Tuesday, 01 December 2009

  • Screaming in Front of Mona, and then British Airways

    Have you ever met those snobby college Europe backpackers that act like know-it-alls when discussing the Louvre?

    "Ohhh PUH-LEASE! I walked right past the Mona Lisa. I mean it's like, SO small and, like, people just, like, crowd around it like there is nothing else to look at."

    Ok I get it. She is small. She does get a disproportionate amount of attention, and yes, it is a pain in the ass to see her.

    NEWSFLASH: It's the Mona Lisa. Da Vinci painted it a really long time ago (1506, that's HALF A MILLENIUM).

    See, no one really knows alot about the woman depicted in the Painting. It may be a portrait or an idealization. She has no eyebrows. Her eyes follow you everywhere. The painting was stolen in 1911 by a crazy Italian guy before he was caught in 1913. She has had acid, rocks, paint, and most recently a coffee mug thrown at her. It is the most widely reproduced piece of art in the world. Everyone has seen it. The damn thing is so old it is starting to warp (apparently a source of significant stress to curators).

    Here's the thing. You don't look at the Mona Lisa and critique it as a piece of art. None of us are even remotely qualified to do that (except maybe the 19 year-old tour guide/art history genius you may remember from my Vatican tour). You look at the Mona Lisa because it is wonderous. It is historical. It is rare.

    It's friggin' OLD.

    Therefore it will come as no suprise to those who know me that I was proudly parked right in the front of the line 30 minutes before the Lourvre opened on Wednesday morning. When the pyramid opened, I entered, bought my ticket, and hauled ass with about 5 or 6 Asian kids (they, too, had the right idea) straight to where she was. I got a front row, private show.

    Yes, she is small. Yes, she is behind glass (though a very small piece that I didn't find distracting). Yes, I ran by about 500 other Renaissance pieces, not to mention countless statues, to get to her.

    ...and Yes. She was magnificient.

    I did wonder a few things: Whats with the background? What is going on with those eyebrows? What the hell is she looking at? Why is this painting so famous? Is it so popular because its famous (the Paris Hilton of art)?

    Anyway, after staring, taking pictures, staring, taking a picture of a 122 year old woman in front of it, staring, shoving said Asians... and staring, I headed back down to the beginning. Alisa and I only had about 3 hours, so we decided to stick to the Denon wing, which houses the paintings and all of the really old statues.

    There is a really long hallway which houses most of the Italian paintings. This is by far the most popular part of the museum. I've gotten pretty good at recognizing my Italian art, if I do say so myself. Gold accents in the halos and grayish skin mostly indicates that the painting is Venetian. Really bright colors, alot of people, and a random midget indicates a Veronese. I also saw alot of paintings depcting a head on a platter, in a basket, or being held by Salome, Daughter of Herodias. It all cases, the head belonged to John the Baptist, who was exectuted in the first century AD. (Check it out! http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CaravaggioSalomeLondon.jpg).

    Most of the Italian paintings were very religious (no...really?). They're awesome though. Baroque art, beginning after the Council of Trent, was often commissioned by the Church to communicate religion directly and emotionally. The Italians are so badass.

    On to the French. The French were late to the party. Louis XIV, the Sun King, commissioned a bunch of French people to paint and decorate the Palace of Versailles to prove they were better that the STILL-infamous Renaissance Italians. The result was actually pretty cool. The French like to paint two things: battles and eachother. They do it well. My favorite painting I saw was Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. You've seen it. Its the one depicting a French Revolution battle with a hot chick trampling over everyone with a flag. For no apparent reason whatsoever, her boobs are flapping about. I forgot to mention that: The French love random boobies. I also saw a really distubing Delacroix piece called "The Massacre at Chios."

    After staring at these paintings, and later some really old statues, Alisa and I met up at the cafe near the entrance. See, we hadn't really said alot to eachother that day because we were both irritated with eachother from the night before. This, of course, is in addition to the fact that our personalities are bound to clash when traveling together in a foreign land. So, we decided to have a nice, healthy fight right there in the Louvre. It was a good one.

    I'll leave it at that. It ended well, of course. We are Alpha Phi's for life, after all (huh?).

    What the fight did do, however, was make us wicked late. By the time we made it back, gathered out 200lbs of crap (never again!) and made it to the airport, our plane had already taken off. The dude at the British Airways gate solemnly informed us that it was going to cost $225 to rebook an hour later. Basically, the bastard made us buy another ticket for a one hour flight to Londontown, and we totally had to pay. Alisa bitched, I made excuses and bitched, Alisa bitched some more. It was to no avail. British Airways extorted us right before our very eyes. Usually my stomping hissy fits and endless lecturing get me my way. No, sir. Not this time.

    To down our sorrows, we slammed a bottle of wine in the airport cafe (yes! They let you buy bottles of wine in the airport. They even give you glasses and open it for you. I love France).

    At last, we arrived in London.

    My first impressions of London were:

    1) It was fucking colder than France.

    2) Their money is weird. Its alot bigger that the American Dollar and kind of ghetto. Sort of feels like you are holding half of a piece of wrinkled paper. Weird.

    3) Everyone has a British accent, but they all sound different. It is sort of like being in the Twilight Zone (because I totally know what that's like). Everyone is speaking English, but they sound weird. Trust me, after a few days, it can actually drive you a little bit nuts. By this time, your thoughts begin to have an accent.

    We headed to the Investment Banking Firm where our friend Josh works in order to pick up a key. Bastard left without leaving the key. He was off to the Chelsea/Fulham football game (that's soccer to idiot Americans). We decided to leave our piles of luggage in his office and kill time by heading to a Fulham pub. Here, we deployed two things: 1) Operation Get-Danielle-Her-First-Shitty-English-Pub-Meal and 2) Operation Feed-Danielle's-Pathological-Need-For-Attention.

    Honestly, the latter was more important to me. Look at it this way, when a British person speaks near you, your head automatically perks. Not like you really care, but you hear it. If it is a person of the opposite sex, they may become a little more attractive.

    "HI THERE! WE'D LIKE TWO ALES PLEASE. WHAT KIND DO YOU RECOMMEND? ALISA? WHAT DO YOU WANT? OKAY! THAT SOUNDS FINE! HEHE"

    Yes indeed. This girl proudly yapped up a storm in her first English pub situation. As my life would have it, no one gave a good goddamn. My first pub meal was good though! Some kind of mushroom stroganouf with wild rice. Tasted like it was made with heavy whipping cream. Alisa had bangers and mash. I was totally stoked to find out what that actually was: oddly seasoned sausage and mashed potatoes drenched in an unidentifiable-but-delicious sauce. Mmm Mmm Good.

    Josh came by a few beers later. By this time I felt like I had gained 231 pounds and could probably survive the winter if left alone outside naked. We made it back to the office, grabbed our shit, and headed to the apartment. The night ended pretty early, but it turns out we would need our rest. The next two days in London were going to be long, strenuous, and alcoholic.

    Some of which I can remember.

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