I'm in France for only another 10 days or so. I'll be sorry to leave, but excited to come home. These days are sort of rushing past right now. There are still a few tourist sites I have to visit while I'm here, but I think I'm mostly concerned with finishing up my classes and enjoying myself for this last week or so. (Also, my birthday is almost here!)

Last week I went to the Rodin Museum. It was a gorgeous, sunny day, and the museum has some adjoining gardens with statues scattered throughout.
Of course, his most famous piece, The Thinker, was up on a pedestal:


Apart from it being completely surrounded by tourists, it simply wasn't my favorite piece. I preferred

La porte de l'enfer (The Gate of Hell)


Or, Le Secret


Since we've had such excellent weather lately, everyone's been spending a lot of time outside.
The Luxembourg Gardens, surrounding Luxembourg Palace which houses the French Senate, are well manicured and colorful, with people sitting around and picnicking all around the web of meandering paths.


Willllm Clark visited me last weekend. He was on his way to Germany and decided he'd see Paris for a few days. Activities included:
The marché aux puces (flea market) up at Porte de Clignancourt. I believe it's the oldest flea market in the world, or some other such distinction. It was a little bit disappointing, actually. They had some pretty cool antiques in one section, though.
The Bois de Boulogne, a huge park on Paris' west side. According to the wikipedia page, the park is about 2.5 times as large as Central Park in NYC.
A Pop Art themed bar, a cool club, and Pont des Arts. Pont des Arts is a pedestrian bridge that crosses the Seine, right in front of the Louvre on one side and the Institut de France on the other. The bridge has a pretty cool scene at night: it's full of (mostly young) people, hanging out, eating and drinking and smoking and conversing, playing music..It's essentially an outdoor bar with a laid-back atmosphere.

Other than that...
I went wandering around Place de Saint Michel the other afternoon, walked over towards Notre Dame:


I headed back to the Louvre, since the last time I went I obviously didn't even see half. If you ever find yourself in Paris, and you only have one day to visit the Louvre, you should visit the Denon wing, which probably houses the best-known pieces: the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, the seated statue of Ramses and a statue of a sphinx, as well as some of my favorites, like Delacroix' La liberté guidant le peuple (Liberty Leading the People)


And my absolute favorite: Victory (Nike) at Samothrace:




Just beautiful.

I was at the Louvre just up until it was closing, which is 10 p.m. on Wednesdays. I was walking through the galleries with my iPod, mostly so that I could block out the other tourists more easily. At one point, a security guard stopped me, so I pulled out my earbuds to talk to him, assuming he would be pointing me towards the exit since the museum was about to close. He asked to see my map, and pointed at the Pyramid and the fountain outside. What he really wanted was for me to wait for him there, so that we could "get to know each other" after he finished his shift.
I declined!
But that's just so...typical (and stereotypical) Frenchman, I'm finding. They'll just walk up to you, saying "Je voudrais faire ta connaissance..." ("I'd like to get to know you"), and then they'll invite you anywhere.

Oh, cultural differences.