Well, we had all sorts of big plans for our Sunday. After a miserable week where both Georges and I were sick with who knows what sort of cold/flu/virus thing, by yesterday we were both feeling sufficiently energetic to do normal things, and so decided we'd plan an outing for Sunday with the Little Guy. Last night while checking my email, I had a message from the French movie-search web site announcing the launch of the new cartoon feature, "Volt" (that's "Bolt" for you Americans and why they felt the need to change THAT name for the French audience, I have no idea) this week. Turns out there was a special avant-première at ONE theatre in Paris and for ONE show only, on Sunday at 11:15. I reserved three tickets online and we were good to go.
We got there early, and I waited to pick up the tickets while Georges took the Little Guy to practice with his roller blades (he's doing quite well, actually). I got the tickets, paid 6€ extra for three pairs of 3D glasses -- excited about seeing my first-ever movie in 3D, if you can believe it. Picked up The International Tribune to read the Sunday news in English, and sat down at the top of the stairs to the salle for the film -- the first one in line! A few others started to line up behind us. Georges and the Little Guy arrived and settled in to wait with me.
And that's when it happened: the manager came over and informed us that the film was cancelled due to a technical problem with the special 3D projection equipment! Quelle horreur! Our money was refunded and we were disappointed, and then had to figure out what to do next.
Ah! Wait! It's the first Sunday of the month and that means FREE admission to some of Paris's best museums -- including the Louvre. It was way too cold to spend the rest of the day in the park, so we hopped the metro to the Louvre, figuring it was best to enter via the metro station instead of standing in line with the throngs waiting to enter via the big pyramid... plus the underground shopping mall and food court are open there, even on Sundays.
When we arrived, we asked the Little Guy what he wanted to see: Egyptians, the sculpture gardens, or paintings, and he voted for paintings. We decided to start with La Jaconde, mainly to show him how many people were clamouring to see her. In the same salle is the largest painting in the entire Louvre collection, Les Noces de Cana, and we made a small game of seeing what we could find in the immense picture, sort of a like "Where's Waldo?" (which is Ou est Charlie? in France).
Then we headed into the Grande Gallerie. Fans of The DaVinci Code will know this space from the book and film, and it's filled mainly with religious-themed art and loads of cherubs, naked babies and adultes in various states of undress.
That's when the Little Guy devised his own game: counting the zizis in the paintings. Yes, we really did travel up one side of the Grande Gallerie and down the other, looking for uncovered penises in the artwork. He counted precisely 100 zizis in the gallery, and we figure his count could be off by plus or minus 10% given his short stature and inability to see the high-up paintings.
He also made what we thought was a very profound observation: that there were more bare behinds in that room (in the paintings and statues) than zizis. How do you argue with that? We were just happy he was enjoying himself.
On our way past the Mona Lisa for the second time, I decided to ask a female guard if it would be possible for the Little Guy to walk right up to the close-up protective railing to see the painting since he was so small and the crowd was simply too big for him to get a good look. I got the idea from seeing some other children do it once, and thought what a nice thing it was if they allowed the little ones to see better. I figured the worst that would happen is she'd say no.
But she didn't. She personally took him over -- we adults weren't allowed -- right in the very middle, close up to the painting, and talked to him for a moment to just encourage him to look at her. They even let us take a photo of him looking at the painting (but not of the painting itself -- despite the fact there were at least 100 people in there using cameras WITH flash and NO GUARDS WERE PROTESTING WHATSOEVER).
So not only did the Little Guy make the monumental discovery that there are a whole lotta zizis in the Louvre... but he got a face-to-face audience with the most famous painting in the world. Then we went and had lunch before buying some new books in the Virgin Megastore.
We think it was our most successful family museum day ever... if also our most bizarre.
Painting: Raffaello SANTI, dit RAPHAËL (Urbino, 1483 - Rome, 1520)
La Vierge à l'Enfant avec le petit saint Jean-Baptiste 1507-1508; Musée du Louvre
