Le Louvre

We live in Paris, right? Well, not exactly. You see, Paris is a well-defined area, with no room for growth. There is a road that surrounds the city called the boulevard périphérique. Sort of like a by-pass or similar highway that circles an american city, the périphérique circles Paris, and everything inside the circle is Paris, everything outside is not. We live outside the périphérique, and after a month of living here, we actually had not yet made it inside! That's right, we live in Paris and after one month we'd not been to Paris! This weekend, we changed that.

The first Sunday of each month means free admission to all Paris museums, so we thought we'd take advantage of one of the coldest free Sundays of the year and head to the Louvre in February. We plotted our route on the trains/subways and took off for the day. We didn't bother to bring maps though, and when we tried to change trains for the second leg of our trip and discovered that the train was shut down (not sure why, but lots of police, red tape [literal red tape], dogs, and such blocking the wing of the train station), we had to improvise with no real plan and no directions to follow. So we walked. And looked at maps on bus stations. And generally got lucky. Along the walk through downtown Paris, we did discover a little bit of why people seem to like this city. There's something captivating about the place. It's nice. You should come.

As we were walking, I had to find a bathroom bad. Luckily, this little guy popped up in my path:
Sort of like a port-a-potty but more permanent, cleaner, and automated. I'd read in a book once that you have to pay for these streetside stalls, but thankfully this one read "gratuit" on the door. So I pressed a button to open the door and went inside. When the door closed, I prepped myself for the task at hand and saw a red lever on the door. Assuming the lever to be the locking mechanism, I pulled it. The door immediately swung open and a voice started telling me to exit, over and over again. Try as I might, I couldn't get the door to close again, so I obeyed and stepped outside. The door then shut and a wash cycle commenced to fully clean the unit while I stood outside in the cold doing the peepee dance. Don't push the lever, it doesn't lock the door!

We eventually found our way to the Louvre. A big old building full of art. It's pretty cool. In the middle courtyard is this big glass pyramid. Controversial when it was built, it's now the entrance to the big old building art museum. Many people still don't like the weird modernness of the glass pyramid. It was ok I guess. If you'd like to know more, ask someone or go to wikipedia or something.

Inside there were lots of paintings. Most of them just hung on the wall and you could look at them. No big deal. But then there was this one:Protected by glass with ropes blocking you from getting too close, the Mona Lisa is one of the most famous paintings in the world. Maybe the most famous. I totally don't get it. More on that in a sec. Here's a picture of the ridiculous mass of people taking pictures of the Mona Lisa:

Facing the Mona Lisa across the room was the very large painting below. Now this giant painting had not one person, but 120. And 5 dogs. And I'm pretty sure Jesus was one of the people. I figure that makes it about 125 times better than the Mona Lisa. Yep, this painting is better than the Mona Lisa. I tried to get people to turn around and look, but they were too attached to their cameras and phones and such.

(*side note - after starting this post, JJ told me that this painting is famous too, who knew?)

I'll take my little Venus over the white stone one with no arms anyday:

Probably the most disturbing piece of art, courtesy of our good buddy John:

Almost as disturbing was this statue found in the deep bowels of the museum:


I liked this painting. I think it's of Charlie Daniels...

Living art. I think I'm onto something.

Hooray Le Louvre! We had a great time. After a couple hours of looking at pretty stuff, we spent another hour trying to find our way out. For a big, almost U-shaped building, you'd think getting out would be easy. But it's not. They get you with the floors, up and down and up and down. It's a mess. Next time we'll start our exit an hour earlier.

date night fun

Before going to a local jazz concert, we went out for a nice dinner together as a couple. We chose an italian restaurant that we'd seen a few times and came recommended. The restaurant was comfortable, and the waitress very nice. At our first sign of struggle in communicating she ran for a manager and told us she knew "zero" english, but we asked her to stay and bear with us as we tried to butcher her language. We ordered our food, jj lasagna, me a pizza. Then the fun began...

There's something the french do to their pizzas that I find a little weird. The love egg on pizza. Not like little bits of hardboiled egg, or egg baked into the crust, but like a runny fried egg just plopped down on top of the pizza. As I read the menu, knowing the word for egg, I searched and intentionally chose a pizza that did not list egg as one of the toppings. But when the pizza came out, it appeared that as a last thought before leaving the kitchen, the person bringing our food cracked an egg in the dead center of the pizza, let it ooze a bit, and then delivered to the table. I tried it, still not a fan.

I did however eat just over half of my pizza, but stopped with 3 pieces left (thought the rest could make a nice lunch). JJ finished her lasagna, and our waitress came, seeing that we were done. She looked to JJ, asked something with a smile, and JJ emphatically nodded "Oui! Oui!" as if to say "yes, the food was very good." She then looked at me and began to speak. "Would you like" was all I caught, and then as she continued talking she made a motion with her hands in a circle as if to pack something up. I had been thinking through a way to ask for a box to take my leftovers home, but came up with nothing. It seemed she was taking care of this for me! "Yes," I said, "please and thank you!"

When she left, we laughed for awhile imaging all the fun things that could have been said and what we would likely do as waiters if we knew our patrons didn't understand the language. Like walk up and ask with a smile "did your food taste like fried rotten foot?" Yes, of course, thank you! Or "was it so bad you want me to tell the chef to look into a career with waste management?" Oh yes! Or make a packing motion and ask the question "would you like me to take your pizza, roll it up, and flush it down the toilet?" Thank you so much! Oh the fun that could be had...

After dessert and paying our bill, my pizza had not made its way back to our table. We got up and began to put on our coats. Our waitress saw us and came to say goodbye. I put together the simplest question I could come up with, and simply asked "my pizza?" She suddenly had a look of utter confusion on her face and didn't really respond at all. So we said goodnight and left, laughing. What did she say to me when I thought she was offering to pack up my pizza?

You want I take your pizza, roll it into a ball, and throw it at your head as you leave? Bury it in dumpster out back? Plant it like a seed and see what grows?

New languages and cultures are so much fun.

Jesus saw their faith

So one day, Jesus was in this house... Being a rather intriguing figure at the time, He was surrounded by a mass of people. Imagine a studio apartment filled wall-to-wall with people and not even enough room to pull and hors d'oeuvre from a tray. Well some guys showed up and had brought their friend along with them. Their friend was paralyzed, and these men had heard the stories about Jesus and quite simply believed that He could heal their friend. But the house was way too packed to come walking in through the front door with a motionless man on a mat in tow, so they came up with another idea. Up on the roof, they cut a hole and lowered the paralyzed man straight down into immediate area of Jesus. Pretty cool right? Some friends who were both creative and determined... but that's not all. Here's where the story gets interesting.

Jesus looks up at the friends on the roof, and the Bible says He "saw their faith" and then looked down at the paralyzed fellow and said "friend, your sins are forgiven." This causes a big ruckus in the room - "who can forgive sins but God?" "He can't say that" "Blasphemy!" blah blah blah - and then Jesus does His Teddy Roosevelt 'speak softly but carry a big stick' routine and simply says "get up, take your mat, go home." The paralyzed dude (that means he is scientifically, medically, and common-knowledge-to-everybody completely unable to walk) then hops up, rolls up his ancient Capernaum therm-a-rest, and trots out the door (do you think the crowd parted to let him out? Or did he have to play human plinko to reach the door?).

This was one of the many "I AM GOD" statements that Jesus made in not so many words.

But go back a minute. Did you notice who's faith He recognized? The friends of the paralyzed guy. The Bible says "Jesus saw their faith." Now I'm not saying that the paralyzed man didn't also have a very real and intimate salvation experience through faith with Jesus as He lost the weight of his sins and stood up to walk. But all that we know for sure is that his friends had faith. His friends had faith that Jesus could save him! Heal him! Make him whole again! This part we don't know: but what if the paralyzed man didn't want to go, didn't believe it could make any difference when his friends pitched the idea. He wouldn't have much say if they carried him off anyways. Perhaps that changed along the way. We don't know how it started or how it progressed in his mind, we just know that Jesus recognized the faith of his friends.
[Luke 5:17-26, Mark 2:1-12]

Do I have that kind of faith? Do I believe that Jesus can make a difference in the lives of others? Even if they don't believe it or don't think they want it? Do I really? Am I praying for other people and believing that my faith can actually make a difference in their lives?

Pourquoi?

Why why why? Learning a new language is like being a kid again. I begin to notice a pattern, then it’s totally ignored. So naturally, I ask why. Why is this one different? There must be a good reason!? Then I get a point to the sky, “ask Him.”

Swahili may not have been one of the great romantic, ‘high society’, intellectual languages, but at least it followed its own rules! Or had a good reason to deviate...