We finally arrived in Paris 2.5 hours late, but since the Louvre is open late on Friday's and that was our plan for the evening, we didn't mind. We checked into the hotel and off to the Louvre we went (this was Indy's idea BTW). The next few hours were spent looking at painting, sculptures, and antiquities.
If you've seen The DaVinci Code
, you'll recognize this:
, you'll recognize this:
After walking through the Medieval Louvre, the first place we headed was of course the Egyptian exhibit:
Like his father, who got in trouble at the Louvre about 12 years ago for touching a piece of art, Indy couldn't resist the lure of this ancient piece. To be honest though, Indy didn't actually touch it (he just pretended). James Bond, did touch and in about 5 seconds a guard swooped out of nowhere and told him not to touch the art.
Being a silly monkey:
And a Pharaoh:
Finally, finally, after passing thousands of objects and dozens and dozens of sarcophagi, during which time Indy sang the Indian Jones theme song, louder and louder, we made it to the one thing he was most excited about: The mummy! He's seen it before, but was still crazy excited:
Once I was able to drag him from the mummy (seriously, I had to grab his shirt and pull him away), we headed for the Roman and Greek sculpture. It was his idea to pose like the statue:
After about 800 miles and 30,000 stairs (if you've been to the Louvre, you know I'm not exaggerating that much), we ended up at what is arguably the most famous work of art houses at the Louvre: The Mona Lisa. It's almost impossible to get anywhere near her. Being small and intrepid though, Indy wove his way toward the front.
We sat on one of the big round sofas for a few minutes to rest and then went over to one of my favorite sections, the large scale art. I'm fascinated by these HUGE canvases. One I particularly like is the painting of Napoleon crowning himself. I had Indy stand in front of it so you could see how massive this thing really is:
Sadly, my hands down, absolute favorite exhibit was closed for renovation. Nooooo! What is it, you might wonder? The crown jewels of course! The had a few on display in front of the section with a big sign telling us that the full exhibit would reopen in early 2012. I think I would look fabulous in either of these:
By 8pm, we were done. D-O-N-E, done. We were hungry, but also exhausted and I didn't feel like going out on the street to find a restaurant. There is a high end (and pricey) international food court in the underground maze of shops connected to the Louvre, so we opted to eat there. The variety of foods is amazing. There is Middle Eastern, Greek, Italian, French, Spanish and American. All the restaurants offer sumptuous national dishes. What is America represented by? McDonalds. D'Oh! I decided to have Ratatouille (yum!) and Indy wanted squid salad???? He got incredibly excited when he saw it. Since it was €9 for a small plate, I questioned his choice. He put his hands on his hips and said "Mom, it's France. We have to eat squids and snails!" Okay. He ordered it (and a slice of brick oven pizza from the Italian place) and we sat down to eat. It felt so good to sit! I couldn't let him dive in to his squid salad though before getting a photo of if:
He ate every bite of if! Crazy little boy!
I hope you enjoyed our first day in Paris. I've got more to come!
and is also available as an 
for $2.99. I don't normally tout movies or products in my memorial posts, but this seems appropriate. It is an amazing documentary.
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