Andrew v Louvre

The last Friday in Paris was my favorite day. In the morning we went to the catacombs. That was freaking awesome. Bones on bones on bones. The skulls were really cold to the touch. Of course, right after I touched them I noticed the sign that said "Do not touch". Typical. They should really consider putting those in a more obvious location.

Following the catacombs, I headed directly to Notre Dame. For all of those who have seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame, (great Disney movie. If you haven't seen it, watch it. If you didn't like it, repent.) the animators did an incredible job in replicating the cathedral. There were parts I distinctly recognized from the movie. Anyways, we went in the cathedral and on top as well. Turns out, the people we just happened to be waiting next to in line were the aunt and uncle of one of the girls in our study abroad. Crazy.

However, the culmination of my day, the cherry on top, the icing on the cake, the Bert to my Ernie, the Hermoine to my Ron, was, in fact, the Louvre. And yes, I am being sarcastic. I know there are one or two art lovers who will read this, and of course my mother believes that I need to be culturized by visiting art museums (my friend was kind enough to relay your facebook comment to me, mom). So let me describe my experience with the Louvre in the most cultural/artistic way possible.

In the beginning, some artsy-fartsy wingnut on crack said, Let there be a building dedicated to art from all over the world. And it was done.

On the second day, he said, "Let us put walls to create rooms for our art. But these are no ordinary walls. These are walls designed to trap all those who enter. To ensure that they will never escape. We will create maps and put up signs to give them a false sense of security, but these maps will be coded in a way that it is virtually impossible to figure it out, and the signs will lead to nowhere. And there will be no drinking fountains, and the bathrooms will be few and far between." And it was done.

On the third day he said, "Let us gather the art. All sculptures and statues from ancient times. Paintings big and small, ugly and pretty. As long as the ugly ones are next to the pretty ones, we can still call it art, and people will still pay to see it." And it was done.

On the fourth day he said, "Let us put the Mona Lisa in this building. It is a small painting and very unimpressive, but with the proper PR campaign, we will attract visitors from all over the world and catch them off guard." And it was done.

On the fifth day he said, "Let us put up glass pyramids to denote our art museum from that of the other inferior art museums in the area." And it was done.

On the sixth day, he did a voodoo chant to the gods of the primary colors, Redetaurius, Bluecules, and Yellowdite, and they saw that it was good, and blessed it in their weird artsy way.

And on the seventh day, he rested.

I will let you all make your own interpretations and draw your own conclusions from that. Maybe I got a little carried away, but overall, that is a pretty accurate representation of how I felt inside the Louvre. I literally felt like I was sprinting into a wall over and over again. There were a few parts I liked. There was a room made entirely of marble with ancient Greek statues in there. That was pretty cool. Other than that, I had my fill of art museums for this life and the next. It was like art was being vomited on me from all sides, and I could do nothing but splash around in it. And for those of you thinking that I did not spend enough time in there and therefore I could not adequately appreciate everything, let me put that doubt to rest by saying I spent 2 WHOLE HOURS in there. That equates to two months of normal time in my book. I don't know why time seems to drag on so extensively inside art museums. I swear they are on their own time zone. Because of my experience, I have come up with a new question for dates. How long would you spend in the Louvre? Any answer that is greater than 2 hours automatically constitutes what we call a "deal-breaker". The date will come to an abrupt end, and there will be no second date.

So now I am sitting on a bus on my way to Florence. We have done Geneva and Venice this week, but this blog post is already long enough, so I'll fill you guys in on the next post.