Our time in Paris was too short

On Monday we went to the Louvre. It's mind numbing. You could spend an entire week there and still not see everything. The Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Winged Victory of Samothrace, DaVinci, Caravaggio, Botticelli, Ingres, Delacroix, Assyrian Bulls, Mesopotamian carvings, the Codex of Hammurabi.......mind numbing. We spent the entire day and we felt like we rushed through it.

La Gioconda. She is kept behind glass with 2 different barriers to keep people at a distance. The white spot on the side of her nose is someone else's flash. There were at least 100 people trying to see her and numerous people taking their pictures in front off her...."this is me and the Mona Lisa". Same thing was happening at the Venus de Milo.....one girl was even doing a sluty pose in front of her.

I can't remember what this was or when it was from but it reminded me of Ollie from Kukla, Fran, and Ollie....who I once referred to as Kublai Khan and Ollie. To this day Lou still makes fun of me for that mistake. One is a puppet and the other was the grandson of Genghis Khan....easily confused.

This is the ceiling of one of the salons. The Louvre began as a fortress and became a royal residence in 1364. Imagine going to bed looking at ceilings like this....who needs mirrors?

Took this picture of Lou (and some other lady). This is a capital (support) for one of the porticos in the palace of Darius I in ancient Persia. It was massive. Lou loves this type of stuff.

Tuesday...our last day in Paris and we hadn't seen the Eiffel Tower yet. Today we had so much to see that we decided to really use the Metro...alot. We started by walking up the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. The Champs-Elysees reminded me of Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Very upscale stores and hotels, a Virgin Megastore...which actually was great because we were able to sample French CDs. We came home with a couple of contemporary female singers and and Edith Piaf CD. Then there was the McCafe. The one thing I enjoyed in Paris was the lack of American fast food restaurants...but I did see a few McDonalds and a Kentucky Fried Chicken but did not eat at them.

And yes...."this is me in front of the Arc de Triomphe".

The picture below was taken to the side of the Arc. The way the clouds were surrounding the building...it looked like it was floating in the sky.

One of the last things that we went to see was the Eiffel Tower. This was another giddy moment in the trip. To actually be standing in front of the Eiffel Tower....the symbol of Paris to most people. It was much larger than Lou thought it would be...it is 1063 ft high.

The ironwork is amazing. Built in 1889 it was suppose to be a temporary exhibit. For my jewlery design girlfriends.....it has 2.5 million rivets holding it together. I love rivets. Every 7 years they paint it with 60 tons of paint.

This is a great image to play with in Photoshop. Invert the colors and apply a few other techniques and Voila (we had a waiter say that to use when he brought our lunch...eh Voila).

Or how about a little....hippy, hippy shake from the Eiffel Tower.

Back later with a few random pictures and some final thoughts on Paris.