May 20, 2009- Paris- Encountering Legends

Moved quickly through a very small portion of the Louvre this morning. We were waiting in line, 15 min prior to opening. A security guard comes by to compress the line asking everyone to move closer up, except Paolo, Tristan & me. He pulled us out of line with no clue as to why we were being singled out.  I was trying to figure out if we looked like terrorists or just dressed to scruffy. But he moved us to a separate line, let us stand for a couple of minutes and then told us that we were essentially at the front of a special circumstances line and when the museum opened we would be first in the door. Coolness: stroller gets you to the front of your own special line. Nervous: i don't think i understand French well enough to understand if he's joking with us.

So we booked through the wing of Italian art to the Mona Lisa (or La Jaconda). I expected to feel some sort of "ah" moment or at least a little "Divinci Code Moment" but really, 12 feet away watching people take flash photography just left me...blah. I wanted to look at the brush strokes and really examine the background, etc. But maybe i'll just do that online.

 Then we zoomed through a different wing to get to the Venus Di Milo (or Aphrodite) which again i expected "zing". This time at least i got a little, "wow-ish" but then the kid started fussing and we had to high tail it out to avoid exposing the other patrons to our ensuing meltdown.

Ah, art with kids....