Lost in Louvre

I, of course, have been warned. My marvellous Paris Encounter guide book has warned me about the immensity of Louvre and how long I am going to queue if I enter via the famous Pyramid. And so I left my petit hotel and took Metro ala French, early in the day. After few confusing interchanges for this map-blind traveler, I made it to Palais Royal- Musee de Louvre, Metro direct stop to enter Louvre (via a huge hall where they still keep the old wall intact). So, no I didn’t join the long dragon-y line above and you should not too. Better to spend the precious time inside. Also for museum buff, I advise you to buy Paris Museum Pass which allow you to visit 60 museums and monuments all over Paris (for 2, 4 or 6 consecutive days). It also comes with the privilege of strutting via “VIP” entrance and avoid hoi polloi queue. For another tips to spend less in Louvre and you happened to be under 26 years old (except if you are caught in museum shop’s buying frenzy), is to visit on every Friday evening since it is free from 6 to 10 p.m.

Louvre is not a museum. It is what people use to describe it, to explain the vastness of it. But I don’t think it is the right words to describe the experiences when you are in it. It is the Mecca for art, architecture and civilization aficionado. A pilgrimage for me. The Holy Land of Civilization. However there are some obstacles in my way. One, I am direction blind. I would never be able to tell apart which is is west or which is east. You can put a life-size map in front of me and still I will be lost. And I’m in Louvre (I am still amazed that I successfully went through it alive),one of the largest museum in the world.

Two, is the mob. Horribly buzzing, crazily blitzing and suffocatingly gathered in one huge annoying group that takes up the whole place kind of mob. I literally had to poke and push to be able to see the masterpieces. Most of them are herded sleep walkingly by their guide (usually attired in bright blinding color and armed with flags and whistle) from one masterpiece to another, nodding their head harmoniously when the cheerful guide explained to them about certain sculpture. The same guide (smile tatooed permanently) also works as instant photographer for the group since a lot of people apparently want to have their picture taken beside Venus de Milo with the same pose (Winston Churchill’s “V” fingers and huge grin). Quite a spectacle for this sapimalas who loves to watch people in secret.

Considering I have only few hours in Louvre (too many museums, too little time), I had to make a careful selection of which exhibitions I would visit. Sculptures, Egyptian art and paintings is a must. So I started to make my way through the sculptures section. Etruscan, Greek and Roman sculptures are scattered everywhere. I saw beauty in every nook and cranny. Even the ceiling was a feast for the eyes.

The sculptural celebrity was also the most crowded (and it haven’t even reached noon!) such as Venus de Milo whose unarmed yet still beautiful, Winged Victory whose headless and actually could just become obscure but somehow managed to becomes popular (a dramatic position on top of the staircase and perfectly angled skylight also helps).

I don’t have a personal favorite but I was very drawn to this sculpture of Psyche and Cupid. Erotic, beautiful and hit me with a strong impression of love, lust. Suddenly my head was singing “All you need is love” by The Beatles and this sculpture really does give a symbolism of love. Pure, profound and as if you will die if you are not rescued by love, of love. I saw few artists standing close to those sculptures and draw sketches of the details. A pulsating vein in one arm and the naked six packed torso of unknown male statue with curiously small you-know-what. I wonder about this. A room full of naked male statues, supposedly symbolizing the male masculinity and yet, none of those muscularly marble statues have a more fitting ‘size does matter’ fixture. Perhaps size and masculinity doesn’t necessarily goes hand in hand centuries ago. Hmm.

As for the paintings, all I could say is it was a blur of colors. I would love to tell you a smart sentences with a sharp views and knowledging remarks but to tell you the truth, I was lost. Too many of good things is bad for you. I remember some paintings far more than the others in that visual war between masterpieces. Madonna of the Rocks (damn you, Dan Brown), Rubens, Rembrandts and those famous Renaissance masters. It was too much for this poor brain and two eyes. I wouldn’t mind to have extra pair of eyes at that moment. So I was walking in daze with mouth hanging open all the way through many galleries.

Suddenly in front of me was The Painting. The Monalisa. And it was a seriously dissapointing appearance. I knew it would be small and but I didn’ think it would be that small or that protected. It seems silly to protect such a petit painting with such a great security (and to understand why someone wanted to throw acid into Monalisa’s face is beyond me). From all Da Vinci’s masterpieces, why it has to be this smirking woman that becomes really popular? Personally, I think Monalisa is overrated. There, I say it. Feel free to comment. This is the closest distance I got to Monalisa (No wonder you keep smirking, Signora!):

I continued to the next level, Flemish paintings and impressionist, my favorite. They had a good collection but I was trying to keep my apetite for Musee d’Orsay and so only spent half an hour in there. Oh and I almost forget to tell you about this group. Apart from tourists who had to come to Louvre for the same reason they must go to Eiffel Tower, there is also a new group of visitor. I present to you *with drum roll* The Da Vinci Code Group. Beside the obvious people frenzy with anything Dan Brown, Monalisa, Opus Dei and Mary Magdalene; Louvre also gain benefits from Monsieur Brown portrayal. So now, using the moment, Louvre created a special tour for those ‘code crackers’. I was walking pass one group when I heard a guide in French accent said loudly, “So this is the spot where Jacques Saunière was murdered…”. At that point I really had to giggle. Just couldn’t help it.

After asking two nice museum staff (they can speak English! Ces’t magnifique!) about the way out (at this point I just couldn't bring myself to take a look at the crumpled map in my hand), I managed to find my way out to the garden I once saw in a book (Louvre: Masterpieces of I.M.Pei). I didn’t even remember to take a peek in the museum shop. I was that tired. So I went out to the famous Pyramid and found a seat on the fountain. I found faces similar to mine. Dazed and exhausted.

Total hours spent in Louvre: 4 hours 25 minutes. Unforgettable. Now is the time for food. Cheap food.

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Suckling Pig Holiday

It is G-day minus one here in Bali. ‘G’ as in Galungan, the day ‘when Dharma is winning’ or the day where the Gods visit the Earth. G-day minus one is a busy day day for all of us here. Preparing the offerings for tomorrow, cooking all kind of food and erecting the gracefully decorated pole, penjor. However I rather enjoy today than tomorrow because the food fiesta is today! Hip hip hooray.

All the heavenly delicious lawar and satay are made from the body of ill-fated pigs, butchered by the men since they are responsible for the food. Blood, kidney, meat, fat, nose, ear and even intestines of Wilbur. God rest it soul. To defend ourselves from sounding like a blood-ridden Incas, all the animals sacrificed for the purpose of prayers are going to get a higher priority in reincarnation queue up above. They don’t have to face any bouncer and can go straight into the club of VIPs. Very Important Pigs. Who knows perhaps in this divine cycle of life, the person sitting next to you in the wi-fi café, was used to be a delicious suckling pig.

The joie de vivre of living in Bali is the abundance of holy-days available here, minus the national one. Galungan holy-day means two weeks holiday and it occurs twice a year. Silent Day (Nyepi) means three days holy-day. I haven’t included the single holy-day like Sarasvati (the day when you pray on your Goddess Sarasvati and books as the source of knowledge). Imagine how happy I was while I was in school. “All class to be dismissed for tomorrow’s praying to Sarasvati”. WooHoo!

The abundance of holy-days also create a problem at workplaces. Expat wives having a headache and complain continously about their pembantu ( house helper) who keep asking for a short leave once a month, to go back to her or his village for ceremony. Oh well. Religion and belief comes first in the personal life of a Balinese. Second, is the family. Third, a crunchy skin suckling pig and perfectly made tuak. Cheers!

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Tropical Italian Santa and Distorted Jingle Bells

After the annual Christmas nausea, massive food and wine hang-over also last minute snapy shopping, I finally find the time to sit down and type. I hardly remember what kind of Christmas I’ve had before millenium except for the presents (I even need to double-check on my diary even for the last six!). Doll house when I was six. A plastic oven with velcro-ed carrot when I was eight. A complete edition of Japanese manga I adore when I was twelve. The present stopped when I entered the world of puberty. How dissapointing! I still love beautifully wrapped gifts which led my falling to the trap of my ungrateful brother last year. He beautifully wrapped an instant noodle (“Hey, you told me you like beautifully wrapped things!”). Sigh.

Things doesn’t get better. My parents give up choosing me gift around my teenage drama queen era (“But this cardigan looks old! And I don’t like this shade of pink!Yuck!) and continue giving me shopping voucher or “mentah”(means “raw” in English, but also could be use to tell someone “just give me the cash and I’ll buy whatever I like”).

The older I become, the less I enjoy Christmas. I feel it was greedily corrupted by consumerism. All the ho-ho-ho by fake Santa Claus with Chinese eyes, paid to have his picture taken by parents of innocent little screaming angels. Season Sale. And no beautifully wrapped presents below the tree. Sniff.

As long as I remember I’ve never had a romantic Christmas ala Hollywood. No brother of amnesia fiance who fall in love with me. No brilliantly located mistletoe. No fireplace with crackling wood and huge real life tree. For us, who lived in tropical world with no chance whatsoever of getting a White Christmas, the closest thing we get to the idea of romantic Christmas is to celebrate it with a bunch of family, preferably in decorated restaurant or party with a Michael Bolton Christmas record playing in the background.

Which we precisely did. This year, all four of us, went to Italian restaurant in Sanur area. Massimo was the name, obviously named after the owner. The guest was oddly mixed, what , with screaming kids and honeymoon-ed couple. There was a huge Christmas tree, decorated with green and red ribbons. The white columns covered in similar splash of Christmas spirit. Still, it doesn’t feel like Christmas.

So I gave up. Christmas, these days, just like Valentine’s Day. Overrated season, piously arranged by big companies and advertising industry. After my third glass of red wine and a fettuccine with lamb in pesto sauce, suddenly a distorted keyboard playing ‘Jingle Bells’ break my lamentation. Great. And suddenly to make it even worse, a falsetto female singing “jingle all the way, oh what fun….” Right.

Between my steak and the sixth glass of wine, I started to get used to it. Suddenly, a HOHOHO. A slim Santa Claus entered the room and the kids squealing in delight. What a joy to be young. He did his round, let adoring parents took his picture with the kids on his lap and giving, what else! Beautifully wrrapped presents! My heart starting to thud. I’ve been good this year. Graduated from uni. Made my parents happy.

When he reached our table, he gave away two parcels of biscuits and a beautifully wrapped present for me! I couldn’t help but grinning broadly and asked for having my picture taken with Santa (yes and I just graduated from uni. Like you could resist!). And suddenly I realized that Mr. Santa is Massimo himself! An original tropical Italian Santa. How surreal. Dali’s painting couldn’t be more surreal then that.

I went home, opened my “beautifully wrapped in red paper present” and found a wooden Wright’s airplane. Perhaps it’s a sign that next year, next Christmas, I would be celebrating some place else. Some place other than my 22 years of Christmas in Bali. Anyplace snowy.

It’s not a romantic Christmas but it is Christmas. Even with Italian Santa Claus, distorted jingles and humid tropical weather. Hohoho.

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The Much Dreaded Part of Travel

FLYING PART
I used to love flying. I was around eight years old when my parents introduced me to aeroplane. I remember how I kept looking to the window and kept asking my papa about the clouds. Eight years old didn’t quite realize how dangerous it was to fight gravitation. Look what happened to Icarus or Amelia Earhardt. Human does not meant to fly or else God would bestowed upon us mortals, a pair of wings (preferably the folded one since I don’t think it would be possible walking around with a pair of wings on your back).

I even enjoyed flying after the teacher taught me about Newton and his apple back then in elementary school. I had a blast while flew with Lufthansa eight years ago. But now…now is a different time. Not just the millenia, it is also something to do with the fact that ALL of Indonesian airline companies are not following the standard safety of international flight. Even Garuda (the only one allegedly safe airline in Indonesia) was banned to fly to Europe. Do I need to say more about “the others”? Slipping plane, crashing plane, miss-landed plane, burning plane. Hundred of cases and still they are allowed to fly in that orange-painted-should-be-a-carcass-by-now planes. Yet Indonesians (or middle class Indonesian, that is) don’t have much option. Either “the others” or Garuda which has a relatively expensive rates. I feel like playing poker with Death everytime I enter a plane (which is quite often since I have to go back and forth from one island to another one).

This time I flew with Emirates. I found my plebeian seat decorated with in flight entertainment screen and couldn’t help but beaming cheerfully from then on. The plane was full with one of the good thing Indonesia actually can export to another country, women workers. Most faces looked anxious. Most women perhaps never even fly before. While I touched my petit screen to tried out everything, they were still fumbling with the safety belt like two twenty-something ladies beside me . I showed them how to did it and I couldn’t help but thinking to myself, asking them in silent. What kind of courage you must have inside you to work in a country so far from home, daunted with paranoia that you could be hurted, raped or murdered. Even worse is the hard truth that your government perhaps couldn’t (wouldn’t?) help you. You are on your own, my brave country women.

One and a half hour later I landed safely (phew) on Changi. One hour transit then a seven hour flight to Dubai. I hardly had time to say “Singapore” when they called us back to boarding the plane. Oh I almost failed to mention the long queue to check boarding pass and privacy violation. Thanks to terrorist attempt of using liquid bomb, I couldn’t practice my beauty ritual for the next twenty hours. Seven hours to Dubai was spent in half-awake, half dreaming state of mind. I remembered vaguely about Sandra Bullock tried hard to safe her husband in a movie.

I was woken up by a light touch from my neighbor. “Almost landed”, she said. I bid them good night, and good luck when we arrived in Dubai. They would need a lot of luck. And so… Dubai. Five hours transit. My backpack started to made me feel like Atlas and so after found out where should I be for the next flight to Dusseldorf, I tried to find some place where this poor legs could rest. I smelled coffee and there was Costa Café which at that time seemed like an oasis for caffeine thirst traveler like me.

I tried to look back and what popped up in my caffeine poisoned brain about Dubai International Airport was how cosmopolitan it was. So many faces, so many culture, so many destination. The computerized flight schedule screens kept shifting every few second. I read so many city names until I gave up about in which country were it accurately located. I looked at the huge clock and decided I could continue my gazing people activity in the waiting room.

After picked up few magazines, I went standing in the linear escalator. Suddenly it was occurred to me how bizarre was Dubai International Airport. I never seen so many people from I don’t know which country, slept so carelessly. When I said many, it means not few but hundreds along the way. It was morning and I saw some of them started to stirred up. A couple was sleeping peacefully inside their own sleeping bag, hugging each other. A businessman in suit spent three chairs to laid down his worn out body. An Arab with Yasser Arafat head scarf snored and nodded accordingly. It was surreal. They didn’t seem to care.

All along the way I couldn’t help but noticed how extravagant the décor was. There was an enormous mural painting on wall, depicting few Arabian and their rested camels. There was gold pleated (or was it merely gold painted?) décor on top of the columns along the way. I knew Burj Al Arab was quite something but the airport? Hmmm…

The meals was almost delicious. It was warm and smelled good. I washed them down with wine and so close to forgot that it was in a box instead of on a plate. I arrived in Dusseldorf seven hours later. I did not let myself to even took a peek on the reflection of the mirror. Better not. Who would look good after almost a day trip across the globe?

I arrived safely, no worth mentioning tremors in the plane. My Aunt and Uncle kindly picked me up in the airport. I thought I saw her winced a bit when I gave her cheek kisses. But then again it could also just me imagining things. Self-conciousness, get lost!

Next blog: COLOGNE.

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