so anyways.. we arrived in paris on our first overnight train, having barely slept a wink, no thanks to the cramped compartment and, i dunno what else. i just know ivina slept the most! haha. i think we each had at most 2-3 hours?
met a hotel tout at the station and i was extremely skeptical at first.. really didnt wanna believe him. but i have forgotten what made me change my mind at that point of time. he seemed quite sincere i think. so anyways we got rooms at a 2-star hotel quite removed from the city centre for hostel rates, hotel belfort. the lift could only fit 3 girls ( 2 with luggage i think) and it's those kinda old-fashioned ones with 2 doors. the whole place was really nice though, and we koped the free toiletries for future use! hahaha
surviving on pure adrenaline, the 5 of us took the train (forgot its name, but it travels further from town than the metro) to the palace of versailles. the queue was quite mad when we arrived, and according to let's go, it was under renovation... so we took pics in front of the palace and chose to forego the famed Hall of Mirrors in there (where the treaty of versailles was signed i think).
so after a rather fruitless trip to the palace, we returned to the city (all dozing off on the train) to, where else, the Eiffel! our pics of the tower looks wonderful against the blue blue sky! honestly it was a really really hot day and i just wanted to get some shelter la. hahah. but we managed to survive the heat and snap many many pics. we crossed the seine river and passed the underwater aquarium and a Palais de Chaillot (mr, if u are amazed by my memory again, i assure u i only know the names after consulting my very dusty map of paris, haha) and walked and walked in the reaaaaally hot weather (i cannot emphasize this enough) to the Arc de Triomphe.
i think the reason why i rem the heat so much is coz my heat rash worsened when i was in Paris. oh wells.
anw we saw some old soldiers arriving at the Arc to pay respects to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which was there since WWI. i rem there was a very old man who was the caretaker of the place, and he kept mopping and sweeping and picking up flowers which dropped from the wreaths placed at the tomb and just cleaning like crazy. moreover, it was a sunday! i think he's underpaid and overworked. but he looked v happy to see the old soldiers, maybe he works there looking forward to these visits.
so anyways i wanted very much to walk down avenue des champ elysees, with its cute boxy trees, coz that's the one street i rem from my last trip to europe like 10 years ago, but we were all too tired to be on foot further. on the metro we got, making our way to the jardin de tuileries in front of the louvre. alot of parisian merry-making there on a hot hot sunday afternoon.. europeans just CHIONG outside once there's just a teensy hint of sunshine.
after letting our jaws drop at the sight of the huuuggge facade of the louvre (which we were supposed to conquer the next day), we went on to walk to the 2 small islets in the middle of the seine river, ile de la cite and ile-something else.. i dunno the name coz the map doesnt indicate it. haha. the ile de la cite houses the notre dame.. didnt really get a good look at it coz the adrenaline was really running out. me, ivina and gerald just sat on sm bench n stoned while jt and mr happily pranced around taking pics, buoyed by couple-on-honeymoon-in-europe-mood. ;P
walked around for QUITE SOME TIME finding food (i particularly rem the extent of my hunger as well) coz all of let's go's recommendations were VERY EX! hai paris is too expensive to live in.. finally found a mid-range jap restaurant. my sashimi, FINALLY! hahaha.
our next day in the city of lights we headed for the louvre museum.. we didnt plan to stay long there, coz our knowledge of art is, to be honest, really limited (although hokkien-speaking mR would probably like to disagree, haha). so somehow, somewhere, we started our tour of the museum in some bright courtyard dotted with marble statues under one of the pyramids, through which natural light poured in, and just kept walking.
the really bare-essentials pamphlet guide brought us to all the 'most-famous-squeeze-it-into-your-few-hours-in-the-louvre' artworks: the hamurrabi code (yes remember jay chou's song, 爱在西元前? this is the 汉姆拉比法典. it actually exists!), the venus de milo, napolean's apartments, egyptian statues of the many gods, a real mummy and the containers of its organs, the wedding at cana and of course.. the mona lisa, where there was a constant crowd milling.
leaving the louvre for lunch, we made a trip to the moulin rouge and i forgot how else we spent our afternoon but all i rem after moulin rouge was tt it was time for dinner HAHA. had dinner at this indian restaurant where gerald n ivina had their fill of spicy food haha. great briyani!
at night we returned to e eiffel for sm amazing night views.. and a dazzling display of shimmering christmassy lights every hour. totally for couples la.. any marriage proposal would succeed there i think. haha.
went back for some forty winks b4 tmr's 8hour-long trip to BARCELONAAAAA, wheeeee!
*oh i rem what happened b4 moulin rouge liao! we went to the train station and realized our trip to beautiful beautiful normandy had to be cancelled coz the travel timings didnt fit into our plans.. sigh. byebye mont st.michel, hello barcelona!
