MEETING MONA LISA

Me and my dear wife went to Paris a few months back. It was an anniversary gift for my wife, so hopefully she was happy. Also who knows what makes wives happy, right? 🙂 Half of the time I feel like my wife wants throw me off a rooftop or something, but we can try to keep them happy, that is what counts. Well, this morning she called me “Fir, Fir”-it’s a name of an old donkey she rode in Egypt while she was studying there, so I guess to my wife there is no difference between me and a donkey 😂. Sorry for sharing this, found it really funny, bless the woman, she can make my heart flutter and make me burst out laughing at the same time!

GREEK STATUTES-WITH THEIR PANTS ON! 😀

Alright, now back to the topic at hand, or is it blog at hand? So me and wifey visited Paris (will write a detailed blog on this later). To be honest, the wife and I are not really the museum and gallery going types. It’s not that i hate it, but if i’m in a different place or city, i’d rather walk around the streets, buildings, architecture, and parks, see the natural beauty of the place and just get a feel for the people, food and vibes. Going to a museum would be waaaaay down the priority list for us both – but we bought tickets to the famous Louvre Museum. It would just feel incomplete to go to Paris and return without seeing the infamous Mona Lisa! Trust me guys, and no disrespect to the fans of the painting, it was quite anti-climatic for me. We bought the tickets online, it was around 35-40 euros for both of us, and we had to select a timeslot to visit in advance. I would say that’s relatively cheap for such a famous museum with so many famous works. My wife really liked the pyramid-shaped structure of the building, she was more into seeing the outside view of the museum than inside 😛 The day was quite windy, and it was raining heavily, it always seems to rain like this everywhere in Europe, I love the rain, but my wife less so. We entered the museum through the shopping centre – there are a few entrances to the museum so it got quite confusing. Wifey wanted to enter from the outside and benefit from seeing the pyramid structure from the outside, but we kind of ended up stumbling into the museum while buying some nice chocolates for the brother-in-law and wife. So that didn’t quite go as planned. Once inside, there was a long queue to clear security, it was quite spacious and naturally lit due to the pyramid shaped glass ceiling, but to be honest, the rest looked like every other museum i’ve been to 😂 My wife says the Guggenheim in New York is different; – i’ll add that to my list of places to see. I am not that much of a museum fan to be honest, I prefer being out, but I suppose I liked the overall ambience of this museum. Well, you can also learn a lot of the country by seeing their museum. Well maybe not British Museum, where you learn a lot about other countries rather than Britain itself 😋

I talk a lot, don’t I? Going on and on about other things than writing about the particular topic. 😂 So, we decided to keep our bags and umbrella and our “gift bags” in a little locker. The lockers were quite cool, entirely see-through! I had fun messing around trying to work out how to use the the locks and keypads. I was expecting to pay a fee, but I can’t believe they were free of charge to use. Me and wifey took some funky selfies while we were at it – one of the few times she seemed happy to take a selfie, normally she rolls her eyes. Let’s see if I can convince my lovely wife to put the selfie on the blog. So after that we were roaming around the museum looking at some other stuff before we got to see the lonely Lisa. My wife wasn’t particularly happy with so much nudity in the pictures and statues. 😂 Neither was I towards the end, at one point I was getting quite annoyed seeing different sizes of penises and womanly bits hanging around. Come on guys, I am married, I think any wife or girlfriend will get quite annoyed if they see their partners staring at naked statues of a greek goddess or something 😛 So, I was stealthily averting my eyes and looking at the other stuff. In all honesty, the artworks were very detailed, and well preserved, taking into account how old they were. The museum’s ceilings were really high, and there were artworks on them and around the ceilings, That was quite a sight to look at and enjoy.

Once we’d looked around a few galleries, we decided it was time to meet Ms M Lisa herself. She’s very well sign-posted, wherever you are in the museum. As we followed the signs through, a sense of anticipation was building. The Louvre played really well into that anticipation by displaying little tidbits about Da Vinci or the portrait as you edged closer, very very slowly.

There’s no positive spin i can put on the queueing, folks, it was literally one step forward, then wait ten minutes. And ‘queue’ would be generous, there was no organisation to this situation, as we edged forward closer to the Mona Lisa, it was a literal crush from all directions.

My wife was preparing me from the very beginning that it may be a big disappointment for me when I get to finally see the infamous portrait, and guess what, good peeps? Always listen to your wives. The moment I stepped into the room where the famous painting was located I knew I made a mistake. 😂 The queue/unorganised rabble was huuuge – from in front of the painting itself to the very end of the very very large room that housed it. People were all excited and gearing up their best selfie poses! I was thinking the people were more into getting their famous selfies with the painting than actually looking at the artwork itself. We didn’t really seen anyone actually LOOK at the Mona Lisa, it was literally a few seconds to take a snap – almost all were selfies – then leave. After all that queueing, my wife insisted she wanted to see the picture in detail, to look at the brush strokes up close, but she didnt have a chance. We were literally herded like sheep, and the crush from the queue behind us was really quite overpowering, so we also took a sad selfie, and left. My wife thought that the information boards about the portrait gave a better opportunity to examine the Mona Lisa than the few seconds we got to stand in front of it. I’d certainly recommend a visit to the Louvre, but prepare yourself for an emotional rollercoaster if you plan to see the Mona Lisa.