Getting Lost In The Louvre

Finally the day has arrived. Time to venture to the Louvre and discover what exactly is in
there. Comprised of three buildings (Sully, Denon and Richelieu) filled with historic
artifacts and wonders from around the world, there are hours worth of entertainment inside.
At the suggestion of Jenna's friend who lives in Paris, I plotted out the big sights and made
sure to hit most of them before wandering freely. I saw the Winged Victory and Mona Lisa before I realized that there really weren't that many people inside. I started to wander through the painting gallery which was mostly Renaissance art and not to my taste. A few pieces were nice. I saw a huge rock head that looked just like the one from Night In The Museum (from Easter Island??).
I wandered into the Oceanic, African and Americas section which had some very neat pieces in carved wood and pottery. I came across Louis XV's crown at one point and then into a section with lots of furniture and medieval tapestries. Needless to say, I didn't spend much time there. I happened across a huge stairwell with some unique windows that looked like clocks but not really. It was some kind of artistic tribute to time. I took a break for lunch at the cafe and then headed back in to continue with the French sculptures where I found some very curious looking faces. This morphed into a section of what the French call "orientale" which really means Middle East. I saw pottery and bronze from as early as 1600 BC. One of my favorite items was the tiny decorated metal and ceramic pieces that looked like beads, but were used for rolling designs into (clay) or onto (paint/glaze) worked items. There were case after case of these. My other favorite was the tiny bronze figurines (now green from age) that were displayed like little green army men. Apparently every culture has their version of green army men. These things always get me thinking about what life meant for the people living in cultures long before and then along side, but other than the Jewish people. On top of that, what was life like before Jesus revolutionized how the world was oriented? How does God feel about the Ancient Egyptian culture? Were they loved too? Did they turn out like God expected?

Eventually I moved into the Egyptian section being greeted by all kinds of mummies and
circauphagi. I've seen loads of Egyptian artifacts, so I breezed through here a bit. The
interesting part was towards the end of this place where there were some plaques that
explained the similarities of the various cultures they had on display and how you could
notice the influences of Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. For those seminary fans reading, I
think I saw some Ugaritic pieces. Most of the writing was in French, so I could be wrong.

From here I moved into the Greek and Roman sculpture. Since I've spent time recently in both
countries, I couldn't help but slip through these sections. I'm kind of sculptured out. I
did make sure to stop and see the Venus de Milo with her missing arms. This wasn't hard as
she was the only piece at the end of a long hall being renovated. I had time to catch one
more photo of a very elegant statue of Artemis before my camera died. As this put an end to
my photography, I went up to the 2nd floor and viewed the mostly uninteresting (to me) art
from French, German, Spanish, Flemmish and I'm sure some other countires that were all very
dark, portraits and rather dull.

Feeling like I'd exhausted my ability to stay at the Louvre any longer, I went outside in
search of an H&M store to see if I could possibly replace my scarves. I had already looked up
the address, so it was just a matter of finding it on the street. In the entire 4 floor store
I saw only ONE scarf at all like the one I had recently bought. It happened to be on a
mannequin near the cash register. Fortunately I was able to persuade the guy at the checkout
to give it to me. At least I have a scarf now. Not quite sure what to do for dinner, I
thought a trip up to Montmarte would be a good place to find a restaurant; perhaps I'd visit
one suggested from the tour on Friday. While I was walking I remembered that I wanted to see
if I could get my portrait drawn by one of the famed artists in Place du Terte. I found a guy
who was in the middle of a portrait, but had a great impressionist style worth waiting for.
Soon enough I sat down and was chatting with the artist. We talked travel, science, art and
Paris. When I asked if he had a good restaurant suggestion, he said he could show me one
nearby that would be much cheaper than the touristy ones by the square. We stopped at a
couple on the street just down from the square--one was closed and the other was Turkish. We
finally stopped at an asian restaurant that had some delicious looking, but inexpensive food.
It's always fun to get a few good stories from the locals wherever you travel.