World Wanderings

Today was filled with the louvre. I came to the louvre not expecting to actually get to much of it since it is so large. But after wondering it's halls for a little while my confidence was inspired and I thought I might actually be able to see the whole thing (well most of it). Wrong.

I was told by my tour guide for Paris, Spike, that one does not conquer the Louvre but that it conquers you. She was right.

I did see a lot of the big pieces of artwork. Of course no visit of the Louvre is complete wittout the obligitory visit to the Mona Lisa. I wasn't dissappinted by its size, which for such a famouse painting isn't that large. And reveled in the fact that I saw it there physically in front of me, despite the thick glass, 4' solid table in front of it, and the railing set up another 10' away. This combined with it's size made it really hard to appreciate the art or the painting. I would have loved to have gotten within inches and actually study the piece. Instead I watche a mob scene of visitors looking to get thier picture with the mona lisa in the background.

Yes it appeared that most people had come to see the mona lisa only to have thier photo taken with it. It was a bit of a sad scene to watch, and wonder how many actually cared about it as a piece of art.

It was sad to see that the Louvre staff did not se to car about flash photography at all anymore, as I watched poor mona lisa and many other works of art get flahes hundreds of time a minute. The combined effect of speeding up the Bleaching and degretiom of the artwork. I guess there are too few staff to such a large hoard.

Anyways, I also poped on by the Panteon today. Pretty impressize as a bulding, but unfortunately it was pretty barren inside, and considering it's grand size, it would have been nice to see more inside of it (at least talkIng about the building). I at least got to climb up to the outside of the dome. And this got another birds eye view of the city. There are lots of them available in Paris, which is a good thing in my opionion. I like the thought of being up high and seeing your city (or the one you're staying in) spread out before you.

I met some fun folk las night. One was from Canada, and had already traveled and worked in austrailia at a gold mine for 9 months. Quite the way to live, work and travel. He appeared to be unsure of what he wanted to end up doing in life, but that traveling and working where doing it for him at the moment. Then there was a girl from austrailia, who had already traveled to several oriental countires, as well as across Europe. I had stumbled upon a true group of travelers.

Then there was a girl from New Zeland whom didn't really appear to want to ever go back to there. Instead she wanted to travel to every country and work in them for a few months. Really a wondering and. Nomadic spirit. She had actually just gotten to Paris to work for a year, and was in the process of finding a job and an apartment. It was cool to meet someone with such a desire to see the whole world.

Well, I'm currently typing this on a train Madrid, and it's time to see if I can get amy sleep.

PS: take note that writing most of these entries from my iPod. I'm not really proofreading and words then to get messed up, left off, combined, or just turned into a jumble. So, if you see mistakes, kindly ignore them.