Only one thing on the agenda for today: the louvre. I got there around 9:30, just after it opened and it was already swarmed with tourists. Despite this, the museum is so big that I did find myself totally alone more than once when wandering through some of the exhibits (and perhaps just a little uneasy that something might come to life when this happened).

You could easily spend a week wandering through this museum, but I only had the time and stamina for about 5 hours so I had to pick and choose a bit what I was going to see. One of my favourite areas was where they had a bunch of French statues set up like they were outside in a courtyard.

I also enjoyed the long halls lined with Italian paintings, some of which were so big they covered an entire wall all on their own (which did make me wonder how they must have been painted…). Included in and amongst these paintings was of course the Mona Lisa, though you had to wait in a little cue if you wanted to get up close.

One thing I was surprised to find Iiked quite a lot (though my neck may protest tomorrow) was the ceilings all throughout the museum. It felt like everytime you looked up no matter where you were there was a painting or intricately carved or sculpted or decorated ceiling up above you.

After the museum I headed back to the hostel and planned to have a quiet evening in, but my hostel was having a free wine and cheese event, and who can say no to that? Turned out the girl I had met on the first day Jasmine was going (even though she’s lactose intolerant and doesn’t drink) so we went down together to do some socializing. As the evening wore on we ended up spending most of our time with 2 other Canadians (go figure), one from Saskatchewan and one from Vancouver. The wine was fine and the cheese was pretty good so all things considered, quite a successful day.