Day Ten: Musée d'Orsay

Today's main excursion was going to the Musée d'Orsay, which is famously home to Impressionist paintings.  It was a train station until 1986.

I had been waiting for this day for a really long time - the day I would actually get to see many of the paintings we studied throughout high school in French class.  

Each time I'm in a museum or a cemetery here, it's sometimes difficult to grasp how much greatness is present in the room with me.  It's sort of overwhelming to handle sometimes.

Dejeuner sur l'herbe par Manet.  Taken with our wonderful tour guide Mirek for scale.

Degas!

Monet :]

Last but certainly not least, my favorite Impressionist, Renoir.

About a third into our tour, I saw someone in the hallway who looked exactly like someone I knew in high school.  I figured it was some French person who looked like her, so I walked by and left.  But a few minutes later, I felt a tap on my shoulder and sure enough, three girls from my high school are standing there - Lucy, Cara, and Ashley.  What are the odds?!

That night we went to a frustrating restaurant in the area.  The meal was fairly expensive (I remember it being something around 15 euros per person), and the servers forgot about us for about 30 minutes total throughout the evening.  But all in all it was a good day.

Walking total for the day: a sad 6.3 miles.  But walking isn't that taxing, it's standing around that's killer - so every time we go to a major museum we're pretty dead afterwards.