Entry 3 – Quote 3 that made it into my Paris Diary

Midweek we headed to the Louvre, the Orangerie, and Montmartre. I found the Louvre impressively underwhelming. This could have been somewhat the fault of my audio tour guide, the famed and self-professed “I-know-everything-you-could-ever want-to know-about-Paris,” Rick Steves. By the end of the day, Tara, Marlena, and Mady (okay, me too) were heard irreverently referring to him as “The Rickster,” “Ricky Bobby” and “Ricky Booby.” (Ask Tara for the scoop on that one!) The fact that I had to listen to Ricky’s chatter while hooked to Mady’s Ipod via a splitter and two-foot-long headphones probably didn’t help with my impudent attitude. The ipod leash made me feel like a tourist competing in a never-ending three-legged race. Anyway, once at the Orangerie, I ditched the earphones and had a much better experience. At this museum, diminutive compared to The Louvre, I had one of my climactic moments: analyzing the Kurilli exhibit with Marlena and Tara. At first glance Kurilli’s artwork looks like big pieces of Lincoln Logs, painted white, green, and blue and set out to look like a cemetery about 15 feet by 15 feet. What a joke, I thought! I could make this – wondering at the same time who I might get to pay me to do so. I plopped down in Kurilli’s wooden garden and waited for the rest of the group to get done with their tour. Bored, I started to lightly analyze what was in front of me. In minutes I came up with an intriguing (at least to me) explanation; Kurilli was trying to illustrate how everyone in our world is connected, yet separated, all at the same time. Then Marlena joined my sit-in and I asked her what she thought she was looking at. She thought Kurilli’s exhibit represented all the bigotry in the world. Then Tara sat down. She too came up with a story that brought sense to these colored logs. We were having such a good time that we had to be dragged from our perch. The true meaning of art had touched my heart. Then we were onto the Metro for our last attraction of the day – a walk through the neighborhood of Montmartre. In this quaint, hilly part of Paris we saw authentic artists drawing portraits at their easels and hoards of horny people in line to see the burlesque show at the Moulin Rouge. During a hike up the nearly straight up, three-mile-hill (remember, never let facts get in the way of a good story!) to reach the Sacre Coeur church, Kath, Mady, Marlena, and I stopped halfway up to put our aching feet in the cool fountain water. (Vic, Barb, and Tara opted to take a bus which they soon found didn’t exist.) After graciously admiring each others painted toenails, Mady, who was wearing a very sweet sundress, turned around to put her sandals on and in doing so inadvertently revealed her underthings. And thus came the most insightful quote of the day, spoken by Kathleen, “I see London, I see France, I see someone’s underpants.” Yes, indeedy, we did see many wonderful things in Paris that day.