Declan, 
Xinhe, Edward (an Armenian-American from LA who lives on Declan's floor and is studying piano in Paris), and I decided to make the most of our evening and the Friday night late hours and free student admission at Louvre. As we didn't have much time between our arrival and the museum's closing, and it had been quite a few months since I'd last 
visited the Louvre, I decided to make a beeline for my favorite piece of art: Antonio Canova's Psyché ranimée par le baiser de l'Amour. I do not care how many times I see it. It will always be wonderful. It is so fluid, so dynamic, so satisfyingly symmetric and balanced, so passionate and beautiful and perfect. I find it absolutely breath-taking. The beauty of going to the Louvre very late at night in the off-season for tourism is that you can really get the chance to appreciate a work of art from all angles without too many other people squeezing around you. I was happy to take advantage of this opportunity to really check out this sculpture after more than half a year's absence from the Louvre.
Also worth sharing is Lorenzo Bartolini's La Nymphe au scorpion, a sculpture of a young woman bitten by a scorpion. The lighting and the reflection of this piece against the window (with the classic backdrop of the entrance to the Louvre) struck me.
After the Louvre closed, we took advantage of our youth and the mild autumnal weather in 
Paris to spend an hour or so exploring. We passed along many windows selling exorbitantly priced articles of clothing, but my favorite had to be a shop in the Place de la Madeleine where we found a series of interesting mannequins that made me laugh. Somewhere nearby, we also stumbled across some chocolate shoes on display in another storefront. Given that the small individually wrapped chocolates in the display on its side were priced in the double digits, I can't imagine what that shoe might have cost. I suppose these things are best just admired from the other side of the glass window. (Window shopping in French is directly translated as window licking. Perhaps now I understand why.)
Xinhe, Edward (an Armenian-American from LA who lives on Declan's floor and is studying piano in Paris), and I decided to make the most of our evening and the Friday night late hours and free student admission at Louvre. As we didn't have much time between our arrival and the museum's closing, and it had been quite a few months since I'd last 
visited the Louvre, I decided to make a beeline for my favorite piece of art: Antonio Canova's Psyché ranimée par le baiser de l'Amour. I do not care how many times I see it. It will always be wonderful. It is so fluid, so dynamic, so satisfyingly symmetric and balanced, so passionate and beautiful and perfect. I find it absolutely breath-taking. The beauty of going to the Louvre very late at night in the off-season for tourism is that you can really get the chance to appreciate a work of art from all angles without too many other people squeezing around you. I was happy to take advantage of this opportunity to really check out this sculpture after more than half a year's absence from the Louvre.Also worth sharing is Lorenzo Bartolini's La Nymphe au scorpion, a sculpture of a young woman bitten by a scorpion. The lighting and the reflection of this piece against the window (with the classic backdrop of the entrance to the Louvre) struck me.
After the Louvre closed, we took advantage of our youth and the mild autumnal weather in 
Paris to spend an hour or so exploring. We passed along many windows selling exorbitantly priced articles of clothing, but my favorite had to be a shop in the Place de la Madeleine where we found a series of interesting mannequins that made me laugh. Somewhere nearby, we also stumbled across some chocolate shoes on display in another storefront. Given that the small individually wrapped chocolates in the display on its side were priced in the double digits, I can't imagine what that shoe might have cost. I suppose these things are best just admired from the other side of the glass window. (Window shopping in French is directly translated as window licking. Perhaps now I understand why.)
i remember you saying you loved that statue in paris...!
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