My french skills are really coming in handy here. I mean, I’m having entire conversations with native Parisians! And by entire conversations, I mean I can successfully ask where the bathroom is and ask them if they speak English so we can continue the rest of our conversation that way. Ah bien, c’est la vie. To be fair, I’m doing alright in the language department, I just have to keep practicing.
Oh what to say about Paris. Just that it’s exquisite. We’ve been to the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triumphe, and Montmartre, all of which have been wonderful. Montmartre was by far my favorite place to visit. Sorry, there won’t be many pictures from there because I was having too much fun just experiencing it.
But I definitely have a whole new crop of photos for you today. One thing I’ve been trying to avoid with my photography is this:
The mob. So far, I’ve been doing an okay job of making it seem like there is no one else around. And I know; I’m very much a tourist too. But blargh! Sometimes it’s hard to walk a couple of steps forward because there are so many people crammed together. This particular group of picture takers is crowded around the Mona Lisa. She was pretty cool, and I of course snapped a couple shots of her, but I tried to spend some time with the other paintings in Ms. Lisa’s room. And that’s how I came across this guy:
He (Jacopo Robusti’s self portrait) hung on the wall perpendicular to Mona Lisa’s wall. What a haunting stare. And what a cruel fate, as well: forever gazing at a massive crowd showering copious amounts of attention on someone else and always passing you by. If I were him, I’d probably have a similar look on my face.
As per usual, I shall round out my post with some pics. Comments…away!
GREAT photos. Love the way you took the one with the “Peter Pan” esque statue. So…is Mona Lisa’s smile mysterious or innocent?