place!
 After the Louvre closed we headed over to the Chantes Elysée to explore. This area is filled with very, very, very high end stores, some of which I'd be way to intimated to even enter. It was definitely fun to walk around and window shop though. I didn't get a picture of the Arc de Triumph because it started pouring right when we exited the metro! We decided to find shelter at a cafe, and ended up getting dinner on a side street instead. It was delicious! A noteworthy part of this dinner was learning how to ask for tap water instead of being charged for bottled water at every restaurant: "une carafe d'eau, s'il vous plaît."  I have learned that this is a very important thing to know when eating out! By the way, the food was delicious!
 On the Chantes Elysee is a very famous macaron shop called Ladurée. There was a short line to get inside, but since it was on our bucket list, we had to stop. 
One of the cute boxes - reminded me of a perfume box. Adorable!
The shop was very fancy, and there were so many bright colors, as well as unique flavors! I found it entertaining to watch these people find a slightly broken or non-perfect macaron and simply throw it in the trash. It made me so sad. I would have eaten them!
Pretty colors! The flavors I had were: orange blossom, Venezuelan chocolate, and coconut!
 Sunday Adventure! Bella and I went to the Musée d'Orsay. It is right across the Seine from the Louvre, and has lots of impressionist artwork. I really liked this museum because a lot of the art I studied in my modern art class at UCLA was here!  I got butterflies of excitement in my stomach anytime I saw I piece I studied or wrote about in class! We ended up coming here as a last minute trip, as well, so we only got to spend about an hour and a half in the museum. We saw a lot of Monet, Manet, Pissarro, Rodin, and some Gauguin and Picasso while we were there.
First Paris rainy day! We unfortunately had to wait in a long line to get in to the museum. To pass the time Bella and I examined of lot of girls outfits to find coats we liked. We sneakily took some pictures of the ones we really liked!
 We weren't aloud to take pictures of the art, but I was able to take one of this cool clock with a view out over the Seine and across to the Louvre!
So I did take a few pictures inside (I was sneaky). I thought this open layout was so awesome. There seemed to be so many layers and floors of art that I was a little turned around. I will most definitely being going back here very soon! I saw a few pieces that are on my "Paris Art" check list, but I think I may have missed a few. I will be going back soon on a more planned out visit.

 Crossing the river to get to a more direct Metro stop by the Lourve! The Musée d'Orsay is shown above.
It finally stopped raining! Yay!

I think I've been putting off this blog post because I had so much to share and I knew it would take a while! I wish I had time to post every picture and many more details! It's so hard to sum up this experience even in a long blog post like this. I'm trying to hit the main points. OH! One very exciting discovery from this weekend: I get into both the Louvre and Musée d'Orsay for free!!! Because I am under 26 and I am a student in Paris, I'm given discounts and free admission to places all over Paris. My school actually made us little "student passes" that we can show the people at the entrance to legitimize our status as students in France. I am hoping the pass will work at other museums, as well!

Living here really is a dream.




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