Bon Soir!

Good evening from Paris!

Well yesterday Shalisa and I visited the Louvre. We saw so much art that by the end my eyes started to hurt. We got to see TONS and I mean literally tons of sculptures ranging from stuff that was in early mesopotomia 4000 years ago to stuff that was sculpted just 200 years ago. We saw Greeks and Romans and of course French sculpture, and that was just the begining! There was the winged victory and the Venus de Milo.

Then of course we moved on to the Louvres speciality, paintings. We saw Rembrandts, Botecelli and of course the worlds largest collection of Da Vinci paintings... all 5 of them :) The Mona Lisa had a HUGE crowd around it, I was able to push my way to the front but Shalisa couldn't see it. We wandered through about another 1000 paintings or so and split for lunch. We then had a beautiful walk through the Tuleries Garden to the Musee d'Orsay. There we saw a whole bunch of impressionists from Degas to Van Gogh (Van Hock as they prounounce it) to Monet. We had a great view of Paris through the clock tower. We then headed off to this great little side street called Rue Clare where Shalisa bought some fresh flowers, we picked up some groceries, and had fresh crépes from a street vendor (after many crépes I have to say butter and sugar is the best [beurre et sucre as they would say in French]). We finished the day off by going back to the Louvre which is open late on Wednesdays. It had REALLY cleared out, and although there was still people at the Mona Lisa it went from this huge crowd to 4. Shalisa and I where both able to take some great pictures and we were able to enjoy some of the paintings we had missed earlier in the morning in the huge crowds.

Today we woke up to snow, and oh was it snowing. Although it is hard to tell how much snow is really falling in downtown, we took a day trip out to Versailles and you could really see the snow there. I would estimate there was a good 6 inches of snow on the ground and we had a grand old time playing in the snow on the lawn of Versailles. We toured the palace, but both of us were a little underwhelmed, but I think that is because last year in England Windsor castle was so magnificant, and because of all the revolutions in France (I didn't realize, but since our revolution they have had 5!) a lot of the artifacts and treasures have either been looted or melted down to forge weapons or sold to pay for wars. We still saw some of the crown jewels, but it is sad that so many of these great treasures of history were lost. After Versailles we hopped back on the RER and visited Napoleans tomb (impressive, he is buried in 6 caskets!) and the Rodin museum. Rodin was the sculpture who did such sculptures as "The Thinker", Balzac, and "The Gates of Hell" from Dantes Inferno. All very impressive and right there in front of us. We finished oof the day heading to the Sacre Cuer Basilica which is another impressive French Church. It was the first place that didn't allow camera's so I had to whip out the spy cam :) Had dinner in the Jewish quarter (falaffel) and am now at the internet cafe... phew what a busy last few days, and the next 2 look just as busy :)

I hope everyone is doing well, and we are now on the home stretch of our vacation, so hopefully we can all see you soon!