(no subject)
i had an awesome day today!
today we went on a lovely walk in the 100 degree heat (ugh) to the louvre... yay! one thing i didn't realize about the louvre was how the palace that the artwork is housed in is really just as spectacular as the artwork itself... it was originally a palace for the royalty in the time of louis xiv and xv, and it is very very grand. as mommy said, it makes buckingham palace look like a suburban semi-detached. ^_^; there are sculptures all over it and the most gorgeous rooftops and it really just looks the way that one would think a palace ought to look.
inside the louvre there is a tooon of stuff. you think museums in america are big, but this was simply enormous. there were also a ton of people, more than mommy or grandma had seen before, which we're guessing probably has something to do with the da vinci code. we ended up not seeing the mona lisa because a) none of us are terribly fond of it, b) mommy felt really uncomfortable being in a place with so many people and no obvious way to get out, and c) we wouldn't have been able to see it anyway, because in front of any of the major paintings were crowds of japanese people on sightseeing tours and you couldn't see anything.
we saw some gorgeous egyptian artwork and greek statues. there was one egyptian painting of a young girl that i found really striking, i don't know why, she looked so young and beautiful but so jaded somehow, like the last thing in the world she wanted was to have her picture painted. and there was something so sad about this young face stuck in a museum staring out over a dark exhibit... i dunno, but i spent forever looking at it. anyway, then we went to the medieval louvre, which is the excavations they've done of the palace that was there in medieval times. that was absolutely amazing. like, i don't think i've ever been so taken with a museum exhibit before... it was just stones of the original moat, but there was something so magical about those stones, you could feel their age and their strength so strongly. they felt alive somehow, filled with power even though many of the stones were crumbling. i wish i could, like, live there or something. ^_^;;
then we went out of the louvre and back into the murderous heat and made our way to the nearby fashion museum, where they had a balenciaga exhibit. i'd never known much about balenciaga (i didn't even know there still was a house of balenciaga, i thought it was an older thing, oops) but now i am totally taken. he obviously had an amazing grip on what was happening in the world, his fashions do exactly what i was talking about in my bananaspicier post - they reflect our society back to us. they show the world as it is, but through beauty. the last part of the exhibit was the stuff from this year, and they had all the mannequins wearing creepy glowing binocular-like things with tubes coming out of their heads, like something from the matrix, and then they were wearing these spectacular, sexy, and thoroughly useless-looking clothes.... omg, i am in love. i could go on for several more pages about balenciaga, but i don't think any of you are nearly as interested in this sorta stuff as i am, so i won't.
on the sweltering walk back, the best thing ever happened... i've gone absolutely crazy about these "smart cars", they have lots in england and lootttttsss in paris, and i'm determined to get a good picture of one. they are the cutest things ever, and apparently really safe, and get about 75 miles/gallon, and i love them. so this guy is driving past in his smart car, and he stops in the traffic, and i get out my camera, and he sees that i'm trying to take a picture and he indicates with his arms, "sure, take a picture!" and he looks very pleased with this... and i must add, this guy is GORGEOUS, we were thinking maybe he's some movie star or model or something, i dunno, but he was one of the best looking guys i've ever seen. and then the traffic starts moving again, and he WAITS for me to finish taking my picture before he waves and drives off, holding up all the traffic... omg, it was the coolest thing ever.
anyway, before i murder your friends pages, here are
a typical french cafe...
view from pont neuf...
the palais du louvre...
the pyramide through an archway thingy of the palais du louvre...
the pyramide...
the palais du louvre with the pyramide, showing how hot it was...
the painting i liked so much, although this picture is terrible...
narcissus!!!
venus de milo
part of the moat i loved so much...
the two pyramid's meeting, a la the da vinci code...
a very blurry picture of my favorite balenciaga dress, from the 40s (i think... i was too busy looking at the dress to remember the date...)
a picture i particularly liked of the eiffel tower over the seine from the pont neuf...
and, finally, my hot guy in his hot car...
today we went on a lovely walk in the 100 degree heat (ugh) to the louvre... yay! one thing i didn't realize about the louvre was how the palace that the artwork is housed in is really just as spectacular as the artwork itself... it was originally a palace for the royalty in the time of louis xiv and xv, and it is very very grand. as mommy said, it makes buckingham palace look like a suburban semi-detached. ^_^; there are sculptures all over it and the most gorgeous rooftops and it really just looks the way that one would think a palace ought to look.
inside the louvre there is a tooon of stuff. you think museums in america are big, but this was simply enormous. there were also a ton of people, more than mommy or grandma had seen before, which we're guessing probably has something to do with the da vinci code. we ended up not seeing the mona lisa because a) none of us are terribly fond of it, b) mommy felt really uncomfortable being in a place with so many people and no obvious way to get out, and c) we wouldn't have been able to see it anyway, because in front of any of the major paintings were crowds of japanese people on sightseeing tours and you couldn't see anything.
we saw some gorgeous egyptian artwork and greek statues. there was one egyptian painting of a young girl that i found really striking, i don't know why, she looked so young and beautiful but so jaded somehow, like the last thing in the world she wanted was to have her picture painted. and there was something so sad about this young face stuck in a museum staring out over a dark exhibit... i dunno, but i spent forever looking at it. anyway, then we went to the medieval louvre, which is the excavations they've done of the palace that was there in medieval times. that was absolutely amazing. like, i don't think i've ever been so taken with a museum exhibit before... it was just stones of the original moat, but there was something so magical about those stones, you could feel their age and their strength so strongly. they felt alive somehow, filled with power even though many of the stones were crumbling. i wish i could, like, live there or something. ^_^;;
then we went out of the louvre and back into the murderous heat and made our way to the nearby fashion museum, where they had a balenciaga exhibit. i'd never known much about balenciaga (i didn't even know there still was a house of balenciaga, i thought it was an older thing, oops) but now i am totally taken. he obviously had an amazing grip on what was happening in the world, his fashions do exactly what i was talking about in my bananaspicier post - they reflect our society back to us. they show the world as it is, but through beauty. the last part of the exhibit was the stuff from this year, and they had all the mannequins wearing creepy glowing binocular-like things with tubes coming out of their heads, like something from the matrix, and then they were wearing these spectacular, sexy, and thoroughly useless-looking clothes.... omg, i am in love. i could go on for several more pages about balenciaga, but i don't think any of you are nearly as interested in this sorta stuff as i am, so i won't.
on the sweltering walk back, the best thing ever happened... i've gone absolutely crazy about these "smart cars", they have lots in england and lootttttsss in paris, and i'm determined to get a good picture of one. they are the cutest things ever, and apparently really safe, and get about 75 miles/gallon, and i love them. so this guy is driving past in his smart car, and he stops in the traffic, and i get out my camera, and he sees that i'm trying to take a picture and he indicates with his arms, "sure, take a picture!" and he looks very pleased with this... and i must add, this guy is GORGEOUS, we were thinking maybe he's some movie star or model or something, i dunno, but he was one of the best looking guys i've ever seen. and then the traffic starts moving again, and he WAITS for me to finish taking my picture before he waves and drives off, holding up all the traffic... omg, it was the coolest thing ever.
anyway, before i murder your friends pages, here are
a typical french cafe...
view from pont neuf...
the palais du louvre...
the pyramide through an archway thingy of the palais du louvre...
the pyramide...
the palais du louvre with the pyramide, showing how hot it was...
the painting i liked so much, although this picture is terrible...
narcissus!!!
venus de milo
part of the moat i loved so much...
the two pyramid's meeting, a la the da vinci code...
a very blurry picture of my favorite balenciaga dress, from the 40s (i think... i was too busy looking at the dress to remember the date...)
a picture i particularly liked of the eiffel tower over the seine from the pont neuf...
and, finally, my hot guy in his hot car...