Ahh, Paris

Mon 22 March: Sheila and I had a nice breakfast at the hotel. It was nice until the desk clerk told us it cost 12 euro each. We should have asked first. Well, live and learn. We won't do that again. We took the subway to the Louvre Museum and struggled to find the underground access. We never did so we went through the front entrance- the famous and controversial glass pyramid. We located the museum pass office and purchased a couple of passes for 48 euro each. Sounds expensive, but it's really cost effective if you're planning to visit places like a tourist. It gets us into everything we want or have time to see. Then we tackled the museum itself. Tackled is an apt description. Off season and this place was packed with people- guides, school groups, artists with their easels, security people, and the Louvre is huge twelve miles of exhibits in three wings. It was exhausting. We saw some amazing things though. I was most taken by the stela of the Code of Hammurabi- civilization's first written code of law. Additionally, we saw all the things the Louvre is famous for: winged victory, Greek and Roman statuary, famous paintings by many of the masters. It is overwhelming really in the same way the Vatican Museum was. It's almost too much. We had lunch in the food court that sells fast food from around the world. The trouble with so many food choices is when some one passes with a tray, you think, "I wish I'd gotten that." Then we walked through the Carousel-a shopping mall under the Louvre. You could live in the Louvre. Then, needing to be outside, we walked through the Tuilleries Gardens sat for awhile then walked the Champs Elyses to the Arc de Triomph and climbed the 240 steps to the top the cost covered by our passes. We had a clear day, and the view was magnificent. Standing where we were, we were truly in the heart of the city with the major streets radiating from the Arc. All the major sites were visible. The Arc de Triomph was started in 1806 by Louis Philip to commemorate French military victories. They are numerous as they are with any colonial power, but I remarked to Sheila that there is no equivalent monument to their defeats: Germany 1871, Germany again in 1940, Algeria in the fifties, Dien Bien Phu in 1954 to name a few. We had bought a packet of ten train tickets each so we took the train to Isle de Cite and the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The stained glass is amazing as are the flying buttresses that hold up the Gothic walls. A statue of Joan of Arc proclaims her rehabilitation as a saint after she'd been burned alive for heresy and witchcraft. Upon seeing this, I asked Sheila, "Who burned her in the first place?" We walked to the Jewish Deportation Memorial which is right behind the cathedral, but it was closed. We took the train back to our neighborhood, bought food and wine from a local grocery, and ate dinner with the window open overlooking the street below. We watched the English version of CNN News- a news program much different than in the US. I wouldn't say we sensor, but stories about the war in Congo or US health care are much harder hitting here. More later. Love to all.