Favourite Paris photos - 52

How Miss K got her Louvre back

Gentle readers, I have a confession: I have lived in Paris for two years and three months, and it's taken me that long to visit the Louvre.  And, what's worse, I spent most of that time living right next to it.  Seriously, when I first moved here I was living on rue St Honoré (see these posts: Saturday mornings, Street talk  for details on that rather lovely neighbourhood) and if not for the buildings across the street, I could have leaned out my living room window, thrown a rock at the Louvre and actually hit the damn thing.  It took me exactly one minute to walk to the Louvre from that apartment, but did I go?  Mais non!  Now, you are probably horrified and thinking that Miss K is some sort of heathen animal who doesn't appreciate art but you are wrong, my pretties, so wrong (okay, fine, I am a heathen animal, but I'm also an art-loving heathen animal, thank you very much).

What happened is this:  on my first visit to Paris, about eighty bajillion years ago (I believe dinosaurs might still have been roaming the planet at that point) I was madly in love with the city and I wanted to do everything, including the Louvre.  So I went there on a Wednesday when it opened at 9:00am and stayed there until it closed at 9:45pm, and aside from bathroom breaks and sneaking into a stairwell to eat an orange and drink a bottle of water, I never stopped (and if you've ever been to the Louvre, you'll know that three hours is about the maximum amount of time you can enjoyably spend there in one visit).  So of course, by the end of the day, I was exhausted, dehydrated, bug-eyed from art overload and my feet were so swollen it felt like I was walking on flippers.  I mean, the experience was totally amazing, but I was so traumatized by the whole thing that I couldn't bear the thought of going back.  I avoided the Louvre on several further visits to Paris, and I really avoided it once I moved here, but now the Louvre and I are friends again.  We're quite literally friends - I even have a card that says so, because last month, I bought a year-long pass for the Louvre and I've started using it and it's fabulous.  I flash my card to go through a special entrance and don't have to wait in line, but best of all, I can just stop by for an hour or two and really enjoy my visit.  The Louvre is best appreciated in little, bite-sized chunks (which is not all that helpful for tourists, but it's great for locals with passes - like meeeee!) and I really like being able to just nibble off a piece whenever I fancy it.  Yes, picture Miss K perched on the Louvre like a gargoyle, gnawing away at the walls of the building and you'll get the general idea; last week I chowed down on Etruscan sculptures, next week, I'll be digesting Italian Renaissance paintings.  Get in, enjoy great art for a couple of hours and then get the hell out.  Ahhhh, bliss...

Favourite Paris photos - 49

Inflatable chicken

Ahhh, Paris.  Home to the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre...and the giant inflatable chicken.  What?  You didn't know about that one?  Well, now you do.  Just wait until I show you the inflatable dogs...

One year ago

I meant to post this yesterday but as I've been a little short on time recently, it completely slipped my mind - nevertheless, I wanted to re-post these photos from the big Paris snowstorm from one year ago yesterday, because right now Paris is grey and grim and rainy.  And even though the snow was a giant pain, it sure was pretty...
Jour Blanche

My Top 10 (so far)

I was looking at my blog stats today, and it's quite interesting to see which posts have been the most popular with you, gentle readers.  And since it also seems that I've had an influx of new readers recently (welcome!), I thought I would let you know what this blog's  Top 10 All-Time Most Popular Posts have been thus far:

10.  No surprise that another compilation made it into the Top 10 - I had so many left-over photos of crappy outfits from 2010 that I needed to do a whole extra post just to share them all:

Totally crap outfits of 2010 (previously unseen)

9.  Ahh, the glamour of living in Paris.  You seemed to enjoy hearing about how moving is just as stressful here as it is anywhere else...

Déménagement

8.  Not much in the way of writing, but some of my prettiest photos ever:
Jour Blanche

7.  Same again - minimal writing in this travel post, but y'all sure seemed to appreciate the photos:
Charming Chartres

6.  One of my sillier moments, but I had fun writing it and it seems you also enjoyed this story of doomed feline romance:

"Tails" of romance from the City of Love

5. Another post about travel - I personally think you only liked it because you're all now hooked on cheese crack:

Why the Belgians are better than the French (Pt 2)

4. Aaaand you're back to the topic of love (although human this time, not feline); coming in at Number Four, my romantic travails in the most romantic (yeah, whatever) city on the planet :

Paris: City of Love. Really?

3.  Seriously, you guys?  This is what you clicked on enough times to put it into third place?  Jeez.  Glad you were all so amused at my hideousness.  Hmph.  And I'll have you know that my eyelashes are, in fact, growing back - I expect to look human again sometime around the end of...erm...June, or thereabouts...
The eyes have it. Well, they used to...

2.  In second place, one of my more educational and well-written (if I do say so myself - it amused me to re-read it, which is always a good sign) posts, featuring the ever-popular Tiny Dancer (previously known as Miss A before I decided I had to give people proper nicknames):
Nature Capitale

1.  And at Number One, this is hands-down, by-a-mile, the most popular blog post I have ever written - I don't know if it's because it features the awesome Mr and Mrs Redneck, or because I took some mighty pretty photos, or because the subject matter (champagne) is interesting to a lot of people, but whatever the appeal is, here it is again:
Reims with the Rednecks

So, having seen what you like (not all of which would have been in my own personal Top 10 of my best work, I have to admit - which goes to show how little I know of popular opinion!), I must conclude that you're totally down with my pretty pictures, but not so much with my yapping.  Hmmm - I am not sure if I should consider that a big "yay!" to my photographic skills and a giant "booo, you suck!" to my writing skills, but I'm hoping it all just averages out over time.  Regardless, thanks for following/subscribing/visiting, and I'll try to keep up with your high standards, gentle-but-demanding readers!  Much love, Miss K

Things you might see at the Louvre

Well, if you are at the little park between the Louvre and the Tuileries on a warm day, you might see this gentleman taking his parrots out for a walk and some time in the sunshine - I saw him there last summer and again this year, so it must be a fairly regular thing.  Taking your parrots for a walk seems as though it might be slightly odd behaviour, but I am becoming so blasé and Parisian that I can't really tell anymore...

2010

2011

Things you might see at the Louvre

What?  You were maybe expecting the Mona Lisa?  Come on now, I would never be that predictable...

Anyway, if you are walking across one of the courtyards in the Louvre on a random Thursday, you might see a woman dressed as a bride, wearing silver sequin high-top sneakers.  Miss K has no particular opinion on the dress, but would very much like to know where she got those sneakers, because they are awesome...

Picnics in Paris

The whole concept of springtime in Paris is a bit overrated, for the very good reason that it doesn't really exist.  Seriously, one day it's winter, and the next thing you know we've skipped right on through to summer.  Well, whatever - the important thing to know is that as soon as it's warm enough, it's picnic season!  My friend Southern Belle was in town a couple of weeks ago and we made an attempt at the first picnic of the year - it wasn't particularly amazing food-wise (see photo below), but since it was the 16th of March and we were still wearing coats, it wasn't a bad attempt!

However, today it was sunny and 24 Celcius and I met up with English Rose to kick off the picnic season properly.  She has the same kind of part-time work hours as I do, and we agreed that the only real benefit to being so poor and under-employed is the freedom to spend random weekday afternoons in the park (beside the Louvre, I might add), enjoying the sunshine while more gainfully employed people are stuck in the office.  Of course, this is the only kind of dining out that we can actually afford to do in Paris, so just let us have our little moment of smugness, okay?

Picnic #1 - bottle of wine and bag of chips. Not quite gourmet, but still delicious!

Picnic #2 - much more respectable, and even a few healthy items.  No wine, but that was only because of our hangovers from the day before...

Favourite Paris photos - 22

Totally crap outfits of 2010 (previously unseen)

Okay, I am little behind with this due to my recent zombiefication (see previous post for details), but I did promise you the totally crap outfits that didn't make it into the blog last year, so here you are, with love from Miss K.  In no particular order:

You know, I admire the commitment to the crazy, I really do.  Especially the parasol, that's a nice touch.  But a) would it have been too much effort to run a brush through your hair? and b) did I mention the craaaayyyyyyzeeeeee???

Okay, as you all know, I myself am genuine low-class swamp trash, but I promise you that even in the depths of poverty, when I was wearing hand-me-downs that had probably gone through about eighteen owners before they finally ended up with me, I still never wore anything this bad.   Really, you're going to come to Paris and stand in front of the Louvre wearing this?  You're giving trash a bad name, honey...

Okay, let me explain something to you, dearie.  When you went into the tourist shop and bought that tea towel with the Eiffel Tower on it?  Yeah, it's not actually meant to be worn as a dress.  Just a little tip from me to you. 

Somewhere in Bhutan, there must be a naked and very pissed-off monk wondering why someone stole his robes, and why this woman is wearing them through the streets of Paris.  Dude, we're all wondering that...

Quick note to my family:

Hi guys,

Could you do me a great big favour?  When I get to be over 70 (like this lady), if I attempt to leave the house dressed like this, could you please have me committed immediately?  Thanks!

Much love,

Miss K

I took this on the Metro, and this is all I could get into the shot because she was right beside me, but really: leopard print shoes, swirly fuschia tights with a butterfly pattern, and an embroidered neon floral coat?  Just thank me for not photographing the top half of the outfit.  Really.  Just thank me.

 I know - you're looking at this, thinking you should maybe call the nice men with the butterfly nets to come and collect this lady?  Look a little more closely, because it appears she's already wearing a butterfly net.  Over a top that has a butterfly on it.  A butterfly with...roots?  Oooookay.   Moving right along. And  don't get me started on the hair, because if I look at this photo much longer, you might need to call the nice men with the butterfly nets to come and collect me.

You know, Miss K is half Scottish, and I like a bit of tartan from time to time.  This?  Is a lot of tartan.  And generally speaking, if it looks like you needed a crowbar to wedge you into your outfit?  Then maybe, just maybe, you should wear something else - something a little looser that doesn't involve any tartan.  I would thank you, and I'm pretty sure the good people of Scotland would thank you as well...

Sometimes I do this crazy thing.  Sometimes, before I leave the house, I look in a mirror to see whether what I'm wearing is the most unflattering outfit ever seen by the eyes of humankind.  And if it is?  Then I don't wear it.  Gah!  It's not rocket science, people...

Could I just.....oh, I don't know....make a teeny tiny suggestion here, sweetie?  I mean, it's only a thought, no need for you to decide about it right away or anything, no pressure.  But here's my idea (and again, just a crazy notion that came to me): that the next time you decide to cover yourself in glue and roll around on the floor of a thrift shop (which is clearly the thrift shop in Hell) and then go out in public wearing whatever rags stuck to you, I'm thinking you should just.... Not. Ever. Do. That. Again.

Favourite Paris photos - 8

Eighth photo:

The only good thing about moving to Paris in November (thereby freezing my arse off) is that the crappy weather occasionally scares off the tourists and you can get a shot like this without anyone in it.