Thanks Louvre!

Tonight was the Nocturnes de Louvre that I was really looking forward too and not to mention, my partner Katie and I worked really hard on learning about our painting. However, we did not get to present our painting.....grrrr!!!!!! Yesterday, the workers at the Louvre, and other National Museums and monuments like Musee d'Orsay and the Arc de Triomphe went on strike. The workers at the Centre Pompidou, the modern art museum, have been on strike for 2 weeks. I really don't understand why they are even on strike. I know it has something to do with retirement but it really just seems like they are being babies about the whole thing. I can understand if the metro or RER goes on strike, or the garbage collectors, but the Louvre?!?! seriously....their job is not that rough. They sit in chairs and look at beautiful paintings and tell people not to use the flash on their camera. The whole situation is just really annoying.

So yesterday afternoon I found out about the strike from Katie. I really didn't believe her because I didn't think it was possible for the museum to go on strike. I kept imagining that it was the paintings going on strike...I know that sounds crazy, but I kind of like to think that at night when everyone leaves the paintings come alive like they do in Harry Potter and talk to each other in British accents of course! Anyways, so when I got back to the apartment after class I got an email from my art professor saying that she wasn't exactly sure what was going on. Her email wasn't very helpful. So last night I had no idea if the Nocturnes was going to go on tonight or not.

Today I went to class and assumed that the professor would send us an email letting us know what's going on. Well, it kept getting later and later and still no email. I talked to a few people doing the Nocturnes and they said that we were still meeting. So I got ready and left. When I got there we all hung out under the glass pyramid and basically waited for the Louvre to make up its mind. Our professor said that we would know for sure what salons (rooms) were open at 6. So we all waited. A few minutes after six we found out. It turned out that the salon where our painting is located was closed. They really only had the most popular wings open. For example, the Denon, the wing that the Mona Lisa is, was obviously open because it's like the most popular painting there. Our painting is in a wing that was open, however the floor wasn't open. It was really frustrating. Some people from our group did get to present.

Katie and I went to the wing that our painting is in and went to see how far they would let us go upstairs. We got to the last flight of the stairs and it was all roped off and the door was closed. We took some pictures...it was just so funny that the Louvre was on strike...seriously only the French would do that. We wandered around the Louvre and listened to some presentations from the people in our group and one from this French girl. Her presentation was really good. She made me feel completely incompetent. We left the Louvre and I headed back to the apartment. When I got back, Caroline, Renee's daughter was here. Jean-Francois was here earlier setting up Renee's new tv, but he left. I went into the kitchen and Caroline ate my noodles that I made yesterday. I was kind of pissed because there were like a TON of noodles left and she ate them all. So I just made something that my parents sent me. I had a hard time figuring out the conversions but it turned out alright.

Tomorrow I'm going to Versailles to finally visit Chuck and Sam. We've only been living in the same country for 3 months and I have yet to see them! So that should be a lot of fun.

a bientot