Working in the field of education, I talk to kids about college. It comes up a lot. Choosing a major doesn’t come up as often with middle schoolers as it did when I was in the high school classroom, but it still creeps into a conversation. The truth is, I have no solid life advice on selecting an area of focus in post-secondary education. I changed my major mid-way through from Journalism to Literature. And what does one do with a literature degree? Good question. It makes me think of a great Jay Leno joke he made about the usefulness of his college major, philosophy. He said he had planned to open up a philosophy shop on the corner. Maybe, I can open up a poetry shop up the street from Jay Leno’s philosophy shop. I took a lot of poetry classes. Not the most practical thing to study, as it turns out. But I was feeling vindicated as a student of the liberal arts yesterday, as we visited three museums. Art was the reason for the day, and my poetry classes came creeping back to the front of my brain. One professor had us journaling, and one of the topics we were to write about for her was about words we liked (or didn’t like) to say- not for their meaning, but for the way they rolled off the tongue. My top words were aquarium and museum. I rolled that word over and over in my mind yesterday. Go ahead and say it three times in a row. Museum, museum, museum. It flows that way. The other end of the linguistic bell curve for me was ointment. It sounds hard and sharp on the tongue. Take a moment, grab a pen and ponder your own favorite-sounding and least favorite-sounding words. And with that, I have saved you from spending thousands of dollars on poetry classes. But, as we’ve now contemplated the word museum, let’s dive in to the actual museums. Taking it from the top, here we go:
Yesterday began at a sidewalk cafe. Cas and I headed out in the morning in the direction of the crêperie, but we stopped one awning short and had a different breakfast at a different sidewalk cafe. It was right next door, and the name escapes me, but it was a pretty standard, French breakfast situation. We got the special, which was a croissant, some bread, a bit of jam, some fantastic butter, a glass of fresh-squeezed juice, and a coffee. To my American-trained breakfast expectations, I feel like bread, juice and coffee is a bit light, but this was exactly correct. We wrapped up breakfast and headed back to the apartment to rejoin the group. Yesterday featured three museums. I know, it’s easy to get museum-ed out, but the ones we saw today and the way we saw them was as reasonable as we could be, considering we went to three major French museums in a day. We started at Musée ď Orsay, checking out traditional art along with some more non-traditional works. There were artists who specialized in landscapes and animals, ones who were way into the human form and some who defied explanation. There was a room with impressionist paintings in it, so Cas had to check out Monet’s water lilies painting with the bridge. It is one that truly makes him happy. I had to look again at the entire space of Van Gogh images. It felt somehow miraculous to me that I was standing in a whole room full of images he painted. Just him. This museum, when possible, has spaces dedicated to specific artists. We had a guided tour, and that led to some great information about the individual artists. I really think Zoey was interested in some of the female artists, as there were not nearly enough represented, and the guide told us a story about one who battled the sexism of French art schools in her day. I’m glad that an 11-year-old in 2025 has trouble conceiving of sexism on that scale. There was one thing the guide said that I wrote down, though. I had to commit it to memory. There was a painting of a picnic where the women were all nude. Picnics and nudity. It hadn’t occurred to me that those two things went together. But our guide said, “Hey, it’s a picnic; things happen.” I haven’t been on that picnic, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
After touring the Musée ď Orsay, we went to their restaurant for lunch. Something my husband and his mother seem to excel at is communicating in foreign places, and I will provide the Cas-related example when I tell you all about the park. But Jeanne walked to the restaurant’s line for seating, standing behind four or five other women, made eye-contact with a waitress, held up seven fingers and somehow, managed to get us a table for seven ahead of the ladies who preceded us in line. I glanced back, and those other ladies looked pretty annoyed, but hey, Jeanne communicated the need better than they did. Also, it was important- there only appeared to be one table for seven anywhere near, and we needed it.
From that museum, we took a stroll to the Musée de l’Orangerie, where our date-stamped tickets from a few days ago seemed to work, anyhow. We missed our window that day because Notre Dame was just too interesting, so we thought we’d roll the dice and see it they let us in. Score one for the home team. Walked. Right. In. That one featured two oval-shaped rooms with massive displays of Monet’s water lilies surrounding you from every side. It was something the artist wanted to create, and there we stood, in the midst of his creation.
That was a quick stop, and we walked out of there in favor of a stroll in a park. The path to the Louvre was through a park, and everyone needed a moment to sit still. Cas and I split off for a moment and found a little stand in the park that sold wine. Here comes the bit about his communication skills. He ordered in perfect French. So perfect, in fact, that the counter attendant replied in perfect French. Really fast. Cas got so flustered with the speed that he responded affirmatively in Spanish, then French, then he threw in some German and Japanese.
The counter attendant responded again in English, suspecting that Cas would be able to understand. We got our wine and sat at a table. Sitting a in a French park, drinking a glass of wine was not a bad way to unwind before heading to museum number three. I know I was being a little classless, but I stuck my feet up on a chair. I thought we could both do that for a moment. And let me tell you, it felt good. But there was no time to dawdle. We enjoyed the wine, but we did it kind of quickly so we could meet everyone at the IM Pei Pyramid entrance to the granddaddy of French museums, the Louvre.
We had a scheduled tour of the highlights of the Louvre, and it was very cool. The museum is so large that you could spend a whole week touring it alone, but we have so much French stuff to see this week that we need to play the greatest hits album of French things. We saw a sphinx, we saw the Venus de Milo, a winged figure of Nike and a ton of paintings.
And the thing about the Mona Lisa is that there are other paintings in the room with her. Tons of other paintings, in fact. The whole room is loaded with paintings, and Mona Lisa really steals their thunder. Let’s spare a thought for the non-Mona-Lisa paintings in that room, shall we? I was part of the problem, in fact, but what else can you do. It’s the Mona Freaking Lisa.
But with that mischief managed, we wrapped up our tour of the Louvre and made our way back to the Latin Quarter. We stopped as a big group at the spot where Cas, Chad and I had a bottle of wine a few days ago, and we all had pizza for dinner. It was the perfect thing. We enjoyed a low-key meal with wine and conversation, and we reflected on the three amazing museums we saw. The day was certainly full, and we all slept pretty hard. I know I did- and I woke with thoughts of Mona Lisa, water lilies, sexism in the French art world, picnics, parks and poetry. Today, we have a walking tour of Montmartre, but that’s a little later in the day. We’re adopting a more leisurely pace this morning. It’s nearing lunchtime, here, and I think we’ve all finally emerged clean, dressed and ready for the day. Let’s get to it. Time for French brunch with the gang.
For now, enjoy this quick selfie with the only painting anyone in the room was looking at:
And here, again, is our photo album: tinyurl.com/dunlap-pl
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