Paris tourism

So, for the past few days, I've been very touristy. Aside from yesterday, during which I slept and attempted to watch American TV shows online (which is very hard to do from abroad, as it turns out.)

On Saturday, I went to the Louvre. I waited in line. I descended into the pyramid. I was confused, not knowing how to actually enter the museum. I found one of the 4 (?) entrances. I entered. I was overwhelmed. I found the Mona Lisa. I found 93981 people taking pictures of the Mona Lisa. I still do not understand what is so great about that painting, even after seeing it. Maybe I will after my Art History class. In any event, I saw many paintings and statues that I found much more beautiful and complex while I was there. I spent over 2 hours there, but only saw maybe a fifth of the entire museum. It is incredibly large. Unbelievably large, almost.

One of my favorites of the statues I saw:

Today I visited the Orangerie, which was much more manageable in terms of size and the amount of art present. They had wall-sized Monets there that were absolutely beautiful and peaceful and breathtaking. I might go back there just to sit and stare at them some day.

I also visited the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. Both places were jam-packed full of people. We wanted to climb up the Eiffel Tower, but there were seriously so many people waiting in line to buy tickets, that it would have taken us hours before we could have even started the climb. So we decided to do that on another day. Notre Dame was beautiful, with its huge stained glass windows and pretty ceilings. However, that too was a bit tainted by the sheer volume of tourists taking pictures in every corner of the place (and outside of it). I still like doing all the touristy things, though.

Tomorrow: My first class and then off to visit Versailles!