Day 13: On my Own

While it seems as though I've had multiple favorite days on this trip, Paris solo day to date is my actual favorite.  I was sent to the Musée Cognacq-Jay in the third Arrondissement.  We were given about 5 hours to find our destination, experience it, and make it back to the island we were meeting on in the Seine.  Now walking is usually not on my list of top things to do (we all know how much I love the metro) but there was something so relaxing about the journey there.  I was walking the street of Paris as if I didn't have another care in the World.  I took my time, had lunch, stopped at a few stores when I wanted, and actually ran into a friend from school as she was walking to the Louvre.  That still amazes me: randomly running into someone you know walking the streets in a foreign country, especially since she was suppose to be studying abroad in Germany.

When I got there, I had this overwhelming since of pride that I was able to navigate myself all the way to the museum (and it was a far walk).  Above ground, I usually tend to let whoever I am with take the lead navigating, so this was actually a big accomplishment for me.  Going through the museum, it definitely stood out from other the big museums, and not really in a good or bad way.  It was just different.  Walking through, I felt like I was going through someone's house, and it was very small.  From what I gathered, Ernest Cagnacq and his wife owned the site where the museum sits, and when he died he donated his private collection to make the museum.  A lot of the things in his collection really stood out, in the sense that it wouldn't be things you'd normally find in an art museum.  There were boxes, fans, a pair of scissors.  All of which had more jewels decorating them than a jewelry store, but it was still unexpected.  In one of the floors upstairs, there was a lot of sculptures and figurines inspired by Greek and Roman mythology.  These really caught my attention, because I remembered a lot of the stories behind the characters depicted.  Overall, I am really happy I got to see this museum, mainly because it gave me a sense of how the upper class lived in the early 20th century of Paris.  I also really appreciated that it was way different than the other museums like the Louvre.  While I loved the big museums, and probably liked them better than the Cognaq-Jay museum, I don't think I could have handled another big art museum without going into sensory overload.  This was a nice change of scenery, that was still very interesting to see.