Times are a changin'

Paris was amazing. Can I keep on travelling forever? After a shitty night of trying to sleep on uncomfortable airport benches, I touched down in Baguette Country at around 8 a.m.

Our hotel was located in the very northern area of Paris, but it was still in a good location since a metro stop was within metres of our bedroom and could be seen from our window.

Oh...where to start? We saw and did so much in that one week we were there together! We were lucky that it didn't rain, and were blessed with sunny (albeit sometimes windy) days. Ha...people at work have been commenting that I tanned a little. Go figure!

I was extremely tired on the first day (due to aforementioned lack of a good sleep) but we decided to go to the Louvre. Yeah, that pic up there is of the Notre Dame (reason being that it took me practically 2 days to find a good battery for my camera...don't ask, long story.) but just stay with me. I'll get to the Notre Dame soon.

The Louvre was HUGE. We only managed to see a few floors overall. We weren't impressed by the Mona Lisa or Venus de Milo, but did enjoy our visit. I'm still surprised that I didn't pass out in the museum...I was THAT tired. Good thing I had a nap that same evening because afterwards we went out for some drinks at a little bar close to our hotel called "Fischer's" which had great ambience and nice service. Shane made me try Kronenbourg 1664 and I fell in love with it :) Very good beer indeed...

On the next day, we went to the Notre Dame...and boy was it beautiful. It was pretty windy and chilly on that day, but we queued just like everybody else and waited to get the chance to climb the steps that led upward to the Great Bell. I think half of that queuing was spent with me waiting to get hot cocoa and coffee for us at a nearby stand...bunch of chinese that all wanted different crêpes...grrr.

Notice the blue sky...are we really in Paris?





Gotta love the Tim Burton-esque metro signs. Oh, sorry...I just noticed that it's a bit hard to see in this pic...but trust me, it had its goulish charm :)
The metro in Paris costs 1,40 euros. Yikes, that's 40 cents more than in Madrid...but hey, it's Paris. This is a city where a normal coffee goes for around 3-4 euros, depending on the location.






Feelin' Groovy in downtown Paris. I miss him already. We had a great time together and even went to see the musical Cabaret...not to mention an ass-kicking great Rocky Horror Show with live actors. The best part was when they thrust a plastic doll's private parts into my face...several times.

And why on earth did I keep jumping the wrong way for the Time Warp? Even Rif-Raf was unimpressed and gave me the evil eye. I think I wet my seat.














On the 3rd day we finally went to the Eiffel Tower and started queuing at around 10 a.m. It took us about 45 minutes to get into the elevator and it cost us around 11 euros. Not bad at all, since we had expected it to be around 20 euros or so (hey, this is where crazypants Cruise proposed after all).
It's really a gorgeous structure, although I had expected it to be jet black and not some light brownish hue. It was sooooo windy up there on that day...we slowly felt our fingers freezing off...totally worth the wait though.

After the Eiffel we went to see the Catacombs, much to Rachel's delight. Quite creepy, and like a true wuss, I held onto Shane's arm for the first few minutes while we walked through the narrow passage ways. Millions upon millions of bones and skulls just lined the walls from left to right...incredible.

On the 4th day we went to the Montmartre area to see the Sacré-Coeur, Moulin Rouge, and other places. It's a really nice area with lots and lots of tourists. Notice again the blue sky.
We went into the Moulin Rouge to look at ticket prices, and promptly left again when we saw that the cheapest tickets were going for 89 euros. Yikes. We were quite happy with our 25 euro Cabaret tickets (and lucky too, since the theatre was half-empty and we were able to get seats that were much closer to the stage).











Not as pretty as in the movie (d-uh). Still pretty cool though.
There was also another mill called Moulin de La Galette, but we couldn't get near it because they were doing some construction...wonder if it would have been worth it. Looked pretty cool from afar.






Probably one of my favourite pics that I took during my parisian stay. What a gorgeous city. It's definitely everything that I had thought it would be.
Clean, surprisingly green, and has got a vast repertoire of things to see and do. One could never really get bored in this city, I believe...










The wall of "I love you", located in the Montmartre area, was pretty cool. It had I love you written in many different languages, and of course I tried finding the ones for English, French, German and Spanish. Quite a cute idea.







On the fifth day we went to Père Lachaise's Cemetery, and went to visit the tombstones of Edith Piaf, Jim Morrisson, Molière, Oscar Wilde and some other famous "personnes" of our time. Wilde's tombstone was totally defaced with lipstick and graffiti, but the others were all nicely intact and clean.
It was a wonderfully quiet and peaceful morning, and we met up with Oli afterwards for a few beers and dessert...hmmm. It was great finally getting to know her, since the last time I had seen her had been over 2 years ago and I only really remembered her from Tommy as the Acid Queen.
On the 6th day we went to a market and just strolled around the stands, glancing at old furniture and interesting postcards, some of which were from the 1940's or even older...very interesting reading material, heheh. I found a nice postcard where a woman was accepting a marriage proposal (almost bought it actually...was touched). I wonder how these old postcards got collected and why the owners didn't keep them, or at least give them to their relatives for when they passed on? Will a stranger read my poscards one day? Will they somehow land up in a 1 euro/dollar/God knows what currency bin?
In the evening, we met up with Oli again and went to the Latin Quarter. What a great place for bookstores and cheap eats!!! Too bad we didn't find it earlier, otherwise we would have eaten there a whole lot more. I finally tried frog legs, hehhe. Yes, they tasted just like chicken. Shane ordered the snails, and they were quite tasty as well, to my surprise. Sacré Bleu, que c'était bon!
It was on my very last night in Paris that we decided to attend a Rocky Horror Show that was happening in the area. I'll never think of the Village People the same way ever again. I think that my song of the year is going to be "Sex Over the Phone". If you haven't seen the video yet, youtube it and you won't be sorry. The actors did a hilarious rendition of it all with a huge plastic telephone...priceless.
My trip back proved to be torturous. An 8 hour bus trek from Madrid to Huelva ended up being a 10 hour one due to traffic jams. It was a quite pathetic Easter Sunday, and I wished that I was with Shane and Oli in the Notre Dame, attending mass with them and having a picnic in the gardens...
Oh, but what a lovely time I did have :) I'd go again one day...I totally needed the break, too. I'm feeling energetic enough to finish this last semester. I can't believe that I only have about another 2.5 months at the Covent Garden Academy. That's peanuts, that's nothing.
On another note, I'm going to be attending Western University in the fall. Although I did have my heart set on U of T, it's not the end of the world and I'm not feeling sad anymore. I'm actually looking forward to it all now. Western's supposed to be a good school, and I'll be close enough to everyone...at least I won't be a whole continent away. Hurray for weekend visits, right? I'll be so busy anyway, judging from my schedule that they sent me...
I'm also certain that those 8 months will just fly by. Now I just hope that I'll find good people to live with close to the uni...
New changes again for little old me. Exciting, scary...I'm looking forward to meeting new friends and reconnecting with the old ones.
Alright, and because I'm me, I shall now book my flight to Rome and send my deposit to Western via internet banking...
xoxoxoxoxo H