We Louvre Mondays!

We spent the whole day at the Louvre. We were there when it opened and we stayed until it closed.

My favorite part of the whole day was the conversations with Emma. We talked about everything from The Great Depression to the Renaissance. We chatted about cultural differences as people of different nationalities demonstrated very different ideas of personal space and ettiquette. We talked about Muslims and why France passed the new law against burkas. We talked about Napoleon and Josephine and their amazing love story. We talked about circumcision (there were a lot of nude male statues). There were conversations about The Da Vinci Code, Catholicism, the Pope and the life of Jesus. We explored the idea that while the ideal of female beauty has changed quite a bit, the male ideal remains rather static (inspired by viewing paintings of the Flemish artist Rubens and some of Michelangelo's statues). We discussed how different artists represented the same things, like Jesus' death or the Greek myths, in such diverse ways. We discussed Horus and Osiris and the the book, The Red Pyramid. We never ran out of interesting topics inspired by all the magnificent items around us. Nor did we ever run out of words to look up in our French dictionary.

Exhausted, but deliriously happy, we wondered home. We made a quick meal of pesto, pasta, onions, zucchini, tomatoes, cheese and the ubiquitous baguette. What a lovely day.