Napoleon

While Mike was at his meetings I spent the day wandering around Paris.  I decided I wanted to go back to the Louvre to see the Venus de Milo.  I was pretty sure Mike didn't care to see it.  One thing I have learned about France is a lot of people smoke.  A lot.  It is everywhere.  I hope my coat doesn't smell like smoke when I get home.  Before I left on my adventure I spent about an hour looking out the window.  I am trying to figure out how people drive here.  There is a round-a-bout outside our window with five streets connected to it and stop lights to mix things up.  There are no street lines, so it is basically a free for all.  I wouldn't want to drive here in a million years!  Okay, back to my day.  I started walking to the Louvre and still crack up at the sight of car shops.  For some reason I find them incredibly funny.

I got distracted and decided to make a detour to Invalides.  It was built in the 1600s by Lousi XIV to house wounded soldiers.  It looks huge! There are these cool golden statues over the bridge on the way there.  I don't have good pictures of those, but these statues guard the water.

 Invalides

I wandered around until I found the Dome Church where Napoleon's tomb is.  That thing is huge!  It actually has 6 layers.  The first is a tin-plate, second is mahogany, third and fourth are lead, fifth is ebony and the sixth layer is oak.

Napoleon's remains from the top floor

 The entire church is pretty fancy

 The ceiling above Napoleon's remains

 Napoleon's remains from the bottom floor

I can't remember exactly where I took this picture, but I think it was the Petit Palais.  It was closed today, but I think this is what the picture is of.  Even if it is not, it is crazy how many statues and carvings are around this city.  Everywhere you look.  Most of them are hundreds of years old.  Mindboggeling to think about.

I did finally make it to Venus de Milo  crazy that this was sculpted around 100 BC.  I waited forever while these two girls took selfies. They were doing this for a long time!  I don't think they knew each other.  I wish I would have started to take the pictures earlier because I would have gotten some good ones of the girl on the left.  She was funny to watch pose.

 Cool looking sarcophagus

 Equally cool looking mustache

Mike had to spend the day at boring meetings, although he doesn't find them boring for some reason.

Mike was asked to talk about how Overstock used Openstack.  He focused specifically on Overstock's pet adoption site.

Mike's favorite (free) shirt he received.

Mike and I went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant that was near the hotel.  We shared a calzone and it was delicious.