Around the World in 330 Days: Brian's Fulbright Journey in China and Elsewhere: Day 324: Laundry part 2, Le Louvre part 2...and Some Great Food

We began the day by going to SRS Laverie and doing some laundry. We had only one load to do, so it wasn't as difficult as last week. And the people we ran into there were pleasant....everyone said "Bonjour." Most of the French we met were very nice! Afterwards, we went to La Placette, which is the same place we went to last time and liked a lot. In fact, this time was even better. We got the same food we did last time: I got the tartare and Kerry got the coquillettes de "mamie" jambon et fromage (pasta with ham and cheese). They were really nice to us; we even got ice with our drinks and ketchup and mayo with the fries. We also split a caesar salad, which had chicken on it again...SO amazing!

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel, put our laundry away, and did a bit of packing and sorting. Then we rested a bit before heading back out...to Le Louvre. (On the way to the subway, we stopped in at the bagel place, Bagelstein, to thank them for providing us with such good food while we were here! The woman thanked us. It was nice to give a compliment!) We figured Le Louvre was worth a second trip because there's so much there. And it did not disappoint! This time we focused on Egyptian Art: I haven't seen so many treasures from ancient Egypt in my life! There were statues, tombs, sarcophagi, pottery, and, of course, plenty of animals...including CATS!! This, of course, made Kerry exceptionally happy. Near the end we sort of ran out of time and zoomed through the last few rooms as they were closing. Still, on the way out, I managed to glance at some medieval art....and even work my way back to Cimabue's The Madonna and Child in Majesty Surrounded by Angels (one of favorites) and, incredibly enough, I got to say goodbye to Mona. When I entered the room, there were only 50 people this time, unlike the 200 I witnessed on the last occasion. Kerry and I started going one way toward what we thought was an exit, but it turned out we had do bypass Mona again...so I was able to get one more look! Even while the museum was ostensibly closing, 15 people were still gathered around her. Amazing.

Leaving was kind of tough. For some reason, they close the easy access point to the Metro station that we came in on, so we had to take a different route. Once we got to what we thought was our departure point, we got on the train......only to realize that we got on Line 7 by mistake! Oops! It was okay though...we just rode it to the next stop (Chatelet) that had a transfer to Line 1. A lot of walking to get to the Line 1, but we eventually made it. Kerry was hungry, so we thought about stopping at Subway on the way home. However, they were closed, so we decided to stop at the pizza place across the street instead. I'm so glad we did! We got two four-cheese pizzas with pepperoni for only 26 euros....AND THEY WERE SO GOOD! I am going to miss the cheese here, for sure...especially the goat cheese.

On the whole, it was a good last day. Goodbye, Paris. Goodbye, Mona Lisa.