Sights seen.

Friday, I went to the Louvre. I'd delayed too long; it's an overwhelming, awesome experience. Even if it were completely empty of art, there would still be way too much to look at, all of the ceilings with paintings and what I'm pretty sure are called cornices. A lot of the wings are closed right now because they're moving some of the collection, so I did a sort of Greatest Hits tour: the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, the 18th-century French school stuff (absolutely incredible -- Ingrès, David, etc), some of the Italians (Botticelli, Titian -- but I'd just seen quite a bit of Botticelli and Titian at the Uffizi in Florence). I plan to go back and try to get through at least one other wing of the museum. I'm also thinking of going back to the Musée d'Orsay (Impressionism).

Saturday, I finally got around to going to the Victor Hugo House. It's his apartments in the Place de Vosges, in the Marais. Their decor has been restored to the way it looked when VH lived there; he appears to have had a strong preference for insane, all-over floral wallpaper. The museum was also presenting an exhibit on Les Misérables, including volumes of the original, handwritten manuscript. Now, the printed, paperback-size novel is thousands of pages long. The manuscripts are huge. I hadn't really thought about how writers actually had to write before the advent of typewriters and computers: crank out a few thousand pages of manuscript, have it bound, and then reread it, edit by hand, have it typeset and published. The editing process was astonishing, according to the museum, which had a section showing Hugo's (extensive) revisions to a couple of pages.

I also really liked the museum because I know all of these 19th-century names now. Oh, Gustave Moreau? Lamartine? History of the 2e République? Yes, please!

After the Victor Hugo House, I decided to head over to the Pompidou Center. It's only a few blocks to the east, and the Marais is an adorable neighborhood, one of Paris' oldest and most fashionable. I visited the Pompidou's permanent collection of modern and contemporary art, which may be my favorite kind of art to actually look at. I get that modern art can often seem confusing and seem pointless, but I think that overlooks the (forgive the word) neatness of a lot of it. For example, I really liked a room where two binoculars were held suspended in the middle by a complex, spindly series of plasticky red ropes. I don't know what it "meant" -- although if I had to guess, I'd say something about the limited/constructed nature of sight -- but it was a pretty cool room.

Sped through the 1910s and 1920s collection (it's counterproductive to admire dadist art, no?), then shivered my way to the metro to go back to Issy for dinner. Madame made moules frites. Délicieux!

I might skip museums today in favor of wandering around, seeing a movie (La Règle du jeu, playing in revival), and maybe doing a little studying for my exam Thursday. Everything else, besides that exam and packing, is done! Well, I still have a lot of pastries left to sample, too.