The Louvre (Loovrah)

On Thursday, after a pretty rough morning (we were all very tired and the classroom was stuffy and warm) we had a fantastic lunch. On Wednesday a few of us stumbled upon this restaurant owned by Tunisians who were really really nice to us, so we went back again. I ordered some of their french fries (frites) and they were very delicious!

After lunch our Cultural Outing was to the Louvre, which proved to be more of a problem than fun. When we got there it was pretty busy so Claude took us in the back way. We got in fine, but then Claude told us to stay where we were while she got us tickets and two minutes later a museum worker told us to enter (even though we tried to tell him we were told to wait). Claude caught up with us and seemed disgruntled that we had moved, even though we explained to her what happened. She told us that the museum workers are on strike so we needed to do what she said. This was when the trouble started. We were then trying to go up an escalator to enter one of the galleries, but about 5 of our group were stopped and not allowed up because their bags were too large. Claude didn't realize we had some left behind so she tried to continue on so we were trying to explain to her what happened. She went down to help them get up. When they did finally get up the stairs we went through the ticket line. However, we got separated because of the large majority of people trying to get through and the ticket guy wouldn't let about 4 people through because they were not with the group. Again, Claude didn't realize this and tried to go on and we had to explain to her what happened. Because all of this we really didn't get to see much, but what we did see was quite interesting. There simply isn't enough time to see everything wonderful in the Louvre.

After we left the Louvre we came back the apartments to get ready for the wine tasting that we had been invited to by the Wine Club at EBS Paris. We knew which metros to take to get there, but were quite unsure as to where the actual restaurant was. Thank goodness Desmond was waiting for us at the top of the Metro exit (he's always popping up right when we need him!) and he and one of the Wine Club members led us to the restaurant. We were taken downstairs to a cute little cellar where tables were set up for us. We were still missing a few of our group, so I got to walk back with one of the Wine Club members to pick up anyone who may be waiting by the Metro. We had quite a good talk. I pretty much bombarded him with questions about Paris, but he was kind enough to answer all of them. He knew English amazingly well, but we still ran into a few language barriers.

When we returned to the restaurant we got our first taste of some wine, which was very delicious. One of the club members sat down by us and explained to us where all of the different wines were from that we were drinking. Then we bombarded him with some more questions about Paris and what the French really think of Americans. We pretty much got what we expected-they think we're loud and fat (in general). The club members were all very nice and we got to enjoy many drinking songs that they sang. We tried to think of one that the Americans could sing, but we never did come up with anything. After a few glasses of wine the club members invited us to go to a club with them, and many of us obliged. We walked there, which was probably the most fun part of the evening. The Parisians sang drinking songs the whole way at the top of their lungs and everyone we passed seemed to smile and enjoy it (I was afraid that people would be angry at our noise). We ended up at a club that we had actually passed a couple of days before and had wanted to go into. Their club was far different than what I am used to (though I have only been to Cactus Canyon). It was more of a discotheque than anything, with flashing lights and pounding music. It was so much fun, the Parisians always made sure we were dancing and having a good time.

By the time we got out of the club it was about 3:00, which proved to be a problem because the Metros close here at 12:00 on the weekdays. A few people grabbed taxis, but there were about 6 of us who decided we would walk home, as we were right by the Arc de Triumph, which we can see down the road from where we enter the Metro in the morning. However, the walk proved to be far worse than we thought. We ended up walking for 2 hours solid before getting home. A night of dancing and a full night of walking made my little feet quite angry at me. But we got to see far more of the city than we had thought we would, so it is not regretted.