Paris

When I returned to my uncle's after sightseeing on Thursday, my aunt greeted me and asked if I wanted to go to school with her le lendemain. She teaches English at a secondary school, and she wanted me to tell her students about myself in English. So that is what we did.

I spent two lessons with her. With the first, a younger group, I spoke for a while, then they asked questions to clarify. With the second, they asked questions for me to answer. We delved into all sorts of things: my brother, sister, niece, nephews, mother, father, step-mother, likes, dislikes, personality traits – and yes, I'm single (which was prefaced by the question, 'Do you have children?', which sounded so odd and caught me off guard that I laughed and said no, but on reflection of course it is perfectly reasonable to ask a twenty-five-year-old if she has kids). So that was fun, and then I was loaned to another English teacher for the last period of the morning. We started by letting them ask me questions, talked a bit about current affairs and education in England and France, and then I sat and listened through the rest of the lesson, except when I was asked to say some vocabulary words for them to repeat. Fortunately there weren't any tomatoes or pyjamas with awkward 'a's which I cannot easily pronounce because of the difference between English and Canadian accents. I felt odd sitting watching their lesson, but I can understand that the teacher couldn't prepare to use me for the whole time, not knowing I would be there until that morning.

At lunch I got a bus and headed into the city, so I still had much of the day for sight-seeing. I'm glad I went to the school. It was strange being back in a school again, though I didn't feel too intimidated by the students, reassuring myself that their gazes were curious and not critical. They were younger, anyway, around 12 to 15, so not too moody yet. And it was nice to do something in return for the room and board that I'm getting. I dislike feeling like I'm using my uncle as a free base for sightseeing, so it is nice to spend time with them too.

So I took the bus to the Louvre on Friday afternoon. It was extremely easy, one bus from the corner of my aunt's school to the entrance of the Musée. Except first I went in search of food. Not wanting to be ripped off by Louvre café prices, but preferring a truly authentic French experience, I walked for a quite a while before I came across some market stalls in front of La Bourse, where I stood for a long time trying to decide which sandwich I wanted. The poor vendor assumed it was my lack of French that was hindering me and started speaking in English. It was admittedly partly that, and I still don't know where one of the labels said there was tuna inside. But mostly it was my usual indecisiveness as I tried to balance what I fancied with what was healthy with what I was willing to pay. In the end I made a good choice without (I think) speaking English, though she did to me. On my leaving she remarked, 'Good appetite', which I initially took as an insult noting the enormity of the sandwich I was about to consume before realising she was just translating, 'Bon appetit'.

I went on my way, trying to get back to the Louvre. I was completely disorientated but found a map and so was happy to plod along, with sandwich, in the sunshine, enjoying the atmosphere, feeling proud of how well I was navigating the city. Until, after I had been walking for a while, I consulted another map and discovered I had turned the wrong way up a street and was now even further away. Fortunately I had a ticket for unlimited travel that day, so I found a bus that took me near enough to the Musée, but I was annoyed with myself for wasting so much time and energy. The proud shal be humbled.

The entrance queue wasn't too bad, so I was in the Musée (also free with my passport), having been to the loo, deposited my jacket, and picked up a map, by about 15:30. Since it's open until 21:00 on Fridays, that still gave me more than enough time to exceed the limit of what I could take in before getting Museum Syndrome – where the words on the display stop having meaning (even if reading them in your native language, which I mostly wasn't), you cannot appreciate the beauty of one more painting of La Vièrge avec l'Enfant, and you emerge, blinking, to stumble home, saved by the hand of God from getting run over because your brain cannot process the information your eyes are giving it, and willing even to pay 2 Euros for a Mars bar for a quick burst of energy if only you had enough coins for the vending machine (fortunately I didn't, because, really, 2 Euros??).

I've decided that being a room attendant in the Louvre is a great job. You sit on a chair amidst works of great beauty. Have a kip if you want. Sort out your social life on your phone. If people touch the sculptures or take photographs with flash, meh, just let them. C'est la vie. Not the standard of vigilance I was expecting.

I wandered through the Italian sculptures and most of the Italian paintings. Yes, I saw the Mona Lisa. It was an experience to see some Donatellos, Raphaels, and Da Vincis in the flesh. But why is the Mona Lisa so revered? Why is it specially protected behind its own sheet of glass, with a cordoned area in front, in a room named after it? Especially when it is hung opposite such an impressively large painting of the wedding feast at Cana. Je ne comprends pas.

I preferred the objets d'art (though I went through them more quickly because it was at the end of my visit, and after Cluny it was harder to be impressed by these more recent creations) and the rooms furnished with items contemporary with Napoleon III, incluindg a throne and a massive dining table in all its sumptuous glory.

My favourite room was the Salle de St Louis. Deep in the bowels of the Musée (I think I have to go get ready for the wedding)...

(Continued 14 September)

You can explore the remnants of the medieval castle first built there, before it became a sumptuous palace for the pleasure of kings and emperors or a gallery for curious collectors and tourists. Mostly this involves walking around the outside of the original donjon (which I think means keep, not dungeon as I had assumed), but in the corner of a room displaying medieval artefacts found in archaeological digs on the site, there is a doorway leading to what remains of an original room. It is dark, empty, with arched recesses and not much else. But it's medieval, and I was alone in it (how many people can say they have been alone in a room in the Louvre?), and it had that wonderfully musty smell of a stone room. I was tempted to hide in one of the recesses and give another visitor the fright of his life but figured that would be too cruel (or I might have been waiting for a long time for another visitor to enter). Hmm... I wonder if you could hide there until after closing time...

So. Yes, the Louvre is huge, and in a beautiful building (shame about the glass pyramids marring the Renaissance (?) architecture). They have some very impressive collections. But how terrible is it that the strongest impression I'm left with is a desire to re-read the first few chapters of the Da Vinci Code (I originally wrote, 'Is it terrible that...', but, while typing this out, I have decided that yes, it is undeniably terrible)? Because I do love reading books set in places I know. I should also re-read the last chapters at Rosslyn Chapel.

So that was vendredi. Samedi was the wedding: about which more later.