Day Thirty-Two

The Louvre. It's like a mile long and has more masterpieces per square inch than an IHOP stuffed crepe has trans fat. This is where you go if:

-You want to see the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, or the Venus di Milo.
-You need an all-day cardiovascular workout.
-You are a tourist from anywhere.
-You want to take blurry photos of something you can buy a postcard of.
-You want to make up for a lifetime of not being exposed to art, culture, etc. and have only one day to do so.
-You need to get out of the sun for awhile.
-You have only one day to live, and the fate of your soul depends on how many paintings you have seen.
-You have some compulsive desire to stand under a pyramid and an upside-down pyramid, both made of glass.

All of this and more are available at your local Museo d' Louvre. We saw almost everything, if not everything. It was overwhelming, exhausting, enlightening, and a whole bunch of other stuff. The Louvre is worth several visits but make sure you have plenty of food and water before you go in, or you might not make it through.

Then we went and saw the Notre Dame cathedral. Rob talked to a Dutch guy, in Dutch, and oddly enough I found myself able to follow almost their entire conversation. Cool.

At this point I must confess something that I am not proud of. We were hungry, getting low on funds, and very unskilled in the ways of choosing and ordering french food. So we found ourselves in a certain American establishment ordering certain American food items, each sharing the same unmistakeable two letter prefix.

My sister Cate has a theory that it is impossible to order a meal at McDonald's in French, due to names like "Big Mac", "McNuggets", "McChicken" etc. that just don't translate.

We probably did some other stuff today too.