Paris » Gallery #3: The Louvre
Day 7 of our trip – 5 June 2002:
The evening of our day in Montmartre, we met up with one of my ex-housemates from U of M and his wife, who are living in Paris, and went out for dinner at a lovely French restaurant on the Island of La Grand Jatte. Gabriel was with us and, to our great relief, behaved very well all through dinner, even though we were encroaching on his bedtime. Gabriel had also had a dirty diaper right before we went out so we, being newbie parents, were confident that Gabriel wouldn't need a diaper change at the restaurant. By the end of dinner, we figured that we were almost home free; all we had to do was make it through dessert.
Then Murphy's Law reminded us why parents should always be prepared for the worst: Gabriel, who hadn't had a leaky diaper since he pooped on my brother about ten days after he was born, proceeded to, uh, redecorate my pants and arms. A lot. It was then we realized that we did not have any diapers with us. Nothing. All we had available to help clean up Gabriel's mess were the restaurant's linen napkins. On top of that, we were at a table at the very back of the restaurant, and the restrooms were off of the entrance. So, we proceeded to use all of the linen at our table – plus a few napkins from a neighboring table, which i used as a makeshift coverup and avant garde fashion statement in order to make a mad dash from our table to the exit. Fortunately, the restaurant was still only about half full when Gabriel had his accident, so our humiliation was not abject. The restaurant ended up missing about a half-dozen linen napkins, but i'm pretty sure they wouldn't have wanted them back...
Anyway, the next day was the first day of lousy weather we had on the trip, so we decided to make it a museum day and headed for the Louvre. The Louvre is an overwhelming place – you could literally spend an entire week just going through its exhibits. One day was enough sensory overload for us, though, and Gabriel didn't do particularly well being confined to a stroller most of the day. But it was still a great day; we saw lots of well-known art in probably the greatest art museum in the world. We took some pictures of the artwork/artists we liked best. (The Louvre also has a very nice Web site in English at www.louvre.fr/louvrea.htm.)
 Eros and Psyche Antonio Canova 1793 |
 Flying Mercury Jean de Boulogne late 16th-century |
 The Dying Slave Michelangelo 1513-1515 |
 The Rebellious Slave Michelangelo 1513-1515 |
 Borghese Gladiator Antium (Italy) c. 100 B.C. |
 An unidentified ancient Roman statue |
 Gabriel already has a head for art... (BUH!) |
 Venus de Milo Melos, Hellenistic Era c. 100 B.C. |
 Egyptian hieroglyphics tablet c. 745-525 B.C. |
 Statue of a sphinx |
 Pharaoh Ramses II 19th dynasty circa 1290 B.C |
 The Wedding Feast at Cana Veronese 1562-3 |
 The Coronation of Napoleon I Jacques Louis David 1806-1807 |
 The Statue of Victory Samothrace, Hellenistic Era c. 190 B.C. |
 The Fortune Teller Caravaggio c. 1594 |
 The Mona Lisa Leonardo da Vinci c. 1503-1506 |
 Liberty Guiding the People Eugene Delacroix 1830 |
 The glass pyramid by I.M. Pei |
 Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, outside the Louvre |