Taking It Easy, and The Louvre

A Lazy Monday

This past Monday morning found us pretty weary, so instead of going to the Louvre as we planned, we took another lazy morning, had breakfast at the apartment, and headed over to a salon across the street to try and get Braeden a much-needed haircut.

[Aside:  Sorry, it’s early for an aside, but you knew what you were getting into when you started reading my blog, so suck it up, buttercup.

If you didn’t that means you’ve showed up here without knowing me at all.  Welcome, and thanks for reading.  Now suck it up.

The bacon here that we’ve found here is weird.  It’s vaguely pork-chop shaped and when fried it turns out a bit like crispy ham.  Or baloney.  But it still tastes like bacon.  Braeden won’t eat it though, because it looks funny.  Which means more bacon for me.  Which is why I love Paris.]

The salon was quiet, with only one stylist working on a single customer, so the young woman at the front desk invited us to sit and wait for a few minutes.  Braeden was clearly a bit tired but happily looked through a few French magazines with us.

He’s had many haircuts before and he’s always the quietest, mildest kid in the place.  That went out the window as soon as Claudio, our stylist, came over and introduced himself.  B went into full meltdown mode, crying that he didn’t want to get his hair cut and attempting to crawl under the counter like Gollem being beaten by a seriously pissed-off Frodo.

I can only imagine what poor Claudio was thinking, but he smiled kindly and gave us a few minutes to calm B down.  I didn’t watch Claudio, but I can only assume that while we were busy with our melty, screaming son he was making wild “cut” across-the-throat gestures to the young woman at the front desk while mouthing “Get me the f**k out of here!” in French.

I picked the crying boy up, hugged him tight, and assured him that he could sit on my lap for the whole thing.  He relented.

Within minutes he was smiling again and watching Claudio intently as the stylist expertly trimmed his hair.  We left a short time later and Braeden had a grin on his face and a sharp new haircut.

To pass the rest of the day as restfully as possible we decided to check out Finding Dory at a local theater.  We found one without much difficulty, got there super early, realized I was hungry, stopped at a sandwich shop, ordered a sandwich and a fruit cup, realized after Braeden had eaten half of the fruit cup that it had sweetened fruit in it, quietly said “what the f**k” to myself, and decided it wasn’t worth the battle to prohibit him from eating the rest.

Meanwhile Juliann, who wasn’t hungry, rested her chin in her hand and watched the whole spectacle with curious detachment, probably wondering whether it was illegal in France to brain me with a chair and dump me in the Seine.

When we got to the theater we decided, “what the hell”, and got some popcorn as well.  I haven’t had popcorn in years and Braeden has had exactly one kernel in his life, but it was a “f**k it” kind of day, so we went with it.

On to the movie.  I had assumed that the movie would be in English with French subtitles.

“Wrong, dickweed!”

It was very beautifully dubbed in French, and Disney even went so far as to re-render all the copy in the scenes in French as well, e.g. the sign on one of the buildings that clearly would have read something like “California Marine Life Institute” instead displayed the French equivalent.

[Aside:  I wonder if Disney is the only studio that does this, and how many languages they dub/translate.  Yes, I could Google it but it’s nearly 11 pm and my glass of wine is getting warm.  And I have you people.

Anyone?  Bueller?]

Braeden didn’t care.  He was rapt the entire time and followed the story pretty well.  I occasionally described what was going on in some of the dialogue-heavy scenes, but he loved it.  He particularly loved the octopus, Hank, who he now calls “the other squid”.

An Even Lazier Tuesday

Tuesday was pretty laid back as well.  We headed out early and stopped at a book store to see what we kind of math/writing workbooks we could get for the boy.  He immediately latched onto a set of three Finding Dory puzzles and we found a few workbooks we wanted to try.

We had to do some food shopping so we hit the Marche St-Germain, which was closed when we swung by the previous Monday.

Marche St-Germain turned out to be a fantastic collection of little markets, and we spent about an hour looking around at all the yummy fish, meats, spices, fruits, vegetables, and more.  We walked out with a big bag of produce (the boy is into berries lately) and some flank steak for dinner.

Wednesday – Back on the Tourist Trail

Today we woke up, felt pretty refreshed, and decided it was time for some sightseeing again.  We hopped the #27 bus and headed for the Louvre.

The last time I was in Paris in 1996 my stay lasted roughly 36 hours and I spent pretty much every waking hour touring the city.  I went into Notre Dame, walked by the Eiffel Tower, and attempted to get into the Louvre but ran out of time.  So I’d been on the grounds of the famous museum before, 20 years earlier.

I still wasn’t prepared for the sheer size of the place.  We knew before we arrived in Paris that we wanted to visit the Louvre every week, simply because it’s so immense, but I hadn’t really thought through how large it must be.

Standing in the center of the courtyard and looking towards the main building, you feel like you’re in some sort of walled city.  But the walls aren’t walls, they’re a single enormous building.  I’m guessing you could drop a whole football field or three in there easily.

Which is probably what dear Louis was doing right about the time he decided, “This palace sucks, let’s build a bigger one in the ‘burbs and call it something kickass, like Versailles.”

No wonder the French people called the monarchy on their bullshit and took their heads.  The place is ridiculous for a museum, let alone a home.

We jumped in line, checked out a few options for getting around it, like the many “secret entrances” discussed online, and finally decided to suck it up and entertain ourselves.  The line passed quickly and within ~30 minutes we were inside, tickets and English map of the museum in hand.

The previous week we had figured that 2-3 hours was Braeden’s max for sightseeing, so we checked the clock and got moving.  We decided to see the Mona Lisa first just to say we’d done it and get the most crowded part of the museum out of the way.

We passed many, many interesting sculptures and paintings on our way to see her, but we knew we’d be able to take some time later and pressed on.

We did have to stop and see Winged Victory, though.  She was perched at the top of a grand staircase with a huge throng of tourists around her, but we stopped and admired anyway.  I had heard the name before but had never seen a picture, and I thought the dynamic power of the sculpture was moving.

I also half-wondered if on April Fool’s Day the curators throw a pair of Nikes on her.  Sure, you work at the world’s most famous museum, but do you get to screw with people?  Priorities, people!

We made our way to the Mona Lisa, and because we were prepared, we weren’t underwhelmed.  We weren’t overwhelmed.

We were simply whelmed.

The crowd was huge and rude and jostly.  No surprise there.  The painting was small and unpretentious.  None there, either.

We got no closer than perhaps 50 feet because we didn’t feel like jumping in the mosh pit.  I did, however, feel a pang of regret that I couldn’t sit in front of her and spend some time looking her over, just to see what was so special.

But we didn’t.  So we snapped some shots like everyone else and we split for quieter parts of the museum.

Before we left the room that the Mona Lisa was in, however, we spent a good 10 minutes admiring the enormous painting across from her, the largest painting in the Louvre, titled The Wedding at Cana.

We spent some time talking about how artists used different colors and had different foci at different times in their lives, and we looked closely at the characters in the painting to see if we could learn anything about the artist’s point of view.

It’s an impressive painting and Braeden had fun talking through all the characters, their facial expressions, and their dress.  I noted that it looked to me like Jesus was the only one in the scene who was looking directly at the artist, but he corrected me a few minutes later and pointed out that the lady 2nd from the left was as well.

We spent the next 45 minutes to an hour looking over 5-6 paintings in the Italian and French rooms, and then came the familiar, “Daddy I have to pee.”

No problem.  We consulted our handy map and headed off to the closest restroom.  Only we couldn’t find it.  So we asked the nearest docent.  He gave us directions, we followed them to another part of the museum, but no restroom.

Ok, no biggie, we’ll just look at the map again.

“Daddy, I have to pee.”

“I know, buddy, we gotcha.  We’re looking for the bathroom now.”

We found what we thought was the closest restroom on the map, again, and (less confidently this time) set off to find it.

We struck out.  This time Juliann asked the very young, very handsome, very scruffy looking Frenchman behind the souvenir counter for directions.  He gave them, we searched, no luck.

Seriously, what the f**k?!?  How can we not find this goddamned bathroom?  How many years of graduate education do we have between us?

I could go through the entire tale here but it would be long, and boring, and I would have to relive the whole annoying episode all over again.  And there’s not enough wine left in the apartment for that, so I’ll skip to…

After about 30 minutes (no exaggeration, seriously, 30 freaking minutes) we finally found what has to be the only restroom in the entire big-as-the-goddamned-Pentagon Louvre.

And the boy was an angel through the whole thing.  His only concern was, “Daddy, can we go back and see the statues again?”

Love him.

In addition to the half-dozen paintings we saw, we also got to quickly examine a few Greek, Roman, and Egyptian statues, and Braeden was most impressed by these.  When we return to the Louvre next week we’ll have to hit the statue wing first and spend some time there.

We were all hungry by that point so we talked to our helpful but occasionally mendacious friend Yelp for assistance.  There was a sandwich shop only a few blocks away so we hoofed it there, and during the walk the boy quickly became tired, salty, and hungry.

By the time we finished our short walk we were all salty, and it turned out the shop had no seating.  If we were going to have any chance of restoring the boy to “sweet” status we were going to need to sit him down, stat.

After a bit of a sidewalk meltdown for him and some stressful discussion between the adults, we opted to buy food and gamble on locating a bench somewhere in the Louvre courtyard.

Both turned out to be good choices, but by that time Braeden was nearly past the point of no return, and he spent our entire lunch on the bench with an amazing view of the Louvre screeching, “BUT I DON’T LIKE HAM!” at the top of his lungs.

Note taken.  We went 30 mins too long.  Lesson:  know the bathroom locations beforehand and watch the f**king clock.

He finally calmed down enough to try some ham, then had some bread, then had some strawberries for dessert.  Magically restored to happy, full-bellied child mode, he bounced off the bench and started sprinting around the courtyard.

Peace was restored, and Mom and Dad had learned another lesson.

After lunch we decided it was worth the extra effort to walk home just so we could cross the Pont Neuf, check out the view of the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, and look at one of the few remaining “Love Lock” bridges in Paris.

We visited the Love Lock wall and enjoyed the rest of the walk home.  For dinner we endured what had to be some of the worst pizza in Paris (serves us right) and called it a night.

The boy is excited to see the sculptures again, so we’re looking forward to a return trip to the Louvre next week.

The July 14th Parade, Versailles, and the Musee D’Orsay are also on the menu over the next week, not to mention some fun stuff for Braeden, like sailing model boats, the Pompidou Centre, and the Jardin d’Acclimation.

We’ll also be covering some useful logistical information about our trip in upcoming posts, like dealing with cell phones and banking.  So don’t be a stranger.

At the very least you’ll get to read about what we screw up next.

A bientot.