Totally Frenched Out

From the blogger formerly known as Samdebretagne

Friday, January 30, 2009

Getting kultured

In an effort to get myself out of the house, I decided to get off my butt and do something cultural this week. I ended up going to the Musée d'Orsay with my neighbor and 2 of the visiting Australians. Imagine my surprise when I discovered their ticket jeune included 30 or under - it was a nice little flashback to the days when I was under 25 and was able to take advantage of all the discounted entrance fees France offers.

For those of you who've never been there, the Musée d'Orsay used to be the Gare d'Orsay, or a train station serving the south of France. The building itself is absolutely massive (click here for a picture) - we got there at 2pm and only had time to explore about half of the museum before it closed. It also had really fabulous views of Paris in all directions.There was a Picasso/Manet exhibit entitled "le déjeuner sur l'herbe". While I thought it was great overall, I couldn't help but thinking that most of it reminded me of drawings done by the 4 year old I looked after this summer. Maybe it's just more proof that I have no clue what "art" is really about. Or maybe the 4 year old is just a Picasso in the making. lolAnother thing that surprised me was that there were so many people taking pictures, yet no guards walking around shouting "pas de photos s'il vous plaît". So that was nice - there was none of the "I'm pretending to write a text message but really I'm taking a picture with my camera phone" going on. I didn't even bring mine since I thought they'd be forbidding - so all of these pics are taken with my beloved blackberry. I also couldn't get over the number of ritzy old French women walking around - maybe it was "get in free day" if you were 60+ , wearing a fur coat and dripping in diamonds? What was even funnier was watching them try to take pictures of the art with their cell phones.... I particularly liked this guy and his cocker spaniel-like side burns. I think it would be a good candidate for replacing the Euro mullet. Who votes that the Justin starts the trend off?And even though the view wasn't really that different from chez moi, I couldn't resist taking a picture of the Eiffel Tower at sunset. Cuz you know you can never have too many of those...

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8 Comments:

Blogger Justin said...

Oh Ksam...

if'in I could,
I certainly would,
grow facial hair like that...
sadly, I come from a hairless family.

Sounds like a great day... I still have not been to the Musée d'Orsay, which is a shame being a big impressionism fan... maybe on of these days.

January 30, 2009 at 12:52 PM  
Blogger MilkJam said...

hehe i would pay to see the Justin sporting that look!

January 30, 2009 at 1:36 PM  
Blogger islandgirl4ever2 said...

Looks liks a fun day, Sam!!! Glad you got out...
Yeh... I vote for Justin to grow some facial hair like the guy in the sculptor!! hehehehe hahahahahahhaah!!!

January 30, 2009 at 2:26 PM  
Blogger Cindy in NE said...

Great photos! I love the Musée d'Orsay! Hubby and I will be in France in March. I can't wait! Note: Ouch! Take it easy on the over-60 comments! :)

January 30, 2009 at 5:51 PM  
Blogger wcs said...

Justin: glue-ons. hehehehehe.

January 30, 2009 at 8:10 PM  
Blogger A Tank said...

oh the d'orsay. it was really fun to take my mom there (she even requested we go back on her second visit) because it was actually still a train station during the time she spent in france during college! :)

ps. if you like monet and you haven't been, do go to the l'orangerie. i don't 'get' art either, and those paintings nearly made me cry.

January 31, 2009 at 3:33 AM  
Blogger Allan said...

We visited Musée d'Orsay when we were in Paris at the end of October. We went on a Sunday, when admission was free. The place was packed, but we had a lot of fun.

Took a lot of photos of the people, and architecture of the building.

I really want to go back the next time we are there.

January 31, 2009 at 3:21 PM  
Blogger Frogmae said...

Hey! I have been to the Musée d'Orsay last December too to see this exhibition! This is a really nice museum! And I made the same very ncie picture of the clock, pretty uh?!

February 8, 2009 at 2:40 PM  

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