Anything we may have done previously to today was just a warmup. Today was the big guns: Musée d’Orsay, déjeuner avec beaucoup des Americans, le Tour Eiffel, Rue Cler, shopping along Rue Saint-Dominique, Napoleon’s tomb, part of the Rodin Museum, le Métro and finally, shopping for dinner in our neighborhood. I’m tired just thinking about it.
First, I know it may seem obnoxious that I keep veering into French. But I’m not just being pretentious, although that may have something to do with it. I studied French for eight years, and being in France has dislodged some long-dormant remnants. I’ll be walking down the street, see a dog and think “chien mignon!” Steve will say something to me and I’ll reply “d’accord.” I know it’s annoying but I’m sure I’ll stop doing it once we land at Sea-Tac.
By the way, the Musée d’Orsay was amazing. Why don’t we have museums like that on the West Coast? The Seattle Art Museum will get, like, one van Gogh and plaster bus shelters with advertisements about it. At the d’Orsay, it’s wall-to-wall awesome. Though the Impressionist room and the Cézanne room are jammed with humanity. I stumbled into the Orientalism room and it knocked my socks off. I particularly loved the “Evening Prayer in the Sahara” by Gustave Guillaumet.
OK, so then we had an unremarkable lunch near the museum surrounded by other Americans. There was a very loud group behind us and I was prepared to hate them with French disdain but then they started talking about how stupid the Republicans were that had shut down the government. And yes, the shutdown made the news here. I just couldn’t understand what they were saying.
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the swift kick 