Paris: Saturday

Saturday morning was museum morning. We began with the Musee de l’Orangerie which was designed to house Monet’s water lilies. While it is really just two rooms and eight paintings, I could have spent hours with them. Because the rooms are lit naturally, the paintings change depending on the weather. It amazes me how they can look so abstract but evoke such concrete feelings. I’ve seen pictures and studied them in class, but nothing compares to being so close that for a few minutes I was actually inside, surrounded by water and light and the magic of a carefree summer day…

To complete the impressionism tour, we went to Musee d’Orsay which boasts the largest collection of impressionist works in the world. After a while in there, I was pretty well on my way to an art overdose, so it was time for me to experience Paris as the Impressionists did: flaneuring wherever my senses took me.

To complete the evening, we went on a dinner cruise down the Seine. DIS treated us to a three course French meal:

But the night was still young! So I went to the top of the Eifel Tower!

 Every hour on the hour, the tower lights up in a paparazzi of flashes. Seeing it the night before from the ground, I thought it was dazzling, but seeing it at the stroke of midnight from the top: absolutely magical.