Mother yelled at me at least fourteen times to wake up, but I didn’t really want to, so I didn’t. Then she yelled some more and I finally got myself up. So I got all prettied up and we went down the street to the market. It was a much busier one than the market I had gone to my last time in Paris (and this one wasn’t in the process of closing) so that was nice. They had smelly octopi and some lovely dishes that I will have to buy a few of. They are ceramic and glazed in really bright colors.

Down at the Metro, we had to buy tickets and our credit cards, of course, refused to work. European cards have both magnetic strips and these genius chips in them that are not only easier to use, but much safer. I don’t understand why we don’t have them in the United States. So, since we don’t have the chips, the cards didn’t work and we had to use change. My ticket didn’t work, which didn’t surprise me for some reason. Metros are wonderful, but the tickets are irritating to the extreme.

Mother tried to talk to the woman behind the counter, but she didn’t speak English so mother was at a loss. I had to talk to her–I hate talking to people, oh well. We somehow managed to understand each other and she fixed my ticket. I think she was a bit more sympathetic with me than with mother because I was struggling in French the same way she struggled with English. Ma just thought she was rude, but that wasn’t it.

There are two stops on the Metro that go to the Louvre, one of them is on the outside and one is actually inside of the museum. We got off at Louvre-Rivoli which is the one on the outside. That was annoying, but it was neat to see the outside of the Louvre which is ridiculously lovely. I was obviously destined to be a King or something like that–emperor, dictator…

The Louvre was crazy busy–people were pouring in it from all directions, from the sides, from below, from high above. It reminded me of bees coming back into the hive, covered in pollen, returning to make honey, or something like that, but not really.

I wanted to go up as high as we could because nobody ever does anything except look at the overrated Mona Lisa, the interesting, yet not that much Winged Victory, and the simply dull Venus de Milo. Other than that, visitors pretend they know what they are doing and run around the halls thinking they look highly educated considering the art, whilst trying to look as if they are not bored out of their minds. I on the other hand, don’t bother trying to look intelligent, I just wander around until I find something that humors me. For example, my new favorite painting is “Les Massacres du Triumvirat” by Antoine Caron.

Nobody was paying this delightful painting any mind until I stood around it for ten minutes or so examining it and photographing it in greater detail. So, as hard as I tried, I still managed to look intelligent. Because I looked so interested, a crowd gathered around, much to my irritation and anthropological delight.

As we continued around, there were pictures of Jesus everywhere. He never looks happy, always hanging on a cross, or lying down dead. Did he never smile? This picture amused me because the people all look so devastated, but it seems only because they all have broken necks, Mary’s head is ridiculously positioned, so she just looks like she has been knocked out. Everybody else is like, “Oh! He’s not up that high! We couldn’t possibly take him down!” And then the Pope figure laying at his feet is just a bit too ridiculous for me to even ponder. In other photos, there are already nuns laying about at the Crucifixion.

After this, we went downstairs to look at the Mona Lisa, well not at her, the people around her because they drive me crazy. They are all there taking pictures and filming so that they can inspect their data later, looking for clues so that they can solve little Jesus mysteries. Others are there just because Mona’s smile is so eternal and famous. Why is this painting famous? In the several times I have seen her, I cannot help but think this. It is not particularly intriguing, beautiful, or interesting. Of Leonardo’s other works, there are several that are much more fascinating. My favorite of his paintings is Saint John the Baptist Yet, there is never anybody around this painting.

This annoyed me so much that we had to leave. We went back to Iolanda next to the Eiffel Tower and had our regular dishes which were just as delicious.

To get back home I decided to take the RER instead of the Metro. It is basically the same thing except that it is run by a different company and it is faster–but more confusing, and further underground at some points. It was ridiculously backwards and hard to understand, but once we figured it out, we were back home in record time. We had to switch back to the Metro for awhile to get home, on the train was a 70+ woman dressed up in all of her best furs and jewels. She was obviously very proud of how she looked. I applaud her.