Touring Paris

Here is the Paris portion of my blog, I decided to divide the two for the sake of photos and to prevent confusion.
During our transit period into the city of love i learned to hate everyone in my program when we were all shoved into the already hot and crowded Paris metro system. It was hard to breathe let alone "watch for pickpockets" (we received countless lectures on pickpockets, stupid American students, and the importance of money belts). Of course all ...

Ah, Paris. So consistently beautiful, so full of living history, so much like every cliché you can imagine. Did you know that French people actually do walk around carrying baguettes? Honestly! The streets are covered in dog sh*t. The outdoor tables at cafes have their seats facing out to the street so that the clientele can people-watch more easily. Parisians have a croissant every breakfast and cheese and red wine every dinner. Ok, so that last one is what I did and ...

Have a look at this first photo. I went down the stairs from my 5th floor room this morning and on the landing of my floor was this pile of "stuff'. Packaging of various sorts, a guy's uniform and a girl's white knickers on top. Classy but I wonder if they tell a story. The general condition of the place reminds me of that song about Delta Dorn - "Could it be a faded rose from days gone by". Contrast the red carpet and gilt hand rail on the lovely circular staircase that goes down ...

Can you feel it? The magesty of optimism has returned! After many months of pessimism, of doubts, of regrets, of returns, of bad outcomes, of neuroticisms, of nervous tendencies, of lost hope, of grief, of loss, of failed attempts, of unspoken awkwardness, of unspoken problems, of depression, of anxiety, of sleepless nights, of listless days, and of many tears, I have risen. No I'm not making an allusion to ...

... faussement indignée crie à qui veut l'entendre que ça n'a pas de bon sens une nuit blanche qui finit à une heure du mat'. « Il n'y a plus de nuit blanche depuis qu'il y a des noirs en France, Madame », rétorque ironiquement le grand black de la sécu. L'insécurité, c'est lui aussi après tout. Il nous explique que les années d'avant ça finissait plus tard et que les jeunes finissaient par tout saccager de mettre le feu, comme le veut leur réputation. Alors ...

My 29th birthday, what better way to spend it then in the most romantic city in the world....PARIS. We arrive late Saturday evening and after checking into our hostel in Monmarte (the only hill in Paris) we venture off to explore. As we are walking I see a person walk into an alley, as we walk pass I look in to the alley and see a large rock formation blocking the path, intrigued we cautiously wonder into the alley, as we walk ...

So we took our first trip to Paris on Saturday Sept 8, 2007. We hopped on the Inter City Express or ICE train. This is a bullet train that is capable of traveling up to 300Km/hr. REALLY FAST! The train ride took about 3 hours. We ended up at the Gare de l'Est or East Station in Paris. It is wise to take the train to Paris because it is really hectic driving there. We found that it is easy to hail a cab for movement between each area that we wanted to see. The ride from the train ...

... suddenly felt nauseous once the train had departed, and spent most of the trip either in the toilet or sitting on the floor outside it! To top it off, somehow I jammed my little finger in one of the automatic doors that go between cabins, and it immediately swelled up and went blue. At the time of writing I am booked in to have an X-ray, two months later, as it has never been the same since. Oh well, such ...

... artist's progession throughout his career was very cool. You can see in stuff before his cubist days showing hints of what he would do later, and then seeing the whacked out ones that are a mess of lines and shapes and hues and titled like 'Man with a guitar' is cool, because you can sort of see it if you glance a the painting and away again and it doesn't make much sense although somehow it does. That was his trick I guess. I was amazed at the amount of art he ...

On our last full day in Paris, we visited the Musee d'Orsay. Even with our passes, we stood in the longest line we've ever seen! Luckily the weather was sunny. We loved the building - a converted train station - which made for some excellent pictures. The impressionist art was also great as expected. Nancy particularly liked seeing some VanGogh paintings: the colours were incredibly vibrant compared to ...