Musee D'orsay

Yes, it's time for another cultural activity. Yay! This time we met the group at the Musee D'Orsay. After a big to-do about tickets and headphones and Prof. Blair yelling at the Cecilias and then telling me to be quiet because I was singing "Careless Whispers" (as a request), Don and I took off to explore the museum. (Gina got caught in the middle of the yelling so she got stuck taking the Blair tour ha ha).

The building is, of course, beautiful. The museum is right on the Seine and housed in an old train station. There are huge clocks on either side and some very intricate ceiling work. It does give the galleries an odd sense of displacement, but the collection more than makes up for it.

The Louvre is gigantic, and myth says that it would take three years to see the whole collection if one where to stand in front of each piece for three seconds. Musee D'Orsay is not that big, but the caliber of the artwork, as far as the amount of recognizeable pieces is austounding: Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, Rodin...all substantially represented (except for poor Camille Claudel, who only had on piece on exhibit).

The museum also has a great rooftop area with views of the right bank, huge statues overlookin the Seine, and 5E bottles of water. From here Sacre Coeur looks really close, but that's mostly because of it's so huge.

We ran into Prof. Blair's group a few times and it seemed to keep getting smaller and smaller, as people kept defecting. Except for Gina, who finally escaped by saying she "had to go to the bathroom" and instead meeting us by the front door for the walk back to the dorm.

One of my favorites, called "Death Visits the Young Girl". Creepy. Never seen this one before, but it's pretty cool.
This is the same cathedral we visited in Rouen. This time we got to appreciate it rather than run through it.

I'm not sure what "Whistler's Mother" was doing here. It was one of the only non-french paintings I saw, but was still cool to see.

The museum cafe behind on of the big clocks.
More naked ladies per square foot than Mitchell Brother's.
"Olympia". Gina said Prof. Blair made some x-rated allusions regarding the symbolism of the little black cat in the painting. Dirty old man.

One of Monet's watelilies and bridges. Funny. Just a few days before we had been taking cheesy pictures on the same bridge. Talk about art coming alive.