Ver...sigh. (Get it? A Pun!)

dear erik,

unfortunately, last night our internet crapped out completely.  this morning i went downstairs to the shop that's owned by the guy we're renting the apartment from (his wife is russian and they sell beautiful russian folk art) to see if the girl there could re-set the wifi.  i would have just called him, but we have no phone. 

you know - 'cos we're roughing it. 

at any rate, shop-girl got us up and running again, so here i am.

yesterday i went to the musee cluny, which karen morrison recommended.  i remember her bringing mom lots of pictures from there in a little book when mom was sick.  they also have the unicorn tapestries, which were very cool to see.  i remember having a book about them when i was a kid. 

mostly, it's just so incredible to see these sculptures and paintings that are anywhere from 600-900 years old.  some of the faces are amazing.  i got an audio tour, which was fun, although they always want to tell you lots about some doorknob or something, and then the extraordinary painting you can't figure out what it's about, they don't even mention. 

it was also nice because it's a smaller size, so you can really spend some time in each room and still see everything.  it had smaller crowds than a lot of the other museums, and it's in this amazing OLD building with a wonderful courtyard where i could sit and process a bit when i came out.  i did sneak a picture of this (even though i can't figure out how to turn off the flash on my camera.  pathetic, i know.)

it's a wooden statue of jesus coming into town on palm sunday.  (the mule is on wheels.  it's kind of surprising - like a big toy) it reminded me of my favorite part of mom's sermon - where she talked about jesus and his followers coming into town so humbly, while at the other gate the big noisy romans are having an enormous procession and making a big to-do.

most important, i managed to get there and back by myself!   of course, i had megan double-check my metro plan before i left, but still!  after the museum i walked (using a map.  i'm so competent!) to the cafe de flores, which is a famous cafe where sartre and de beauvoir and hemingway used to hang out and drink.

it's right next door to another cafe called deux magots, which gets much more play around here as their hangout, but flores was the one i read about originally, so that's where i went.  it was much bigger and busier than i had expected (which is silly, since it's kind of famous and it was the middle of the afternoon.  not sure why i thought it would be some nice quiet little retreat) but the host and the waiter graciously put up with my not knowing how things worked and basically just pointing at the menu.

i wanted a croissant, but the guy said all the morning pastries were gone, so i pointed at 'cake' and he brought me that.  i imagine other people already know this, but apparently 'cake' means 'fruitcake'.  still, after he brought it i felt like such a jerk i just ate as much as i could and moved on with my life.  honestly - we're still making fruitcake?  what's that about?

then last night megan and i went to see the musee d'orsay (shout out to babs and ruth!) which is open late on thursdays.  it was also very wonderful, but way bigger than the cluny, so we're adding it to the list of things we want to go back and see again.  megan loves the impressionists (i think they're usually kinda dull, but what the hell do i know) and i guess they're known for having a lot of their work, which is nice. 

we also ate at the fabulous restaurant (the food was fine, but the place is fantastic - all glass chandeliers and ceiling paintings.) which was really fun.  there was some kind of fashion show going on with a string quartet, so we got to go through the galleries with a lot less crowds than usual since everyone was watching anorexic girls try to walk on stilletos.  always a hoot, but in this case we thought the art would be even more wonderful; which indeed it was.

THEN today we went to versailles.  i have to admit - not so impressed.  it's certainly extraordinary, and they're doing an amazing job restoring it - the gold/gilt on the outside of the building alone is crazy.  it looks like the place that 'the real housewives of palm springs' dream of living.  it is enormous, and certainly impressive.  i suspect there's even a lot of beautiful things in there, but what i'm really interested in is what life was like for the people living there, and there's really almost none of that.  they've taken out all the furniture except for a few beds and chairs, so at this point it's mostly huge rooms with paintings and statues in them. 

we also did a tour of the gardens, and of marie antoinette's little rustic fantasy-land, but again, we couldn't go into any of the buildings, so it just looks like a really pretty little disneyfied version of farm life.  what would have been fascinating to me would be to see what her bedroom looked like in this "rustic" little english thatched cottage surrounded by sheep and goats.  was it simple, or did it look like a room from versailles had been transplanted there?

when we bought our tickets, the woman at the ticket counter was hilarious.  she was a perfect caricature of all the bad things people think about french people.  megan asked her very clearly for two full tickets (i forget the word, but she asked for two tickets that got us into everything, not the limited tour tickets) and the woman gave her the wrong tickets.  megan Very Graciously pointed out that the woman had given us the wrong tickets, and the woman literally rolled her eyes and gave this enormous sigh, like she just couldn't believe how stupid we were.  then she said (in french) "FINE."  and gestured for megan to give the tickets back.  then she gave us the wrong change, and when megan pointed it out, the woman looked at the person working next to her as if to say "can you believe what i have to deal with here?" before grudgingly giving us the correct change.  really - a raging bitch.  it must be so exhausting to go through life hating everyone.  i'm happy to not have to do that.

i realize this is a super-long post, but i'll add some pictures anyway.

this is me getting some perspective at the louvre

 notre dame.  it was actually a really rainy, cloudy day, but it cleared up for about five minutes so i could get some pictures.  :o)

and...my internet keeps crashing, so i guess that's all the pictures for today.  hope you guys are good!  love you!