After classes on Friday, a group of us met up to go to the Louvre. Apparently, on Fridays after 6 o'clock, it's free to people 18-26 years old, so of course we had to go. On our way there, Madeline and I stopped for McDonald's. Yes, McDonald's. Hey, we're on a budget, and it's filling. Plus, it was comforting to eat something that was also available at home. We also began to understand why the French hate Americans so much. While we were sitting and enjoying our chicken nuggets and fries, we discovered at a table a few yards away, there was a group of four teenage american girls. Though I'm not sure how we didn't see them sooner, as they were yelling and cussing and talking about how drunk they were. They couldn't have been older than seventeen and we over heard them trying to come up with cover stories to get into so University party. Madeline and I just laughed and talked quietly to each other in French, trying to blend in and not seem like Americans too. Though of course, you have even more Americans at the Louvre, but at least they weren't drunk seventeen year-olds.
It was really cool to see how much I retained from my art history class that I took second semester of Freshman year. I surprised myself with how many of the paintings I recognized, as well as the stories I was able to dust off from the back corners of my mind. What I loved even more though was getting to see all of the Greek work. Seeing the myths that I love displayed for the world in stone, like Eros and Psyche, Hades and Persephone, and my favorites Athena and Artemis, represented in stone over and over again by different hands over hundreds of years was breathtaking.
I feel that a lot of the time when you think of the Louvre, you think of the art inside like the Venus statue, Liberty Leading the People, and the Mona Lisa. But the building itself is a piece of art too. All of the detail that went into sculpting the shapes of it, the facade, the paintings on the ceiling, the floors... everything that was done by hand hundreds of years ago and still stands today. It's so hard to wrap my mind around.
My mom told me before I left how I would be amazed that everything in Europe is so much older that the things in the United States. That a statue on the corner of a street in Rome is older than my entire country. But what is even more amazing to me is that all the things I'm seeing, the detailed sculptures and buildings, larger than any I've ever seen, were all built and designed and created by hand.
We left the Louvre at closing and finished the night off by finding a cafe nearby for some drinks and late night bonding. I really like the girls on my trip (granted, there are only five boys). Everyone is from different places, aside form the 14 of us from OSU, and has different career paths and experiences with French. It's just been really cool to get to know everyone, and I look forward to building the friendships we've begun.