and then a fight broke out at the Louvre...

After sleeping off our severe disappointment we got up, undaunted by our previous day, and were off to the Louvre. Once again this isn’t somewhere I woulda gone but Trish wanted to go so I conceded to the hour and a half “Masters” tour. Course when we got there that tour was sold out...lol…so, armed with a map, we did our own damn tour.

I have to say it was pretty impressive. I mean fuck! do they ever have a lotta art there. Top of the list of course was the Mona Lisa and the Venus De Milo. For the Mona Lisa they have a large area in front of it roped off so you can’t get real close. I was surprised that it’s actually quiet small. After a lot of pushing and shoving and be jostled around, I made it to the front to snap some pics. People are just so rude tho, I mean what’s so hard about waiting your turn to get up there, allowing others to take their pic and leave? But no you end up having to try and take your pic whilst fending off rude ignorant idiots who think that it’s okay to just shove you out of their way so that THEY can get THEIR pic. I got mine and got the hell out of there thoroughly disgusted. Venus De Milo was the same story though slightly worse. They allowed you closer but the shoving was just as bad if not worse. I got to the front and this guy beside me actually shoved me or tried to, out of the way with his elbow. I let that go but then he did it again. I turned to him and said in no uncertain terms, “stop shoving me”. Well yeah you guessed it he shoved me again. Thoughts raced through my mind then, followed by images of me being dragged out and subsequently tossed out of the Louvre. Actually that would have been a cool story and I would have left there thoroughly satisfied and suitable revenged. It took all I had in me to just take my pictures, turn and leave. As I passed by Trish I said, “Trish I gotta get out of here before I start dropping people”, to which some others had a good laugh over. Funny thing is when Trish got up there this same guy used her shoulder as leverage to steady his camera so he could take his pics….lol…he’s lucky he didn’t do that to me, something bad might have happened to his camera…-shifty eyes-

Then we met up with my cousin Jeff and headed off to Notre Dame. It was awesome inside but too dark to get decent pics. I was again to be disappointed because going to the top to see the gargoyles had been at the top of my list of things to do. But…we were too late, they weren’t letting anymore people in and there would be no other time for me to go…I was crushed. Still am.

Then we were off to the catacombs, where they put all the bones of all the people that they dug up from the cemeteries when the city needed the space. Trish didn’t really wanna go, but it was one of my highlights. Actually I had tried to bargain and have her go to the Louvre and me to the catacombs but she said she wanted to see them so there. She’s claustrophobic and doesn’t like dead people so this was a stretch for her. But hey, I went up to the spire in Salisbury! The whole tour took about 45 minutes and it was amazing. It took a while even just to get down deep enough. Unfortunately it was too dark to take pics and flash photography wasn’t allowed. I managed to get a few shots where there happened to be some lighting just so you could get an idea of what it was like but it was hard to keep my hand steady enough so that they weren’t blurry. We are talking hallways that go on and on, each side with bones stacked higher than your head. And they stacked them so neatly too! They used what I guess were the leg bones for the “walls” and they took the skulls and inserted them in various patterns in these “walls”. There were crosses, heart shapes, you name it, the guys that stacked this were creative! Trish survived though was suitably creeped out. I thought it was really cool!

So then we went and had some dinner and drinks and I was bummed I didn’t get the sauerkraut dish cuz the people beside us had it and holy moly it looked good. Then it was to bed cuz we were off first thing to Aix-en-Provence!

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pictures are mostly up... click here