Encounters at the Louvre...

In addition to the incredible works of art (more on that later) we saw at the Louvre, there were a couple of encounters of the unexpected kind.

Given our peripatetic nature, I had been wondering when I was going to run into a fellow Kellogg (my business school) classmate. I am organizing some meetings when I can, but figured that I would probably run into somebody by chance. I don't think I expected it in one of the less popular/famous wings of the Louvre though. But indeed, as we were heading upstairs who should we bump into but Kate Downes, one of the MMM women extraordinaire (a group of fantastic women who I, as a MMM groupie, got to hang out with). It was good to catch up on our lives over the past 5 years and to hear how some of my other classmates are doing. It'll be interesting to see how many more Kellogians I run into along the way.

Even more unexpected, however, was running into Goran Ivanisevic, his wife, daughter, and mother (in law?) cruising along looking at pictures (For the non tennis fans among us, he's a retired Wimbledon champion and well known pro). I was engrossed in a large French painting when Brian suddenly grabbed my arm and hissed: it's him! Once I figured out what he was talking about I went to see for myself. He was moving at a high speed though, and as I didn't want to appear too obviously stalky, I was desperately trying to get ahead of them and be "looking at the art" while I tried to check them out. This went on for two galleries. (Given how subltle you all know I can be, I'm sure you can imagine the comic possibilities at this point)

I started to become fairly convinced, but wanted proof. By then we were in the new room housing the Mona Lisa, where you are not supposed to take pictures. As at the time everybody was anyway, I pulled out my camera, put it on highest zoom, turned off the flash, and tried to surreptitiously capture the man. As the following fuzzy photo shows, I do not have a second career waiting for me as a paparazzi. However later google image searching has convinced me that we did indeed have a celebrity sighting on our hands. Who would have thunk?

the skulker extraordinaire....