Hustle and bustle

Yesterday was our first day at the Musee d'Orsay. We are still trudging through romanticism and finally starting to talk about realism. So we focused on one side of the museum, and tomorrow we will move to impressionism. Today we went to the Gustave Moreau museum. I'm not a huge fan of his work, but it was cool to see how he lived, and how his process worked. Many of the paintings were in different stages of completion so that was cool. Afterwards, Lauren and I walked over to Sacre-Coeur, because we were already in Montmarte. There were lots of cool boutiques along the way so it took us a while to get there. The church looks like a bunch of ice cream cones, and is very unique. But the inside was pretty disappointing, it was like every other church. It was also really, really crowded. It was the first place where I saw a lot of pickpockets, because it was so touristy. Later on I went out to hunt down those shoes I had fallen in love with. I found them and couldn't be happier to have cute, proper walking shoes.  There is a huge Manet exhibit going on at the Orsay, so I went to check it out. I was hoping that the evening would be less busy but it was still teeming with people. It seemed like close to all of his work was there, and it was amazing to see "Olympia", "Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe", "Dead Matador", and "The Balcony" in person. But it was so crowed in there and people were pushing and shoving each other to see the paintings. I went through pretty quickly, but then hung around the main museum, copying a few paintings for my midterm. Walking out, I was a little flustered by how busy it was, and feeling a little claustrophobic. But the walk home calmed me down, and I sat in my neighborhood park for a while, falling back in love with Paris.

Staircase at Musee National Gustave Moreau

Basilique du Sacre-Coeur