Our Travels: Oct 4th to 9th: The Sick Days

After a few very full days we decided to have a laid-back day on Tuesday. Nicholas and I hung out at the park and went for a walk while Brendan caught up on work. Turns out our timing wasn’t very good because the next day Brendan got sick. Having the flu and traveling around the city just don’t work well together so we settled in at home for a few days. Nicholas and I went out a little bit, mostly to the park but we really didn’t go very far.
By Friday I was getting restless, I had made some plans for us during the week that we couldn’t do so Brendan suggested I go out on my own for the afternoon. I decided my destination would be the Musee d'Orsay.

I was sixteen years old the first time I was in Paris; I had traveled with school trip that brought us to London, Paris and Nice during Spring Break. I loved the seeing the sights and experiencing something new but I quickly found traveling with such a large group was frustrating (there was over 30 in our group). The day I remember most of the trip was the day almost everyone went to the Louve, everyone except Miss Young, a guy named Mike and me. Instead, the three of us went to the Musee d'Orsay. I can’t remember the specifics of how the three of us went off on our own but I think Miss Young wanted to go to the Musee d'Orsay and said she would take a few students with her and Mike and I were the ones who wanted to go.

I remember that day because I was able to walk around the museum by myself and really feel like I was in Paris, experiencing Paris, not just being led around. Miss Young was only twenty-two and gave us the freedom to explore on our own. I remember how beautiful the structure of the renovated train station that housed the museum was and what it was like to see a Monet painting for the first time. I decided to make the Musee d'Orsay my destination because of that day when I was sixteen.

The museum was amazing with beautiful sculptures and fantastic impressionist paintings (I especially liked Jean-Francois Millet’s Clair de Lune). Impressionist paintings are by far my favorite kind of art even though art is not really my thing, in fact I will go as far to say that most art leave me a bit confused. It was more than a few times while wandering the museum that I thought it might have been more useful for me to take art appreciation instead of the music appreciation class I did take for my degree. I have yet to find a reason to know that Bach was from the Baroque period or what functional tonality is. But maybe soon I’ll get to go to a symphony and I’ll be glad for it. On the way home I walked though the Tuileries Gardens and the grounds of the Louve, it was great way to end my wonderful afternoon.

We spent the weekend just relaxing around the apartment with a few visits to the park and walks to keep Nicholas from climbing the walls. Not the most exciting week but we were both thankful we have lots of time in Paris. Could you imagine being sick for a week when you only had a week to experience everything?