The Louvre Adventure

                The group of fifty two people I belonged to stepped off a tour bus that was parked in front of The Louvre, home of many famous works of art. As we walked toward the entrance of the museum, I could do nothing but admire its architectural beauty and enormous size. It was one of the largest buildings I have ever seen; when standing in the middle of the area it is located, the renowned museum wraps around you like a snake, only leaving one open side before it becomes a square. There was a huge outdoor glass pyramid in the center of The Louver, which I thought didn’t belong with the rest of the structural design of the museum (although it was still nice to look at). As I span in a circle trying to swallow the magnificence that surrounded me, I realized my tour guide was speaking and that I should probably pay attention to what he was saying. It was stated that we would have a little over two hours to wander the museum on our own, or rather in small groups of friends. This excited me; I couldn’t wait to roam the halls of this wondrous museum to see what lay within. Before we were dismissed from our big group to venture off, it was demanded that everyone see the infamous Mona Lisa, Nike, and several other well known paintings. I took it as my mission to try to see them all. The group of fifty two was finally set free to explore the innards of the colossal museum. I broke off into a group of four friends, including myself. We came to a group decision of wanting to find Mona Lisa first; due to her fame and glory. We took one look around, grew very intimidated from the crowd of people and size of the place, and went to find someone for directions. We came across a nice looking woman who worked there and she pointed us into the direction of the Mona Lisa. We followed her directions; however, we didn’t end up in front of the Mona Lisa. In fact, we ended up right where we were. It was at this moment when I realized that navigating this place was not going to be as easy as I assumed it would be. The four of us decided to try following the signs this time; however, the signs were in French, but there was a picture of Mona Lisa and arrows pointing toward her, that’s all we needed. We were doing a good job following the signs, until they stopped. There were no longer arrows to guide us, so we decided to follow the crowd; however, there were crowds everywhere. When I looked around for more arrows, I saw the statue of Nike standing upon a set of stairs, I smile and thought, “Well at least I saw one famous piece of art that The Louvre holds”. We walked up the stairs to get a closer look at Nike and followed the stairs that lead to a very long, wide hallway that hung elaborate paintings the size of the walls in my house. We kept walking and finally came across some familiar faces from our group who were walking in the opposite direction as us. I stopped them and asked if they had seen the Mona Lisa yet; they did and then pointed down the extensive hallway in the direction of where she hung. We began to speed walk to where they pointed, since we had looked down at our watches and realized a half hour had already gone by. We reached the end of the hall and still had seen no Mona Lisa. We began to grow very irritated and decided to try asking for directions one more time before jumping out a window. This time we asked another worker and she pointed back down the hallway and told us there would be a room to enter on our left. After rolling out eyes at our stupidity, we thanked her and stomped back down the hallway. Then, finally, there it was. A sign with a picture of Mona Lisa and an arrow pointing left. We ran our way through the crowd and entered the room in which Mona Lisa lived. There was a huge grey wall facing us and a sea of people behind it, we walked to where the people were standing and there she was-the great Mona Lisa. I stood there in triumph as my eyes gazed upon one of the most famous painting of all time; however, it was at this moment when I realized how small the painting was. It was as if I was staring a piece of paper hanging on a great big wall. I was expecting much more; something the size of the paintings we saw trying to find her. I grew a tad disappointed when I realized the painting wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I also grew a tad angry when I realized I just went through all that trouble to find something the size of a dictionary. I shrugged of my frustration and remembered that although she is small, Mona Lisa is still as famous as she is and that I was seeing her in person (not a lot of people get to say that). I told my friends that I was going to push my way up to the front to get a picture of her; they shook their heads okay and decided to stand back. The crowd didn’t intimidate me due to my background of rock concerts, where you learn to fend for yourself while you fight your way to the front.

            I got myself up to the front fairly easy, since I’m small and can fit through tiny cracks in a crowd. Elbows were flying everywhere and I was constantly being shoved side to side, so I took a few pictures and got out of there. Pushing my way back though the crowd was a little tougher than pushing my way through the front, but after a few minutes of wiggling and squeezing, I made my way to freedom. I was finally out and proud of my accomplishment; however, when I looked around to find my friends they were nowhere in sight. I was alone in a room with hundreds and hundreds of people and I began to panic. I stood on my tippy toes to try to tower over people to find my friends, but that plan failed since I am so short. I tried to keep calm and keep breathing but how could I? I was alone in a building the size of Texas! I did what I was taught to do, stay where you are and look for a familiar face. Ten minutes passed, which felt like an hour to me, before I saw people from my big group. I ran up to them and explained that I was separated from my group. I wasn’t very close with them, but they were nice and let me hang out with them for the hour or so that remained. Besides, walking around The Louvre with people I knew beats walking around The Louvre alone. I couldn’t stop thinking if my friends were okay and if they had gotten lost as well. I didn’t let the separation from my small group ruin my time in the great museum so I kept exploring with the two girls I met up with, it gave me a chance to make new friends and see many other famous pieces of art, including the painting of Napoleon crowing himself, the painting of people starving on a boat, and the Easter Island head that was in the movie Night at the Museum.

            Before I knew it, our time to adventure was expired and it was time to head back to our meeting spot. I met up with the friends I lost and we laughed about it for ten minutes, it turns out one of them was walking alone for an hour by herself. The moral of the story is, don’t enter The Louvre unless you’re handcuffed to someone.