Travel Dust

Holiday Freebie…and Crowds: Dreams & Reality, Musée d’Orsay Paris. 

First of all, I was not in Paris. This was the Musée d’Orsay Paris’ exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore. I’ve been wanting to see this exhibit since it had Van Gogh’s Starry Night, but I couldn’t get anyone to actually go with me.

Saturday after Chinese New Year’s, a friend messaged me asking if I had plans and if I wanted to go see Van Gogh. Of course I was like “Heck yeah” and after a couple of hours we met up - yup that fast. A sign at the entrance greeted us saying something like “As part of Chinese New Year Celebrations, all galleries are free to the public from January 23 to something something…” I read about this freebie thing being only on January 23 and 24 only but turns out we were still going in for FREE and saving $$$!! Well, my friend only saved $$ because he got too excited with the freebie and rented an audio guide for each one of us. 

The price of a freebie: crowds. You don’t really get to appreciate art that much when people start bothering you to take their photo for them or when they suddenly block your shot or the sign you’re reading, or worse, they step on you. But it was free. I can’t complain. I saved money and got to see marvelous works of art. The security guard though did approach me and kindly told me to be more careful with the umbrella dangling on my left arm because I could hit and hurt someone with it. It was that crowded…and she was exaggerating. You can’t hurt anyone with a folding umbrella dangling on your arm. Will it get in contact with another person? Probably. Will it hurt them? I doubt. Was I near anyone when she told me that? NO. I was at the last section standing & taking a photo of a wall while waiting for my friend to finish - we got separated after 5 minutes we entered LOL. 

Anyhow, when I was looking at one of the paintings I suddenly realized that this is what I first thought what a painting is (brush stroke, texture, etc.) when I was a kid. Turned out to be Monet’s. The Starry Night painting I was expecting also turned out to be The Starry Night over the Rhone. Still a Starry Night. And I got my culture fix. I’m I was happy.

When we were leaving, the line went beyond the 30-minute marker in front of the gallery doors at the basement and reached the Museum’s lobby on the first floor. It’s nice to know plenty of people still appreciate art ^^ and it was even a greater thought that we only lined up for 20 minutes :D