Show Me the Monet

Today's key word is nymphéas: water lilies. There were huge murals of them in two circular rooms in the Orangerie Museum, just down from the Louvre. And because we had our 6-day museum passes in hand, we bypassed all the other suckas (as Drew would say) waiting in line. Monet helped design the museum and donated his paintings to the French government, hoping that they would help the country to heal after WWI. Here's one of the murals:


We'd been to the Louvre earlier in the day and were dismayed by all the people taking pictures of the pictures or having their picture taken in front of the pictures. Everyone, it seemed, was in a hurry to capture all those canvases in digital mode and had no interest in actually looking at the paintings. And curses to Dan Brown: the Mona Lisa is now in a special roped-off alcove with people standing twenty-deep to catch a glimpse of the mystery lady.