in which "englouti" is the most perfectly appropriate adjective for underwater things that i have ever come across.

In my continuing quest to avoid my Exotisme homework, I went to the Grand Palais, which is this gigantic glass conundrum that houses revolving exhibitions. You know, all museum-like. I approached it from the Champs-Elysees, which means I only have a terrible picture of it through the trees; you can get a better idea of what it looks like here.

So there's the Grand Palais, and there's also the Petit Palais (bet you could've guessed).

Grand Palais.

Neither the Grand Palais nor the Petit Palais; but don't ask me, I have no idea. It was a beautiful day, since it finally freaking stopped raining. I feel like I've been sloshing around in ankle-deep water for weeks.

And it was nice that it was such a beautiful day, since I had a long wait in front of this place. It has been thoroughly established that French people really like going to museums, France, so can we slack off a little bit? I mean, there were lines in front of the display cases. Plus, it was like twenty degrees in there. (Before I left, my host mother told me to wrap up for the Grand Palais. I sort of giggled. But inside, I never took my scarf off.)
Exhibition: Les Tresors engloutis d'Egypte, or, Egypt's Sunken Treasures. The story goes something like this: three big important Egyptian cities, Alexandria, Herakleion, and Eastern Canopus, sink below sea level as a result of various natural disasters. Marine archaeologist Frank Goddio expends a downright foolish amount of energy to bring them back up. (Our hero!) You can read all about it on the exhibition's website. They also have some super-cool photos floating around in there that I recommend.

The website says that there are 500 artifacts in the exhibition. I believe it. I read the notes on each and every one of them. It was a ridiculously large exhibition; they pretty much included everything they could think of. The best were three colossal statues -- a pharaoh, a queen, and oh gosh I forget the other one, some kind of fonctionnaire -- from the temple at Herakleion. They were, um, colossal. Wow.

I couldn't take any pictures of the exhibition -- and they were serious about this, there were uniformed policemen hanging around -- but I took pictures of the ceiling.

Chinese New Year is this weekend, so Skye and I are going to go to Chinatown and check it out. I'll let you know how it goes.