{"id":241,"date":"2014-04-21T17:20:29","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T17:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/?p=241"},"modified":"2016-08-23T21:15:09","modified_gmt":"2016-08-23T21:15:09","slug":"friday-april-18-day-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/?p=241","title":{"rendered":"Friday, April 18, Day 17"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday was my last visit to the Louvre<\/strong>. After a maudlin start, I knew I could either be all elegiac Canon In D Major<\/i> sad, or bask in my good fortunate Pharell Happy<\/i>. I chose happy. Packed my backpack carefully, refilled my bottle with Perrier, made sure I had my sketchbook and pencils*, Nook, maps, and back-up battery pack**.\u00a0 No line at the Metro ticket machine, and a seat was open on the train, double win.<\/p>\n

Galloped into the Louvre, with my iPod blasting Handel\u2019s \u2018Arrival of the Queen of Sheba,\u2019<\/i> blessing my Des Ami des Louvre card, straight into the arms of the Flemish, Dutch and Germans on the second floor of the Richelieu wing.<\/em>\u00a0 I followed my eyes and heart. \u00a0At some point, I began taking photos of women with books or swords.<\/p>\n

\"book<\/p>\n

\u00a0Bonus points if they carried both.<\/p>\n

\"sword<\/a><\/p>\n

That carried me through the next three hours. My mood cycled from happy to be there, to sorry to be going. Finally, it occurred to me that the harder it is to part, the luckier I was to have been there. I had just taken a photo from the window with the Tuileries<\/em> ahead, Eiffel Tower to the left and the city gleaming white in the distance, when an ear-splitting alarm went off,\u00a0 followed by\u00a0 a voice telling everyone to evacuate the Louvre<\/strong>, for reasons of safety.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_8261\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The announcement, in multiple languages, alternated with the alarm.\u00a0\u00a0I wondered if someone had started humping the Venus de Milo, or if there was a shooter loose, maybe a bomb threat. I watched people wander by in the direction of the escalators as the announcement kept repeating, but it was like trying to turn the Titanic. No one seemed to feel any urgency. I started towards \u00a0the stairs\u00a0but didn\u2019t rush any. \u00a0I saw a security guard and asked him what gives. He shrugged one weary shoulder, blew a puff of exasperated air out of his lips as only the French can, and said, \u201cIt is a drill. You may ignore it.\u201d<\/p>\n

All righty then. No problem. I decided to consider it the lunch bell, since it was past 1pm. I went to Angelina\u2019s<\/strong> and tucked into grilled sole and lemon hollandaise, with a basket woven out of shaved carrots in three colors, followed by noisette, and a macaroon for dessert. I did another little drawing of Jos\u00e9phine on a postcard, this time for Robin. \u00a0Afterward, I went back to where I started on Day One, the sculpture court, and sketched my favorite view of Roland, Furioso.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"va<\/a><\/p>\n

I walked in and out of the various levels of the sculpture court until I finally made myself quit stalling and leave. <\/i>I took the Metro back to Saint-Paul, and, en route, \u00a0took a sip of water. Or planned too, but when I unscrewed the top, it blew off with a bang, like I\u2019d popped a champagne cork or fired a Glock. I sat there, stunned, \u00a0sprinkled with l\u2019eau mineral. No one was injured, and the guy next to me thought it was very amusing. I was obviously shocked down to my shoes.\u00a0 So kids, today\u2019s lesson is don\u2019t put water that\u2019s carbonated in your water bottle, then walk all over Paris before you open it.<\/p>\n

I left the metro without further incident, and walked over to a shop with scarves I\u2019d liked and bought one in vivid Mandarin orange with white polka dots of varying sizes. Then I walked to Le<\/i> March\u00e9 des Enfants Rouges<\/i>, thinking I\u2019d have pigeon pie and mint tea for an early supper, but no, too late. Headed back and passed a\u00a0Scandinavian\u00a0clothes shop called Cheap Monday<\/em> and bought a white tee shirt with C H E A P\u00a0 \u00a0P A R I S printed on it in black lettering. Maybe you had to be there, but it cracked me up. I ended up eating a savory buckwheat crepe at Breizh caf\u00e9<\/strong>, a joint everyone raves about, but not me. Meh, is the best I can say. \u00a0I scouted Monoprix<\/strong> for a cheap and sturdy tote in case my purchases max out my suitcase and pulled some Euros out of the ATM. Home to the apartment, where I started the laundry, nuked a couple of apples in the microwave\u00a0and wrote this up. Tomorrow is my final day in Paris. I figure I\u2019ll pack then just wander. Maybe do a ParisWalk<\/em> from the audio guide.<\/p>\n

*I\u2019ve only needed one sketchbook, but it\u2019s the one I bought at Sennelier (not too big, not too small, etc).<\/em><\/p>\n

** I haven\u2019t had to use the battery pack since I started charging the iPhone and its Mophie case at\u00a0 bedtime. The iPhone battery is down to 20% around 3pm, the way I\u2019ve been using it. Hit the Mophie recharge and there\u2019s usually 60% or so left by the time I\u2019m done for the day by 6 or7pm. Mophie is a game changer, in a good way.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday was my last visit to the Louvre. After a maudlin start, I knew I could either be all elegiac Canon In D Major sad, or bask in my good fortunate Pharell Happy. I chose happy. Packed my backpack carefully, refilled my bottle with Perrier, made sure I had my sketchbook and pencils*, Nook, maps, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[13],"tags":[229,115,225,228,224,186,94,208,194,209,148,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-paris","8":"tag-alarm","9":"tag-audio-tour","10":"tag-cafe","11":"tag-louvre","12":"tag-market","13":"tag-museum","14":"tag-museum-strategy","15":"tag-park","16":"tag-restaurant","17":"tag-shopping","18":"tag-sketch","19":"tag-strategy","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/va-Roland.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7OBxc-3T","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=241"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2285,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions\/2285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}