To fill.
Time to head home.
But FIRST! Sacre Coeur!
RER B.
Terminal 1, No Laduree, No Economy Comfort 🙁
Home. For about 36 hours. Heading to Philadelphia Tuesday morning, http://cloudable.me!
My Links
Some Work
Start-Ups
Europe 2012: Day 18 (Paris 07): Nov 04
06-Nov-12Europe 2012: Day 17 (Paris 06): Nov 03
06-Nov-12To fill.
Louvre! Got into a short line at 9:45 and got my ticket around 10.
The Raft of the Medusa.
Mona Lisa.
Venus de Milo.
Left around 3:45? Start walking.
Notre Dame.
Pantheon.
Random buildings.
St. Germain des Pres.
St. Michael’s Fountain.
The Raft of the Medusa, Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Notre Dame de Paris, Pantheon
Europe 2012: Day 16 (Paris 05): Nov 02
02-Nov-12Late start :S, left at around 11?
Headed to the Louvre, and of course, there’s a line up. And rain. Did not feel like waiting in a 1.5 hour line so I went on to the next destination, Musée d’Orsay. Walked. Wasn’t too bad, ran into other interesting sights along the way. But. Another 1.5 hour line. NEXT! Musée Rodin. Walked. A little bit farther, also walked into more buildings and museums. Paris is quite the tourist attraction.
Anyways, no line! Yay… Headed out to the garden and saw Rodin’s “The Thinker“, “The Gates of Hell“, etc. I wish I was able to get into that sculpture class back at York… Oh well. Into the permanent exhibit, more awesome sculptures. I have a thing for hand sculptures too, Rodin’s “The Cathedral“. Continuing on, the temporary exhibit featured Marble sculptures by various artists that worked with Rodin. Pretty cool, but we weren’t allowed to take pictures of these ones.
And off I go, long way around back to d’Orsay. Hit some cool sculptures at the bridges, fountains, Grand Palais… and finally got in line at d’Orsay. Maybe one less row/column than when I first came by. Being the prepared traveller that I am, my umbrella was in my bag. The bag that I don’t carry around. 😉 Got pretty wet, rained for about 30-45 minutes, I’m not sure, I tried to move as little as possible. Took about 1.5 hours to get inside. 415ish. Museum starts closing exhibits at 530. Had just enough time to peruse the permanent exhibits. The Vincent Van Gogh room was very busy. I wish I had more time.. and less tourists? haha.. Bumped into Angela as the place started to close up, what a coincidence! Oh. No photos allowed whatsoever. That doesn’t stop some people. Horrible.
Heading back, grabbed some pastries 🙂 Flan aux Fruits, Eclair au chocolat, Paille Framboise. All for me. haha. Yum.
Tmr, last real day!! Must wake up earlier and line up for the Louvre. Visit Notre Dame, and the Pantheon. and… what else? hm.
Rhino outside of d’Orsay, The Thinker, The Gates of Hell, The Cathedral, Overview of d’Orsay
Europe 2012: Day 15 (Paris 04): Nov 01
02-Nov-12Quiet day today.
Slept in 🙂
Only plan was to head out to the Salon du Chocolat out at the Parc des Expositions. Basically, a huge chocolate convention 🙂 Lotsa gifts were bought here. Heads up.
One booth that caught my eye and several euros, pâtisserie Sadaharu AOKI Paris. Interesting macaroon flavours like BLACK SEASAME! Mmmm…
As per Desmond’s recommendation, we went to find a special ramen place, Higuma Ramen. Along the same street there were actually several other ramen places, seemed like a small J-Town actually. Line ups everywhere. After some small discussion, Paris is quite international. Similar to New York and Toronto. Food is food. (although not bakeries, mmm…)
Quiet day. but good day.
Kevin’s heading out to Toronto tomorrow.
Leaving me here all alone 🙁
AOKI Paris’ Tokyo Macaroon Yaki, AOKI Paris’ Macaroon selection, Higuma Ramen’s Katsu Curry
Europe 2012: Day 14 (Paris 03): Oct 31
31-Oct-12Kevin has school today, so it’s my first day on my own in Paris… dundundun. Wasn’t very hard finding the right metro station. Data would have helped though… But the RATP app sufficed.
Eiffel Tower! Got here around 930… line wasn’t too bad at all, much better than yesterday for sure. All the way up~ nice view. I don’t know what else to say… Watch out for pickpockets! As I was coming down, took the stairs from 2 to 1 and walked around. The first floor is under construction, creating a glass platform to look down and a couple of other things probably. Lined up for the lift down and thought I would be smart and go to upper deck waiting area which was empty… The damn thing passed me twice not letting me on :@. I took the stairs down – -;. Apparently the post office is on the ground floor, east pillar, and does not open until quatorze heure, according to the security guard standing in front of it. Who seemed to refuse to translate that to English. When does it close? Don’t know yet… They should make a sign or something. Geez. A gypsy girl took 1€ off of me, luring me with mute and deaf children. When I said that 1€ was all I had, she took it and ran. Well, walked quickly away ignoring me while her companion was asking for just 1€. She took it already! Grr.
Off to Versailles! RER C. Short train, apparently. All the way to the far end of the platform. Confirmed by the small crowd of tourists discussing it. 😛
Almost fell asleep. A short walk to the palace after grabbing a foie gras baguette, yum… Got caught up taking pictures even before entering the palace. Walked through the main building of Versailles and although there were cool paintings, relief sculptures, etc, by the end of it I was pretty fed up with it. It’s unfortunate that I don’t really care for the history that is being told, I’m sure it’s pretty cool… 🙂 going and going. Sun going down, feet tiring, back aching… Skipped out on the other two sites, Petit Trianon and Marie Antionette’s estate. Oh well? Back on the RER, back to the Eiffel Tower. Hopefully the post office is still open and the tower is lit up.
—
Getting off the RER and back to the Eiffel Tower, I noticed that two kids were hanging around. Just staring over at the entrance to the station. Suddenly they popped up, started walking through the tunnel/paths right in front of me. They were eyeing a group of women with their purses out. Doubled-back as the group passed… Beware of pickpockets.
Lit up! and flashing! whee… This post office thing is quite dumb. I’m not sure why there is an open/close time as there is no attendant anyways. It’s just a machine that spits out some postage labels. Ugh. Whatever. SENT! I hope… and back to Kev’s place. Grabbed a couple bakery items on my way back, pain au chocolat & pain aux raisins. Yum.
Shortly thereafter we went out to a small house party at a Schulich’ers place. Also met a couple other of Kev’s classmates. I’m quite exhausted. What are we doing tmr? SLEEPING IN. and I don’t know what else.
Eiffel Tower’s shadow cast over Palais de Challiot, Gate details at Versailles, Random bird taking off, Eiffel Tower at night
Europe 2012: Day 13 (Paris 02): Oct 30
30-Oct-12Eiffel Tower, got there way too late. Line ups all over the place… Passed by a bear art exhibit, United Buddy Bears. Since 2002, the project has been in 25 different exhibits on 5 continents. Now they are lined up between the Eiffel Tower and École Militairé. Looking at the lines we decided that I’d come back at a later date and an earlier time.
Heading over to the Palais de Challiot, quickly grabbed a crepe at a cart, banana + nutella, mmmm… Took a bunch of pictures, as per usual and kept on walking.
Arc de Triomphe, in the middle of a crazy 6 lane round-about. RUN! No… there’s an underground passage to buy tickets and get to the arc. Although, if there was a break in traffic I wouldn’t put it past the Parisians to run all the way across. All crosswalks and lights you basically just walk whenever you can walk. It’s like downtown Toronto, I guess. haha… Spiral staircases going up and down, lots of pictures, whee.
Walk down Ave des Champs-Élysées, nice stuff, expensive stuff. Stopped by some random shop for an Espresso, ehh, I may need to acquire that taste first. Kept walking through some department stores and ended up at the best store. UNIQLO! And did some damage there, as always. Started getting dark, but since we were close, we walked over to the Louvre for some night shots.
Passed through the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel and spent a good amount of time just taking pictures around the pyramid at Musée du Louvre.
Tmr.. back to the Eiffel Tower and Versailles?
Eiffel Tower, United Buddy Bear (Malaysia), View of the Tower from Palais de Challiot, François Rude’s sculpture “La Marseillaise”, Musée du Louvre
Europe 2012: Day 12 (Paris 01): Oct 29
29-Oct-12Upgraded to Saga Class~ there were like 4 people in the front area. Hurray for TD Rewards and Economy Comfort 😛 Access to the Saga Class lounge, grabbed some free breakfast and went on my way.
Kevin found me pretty easily, jumped on the RER and back to his apartment in Montmatre. Quite the difference from the desolate Iceland to the busy busy busy metropolis of Paris. Mountains and waterfalls vs buildings and so much traffic.
First thing. Hair cut. Hahaha…
Jumped on the metro and went off to meet a couple of Kevin’s classmates from Vancouver, Angela & Charlene, for dinner at Carnet de Voyage. Chinese Food! Haven’t had any Asian food for a while, it was actually really good, and a bit spicy. I’m stuffed.
and so tired.
zzz…
Window seat, Artist drawing on the window at the Orange shop, Le Palais Garnier, Some dish at dinner
Europe 2012: Iceland Summary
28-Oct-12Excessive speeding fines :@
90km/h max?! Crazy.
Quiet.
Farmlife.
Sheep. Everywhere.
Cows and horses too.
Relatively well maintained highways through the countryside.
Picnic tables at almost every outdoor/natural tourist destination, even at the beginnings of hiking trails.
A lot of side stop areas for picturesque views, quite frequent for Iceland, especially during a sunset/rise.
Mountains, Rock Formations, Cliffs, Waterfalls, Snow, Glaciers, Fields, roundabouts, Hot Springs.
Definitely a different life.
You do not really need cash. Basically all places have a credit card machine, and if not, an ATM. Even some small flea market shop lady pulled out a terminal… and the police officers – -;…
A lot of driving, everywhere.
Not much of a nightlife outside of Reykjavik.
Early nights due to NOTHING else to do.
Too much wind for umbrellas, just not.. it doesn’t work.
Europe 2012: Day 11 (Iceland 11): Oct 28
28-Oct-12Blue Lagoon. One of the wonders of the world… apparently. A cool spa, geothermal pools with silica in the water that is supposed to strengthen your skin. In the pool, you can apply silica face masks on yourself. Access to a waterfall massage area, steam rooms, saunas, pool-side bar. Pretty cool experience.
Jumped on Wi-Fi to see if flights were being delayed due to Hurricane Sandy… Dropped Hannah off at Keflavik Int’l Airport.
Grabbed some food at Kaffi Duus in Keflavik and went to visit some sights in the area before taking off tomorrow.
First stop, The Bridge between Continents. This bridge symbolizes the meeting point of the tectonic plates of America and Europe. Separating 2cm every year. Interestingly enough, it was basically just a bridge with an info board and a picnic table. hahaha..
Hafnaberg, bird cliffs. As the sun set, its rays shone down through the clouds, created a nice view of the water and the rocks and island in the distance. Lots of cliffs. Not too many birds this time of year though.
Gunnuhver, alongside the bird cliffs, this is a collection of small hot springs, so much sulphuric clouds. There is an interesting story for this spot. Apparently Gunnu, the lands tenant could not pay the rent and instead her only possession, a cooking pot, was taken from her. Mad with fury, she dropped dead and became a hateful specter, killing the landlord and haunting the land, killing more people and driving other mad. Until a sorceror helped put her down with a ball of yarn. Yep. crazy.
Hotel Keflavik. 540am ride to the airport. 740am flight to Paris.
Blue Lagoon, Bridge between Continents, Great Aux Memorial at the Bird Cliffs, Random Sculpture in Keflavik
Europe 2012: Day 10 (Iceland 10): Oct 27
28-Oct-12Hraunfossar + Barnafoss. Hraunfossar is a collection of countless springs of clear water. Barnafoss, has a sad story to go with it. Barnafoss means Children’s waterfall, “One Christmas day, a household went to attend mass, with the exception of two children who were to stay at home. When the people returned, the children had vanished but their tracks led to the river. The children had fallen off the stone arch and drowned. Their mother then had the arch destroyed to prevent the recurrence of such a tragedy.”
We were supposed to hit up Húsafell but that trek was described as a bit dangerous as it included crossing a river and in a cave… As it was already fairly cold and raining, we skipped it and headed back to the Reykjavik one last time.
Our only museum stop, Museum of Design and Applied Arts, Hönnunarsafn Íslands. 😛 Just a lot of graphic design work from Gísli B. Björnsson, pretty cool.
KEX, the hostel we’re staying at tonight. According to Hannah, it’s SO HIPSTER. Like, from hipster wonderland or something. It was quite unique, I don’t know how else to explain it.
Soup in Bread, Svarta Kaffi. Mexican Chicken soup. So good. Hahaha…
Shopping, blahblahblah
Laugardalslaug Geothermal Pool, to go swimming! Well, not really. There were a bunch of hottubs, 38, 40, 42, 44˚C, and a waterslide! The waterslide was actually pretty fun 🙂 And 44 is just a bit too hot.
SNAPS for dinner, Confit de Canard.
Passing out.
Barnafoss, Logo evolution flowchart of banks in the Museum, Mexican Chicken Soup in Bread at Svarta Kaffi
Hannah’s flying out tomorrow!