in which i hit the Big Three of paris tourism.

I am on vacation, but vacation so far has mostly consisted of coughing and sniffling in my room. Sucks. Plus, one of my four classes isn't on vacation, so I had Translation yesterday. (Okay, it's kind of a poor excuse for a class, but still.) I have that class with Skye, who's in London, and Bin, who is here. So after it was over, Bin and I walked to Notre Dame.

Bin lept in front of my mounted-policemen picture. Lept, literally. He jumped off the curb into the middle of the street. Say hi to Bin.

Notre Dame from the back.
And the front.
I want to go to the Crypte Archeologique at Notre Dame, but we didn't have time before it closed, so I'll have to go back. Instead we went to Trocadero, which is a plaza flanked by the Musee de l'Homme on one side and the Musee de la Marine on the other. From the plaza, though, you have a fantastic view of the Eiffel Tower and Paris across the river. I ate a sugar crepe. It was delicious.
And today I went to the Louvre. Because I have that silly student ID card that says I'm studying art history, I get a Louvre pass for free; but the woman there sure didn't want to give it to me. She told me the stamp was insufficient. I found this amusing because everyone else in my program has the same stamp, and got their cards with no trouble. I told her this. Actually, I said, "Well, that's strange, because my friends--" and she said "Oh no. It is not strange. No."

Well. I just sat there and stared at her until she gave in and made me a card. In revenge, my picture looks intensely odd.

Anyway, this is the Louvre. I take that back. This is something outside the Louvre that looks like the Arc de Triomphe. Only small. I have no idea what it is, but every Japanese tourist within five miles had come to take pictures of it. I found this vaguely amusing, because inside the Louvre, it was entirely populated with Italians.

That is not the Louvre. It is across the river. I do not know what it is either.

This is the Winged Victory of Samothrace. I love this thing. I spent all my time in the Louvre on ancient Greece and about half of Egypt before I got exhausted. I don't know if you know this, but the Louvre is really freaking big.

I was putting my Greek Art and Archaeology class from last semester to good use. Unsurprisingly, lots of the pieces we studied in that class were in the Louvre. I set myself to finding them. I actually did find quite a few. The class was incredibly easy while I was in it, but turns out it was worthwhile, because things made a lot more sense after we studied them. And by things I mean "Greek art."

So I took lots of pictures of random Greek things because I was so excited that I knew something about them. Look! Black-figure vases!

White-ground lekythoi!

A sphinx! Oh wait.
Bye!

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.