Soaking up the Parisian Sun (Sunday, October 23, 2011)
Love this city.
Natalie started our day by scrambling eggs for all of us. We didn’t rush it, knowing this was our last full day of sightseeing. Brian packed a lunch for us, and off we went.
First we went to the Louvre, the enormous museum that we considered skipping altogether. But it’s not terribly expensive, and Rita suggested that we just pick a few things to see. That’s what we did.
Of course we went to see the Mona Lisa. We had heard it was small and much more modest than its fame suggests, and that was true. However, many would-be pop stars dream of paparazzi like this. A huge crowd of people maneuvering to the front of the line to get a photo of a painting they don’t really seem to look at with their actual eyes. Her colors are rich and deep, and the painting is subtle, and it’s completely at odds with the mob scene played out before it!
That ended our to-do list, because we had tried to keep it modest. So we paged through the guide book, and headed over to Pompidou Centre, a modern art museum. We were finished with museums, so we went to the big plaza in front of it, where street performers gathered and tired backpackers sat, ate their lunches and watched the street theater. We watched a comedian coaxing strangers to do hilarious things for about an hour, then found some dinner. After eating, we made our way back to the hotel, thus ending our shining few moments in Paris .
We could not have asked for better weather this entire trip! None of us want to leave Paris , but all of us are feeling the call of home. Comfy beds, familiar foods and surroundings, and friends top the list of things missed most, not to mention our silly little dog, Sophie, who is eating up the attention doled out by both of our parents while we’re gone. It’s almost time to go home.