All the Ins, Outs, and Roundabouts

April 12, 2024

All the Ins, Outs, and Roundabouts

On Thursday we went to The Louvre Museum and took the Metro (subway). It was very easy to use the subway and thanks to a kind woman who took pity on us, she made sure we knew how to put the little ticket into the gate to get into the subway. Everyone else tends to use a Navigo card which we knew how to use, but the tickets were like little social drink tickets and the slots seemed invisible to our naked eye. Once we got into the subway and disembarked from our train, we had challenges finding the right exit. We just followed the crowd at first (usually a good sign when leaving), however, most of our fellow passengers were making connections to other subway routes, so that was a “no go”. After following several signs that led nowhere close to getting out, we found a route and started to head out. But this time, we were the ones leading the pack (not always a good thing). As we approached the exiting area, all of a sudden about twenty people behind us started yelling, “Non, non, non!” At first, we didn’t realize we were the source of their excitement, but well, it turns out we were about to exit a closed area that had big red Xs above the exit gates. This very charming French gentleman (and yes, he was also very handsome) held the correct exit gate open for us, told us that one was closed, and ushered us out. People are just so kind, all over the world, and for that we are very grateful.

Now out of the subway, we had to find the entrance to The Louvre. It wasn’t obvious from the side that we exited the subway, where the actual Louvre was. So we actually spent a little time checking out the US embassy which is very sizeable here (so much so that we thought we were at the Louvre), (yes you may chuckle). We finally found The Louvre. And it’s structure alone is incredibly amazing.

We had pre-booked our tickets, thank goodness, as the lineups outside were really long. We had booked an audio guide and well, that turned out to be another challenge. The guide is actually based on a Nintendo system (which of course neither of us have ever played). It likely took the first 45 minutes to figure it out and we were definitely not the only ones. When we got the hang of it the system works well. (And yes, now it’s only 9:45 a.m. We still have the rest of the day to get through)!!

The Louvre is really quite amazing but so so many people that it was often hard to get close to the exhibits we wanted to see. There must have been close to three hundred people crammed in front of the Mona Lisa painting. The Louvre is also so huge that we found it easy to get lost (sensing a theme here).

We decided to walk our way back to the hotel from The Louvre and enjoyed that immensely. Travelling with David is like flipping open the pages of my very own encyclopedia or google page. He could tell me why every street had its name, knew about each of the statues, and quietly reveled in the opportunity to recall and share his historical interests and knowledge.

Place de la Concorde was very interesting and the Jardins de Tuileries were on our path home.

It’s a French holiday weekend here, but we haven’t found out yet which one they are celebrating. On our way to dinner, all traffic was stopped around the L’Arc de Triomphe as a military band and military and police forces were on parade.

En francaise pour ma petit enfants.

Pour le diner ce soir, Grammy et Grandmere a un club sandwich (sans pain) et le burger et les frites. Grand-pere est amoureux avec des bonbons et des friandises dans la fenetre.