euro trip no.4, destination: france. bonjour bonjour! it's paris pare! potek nakikita ko lang sa libro, postcard at internet sya dati! got all the luck right now! bweheheheafter the belgium stint, we board our next train (thalys) to gare du nord (north station) in france, it was like 2+/- train ride hours from brussels.when we arrived at the station we quickly went to the subway ticketing office and got so confused with the paris subway thing, it's a spaghetti railway of so many connections and train timetables and berth location that we're on the verge of a tourist breakdown! haha! we finally got our tickets via vending machine with a large roller for selection but got confused again to where platform do we ride. finally we manage to get to the right platform but as the train stopped and i already got on board windy was missing, he was not able to board the train because of so much people but he got on the next train and luckily before we (separately) board we agreed to alight at chatelét station. i got so worried that i even sms windy on our singapore sims, and who wouldn't? potek kaw ba naman maligaw sa paris!! yikes!from chatelét station we were again lost as we are supposed to be headed to notre dame church, again, thanks to Bokia E66 GPS we got there just in time for the mass - which we never really attended (french mass) but was able to get lots of pics!after notre dame, we are lost and confused again trying to find the right train to the arc de triomphe. but we got there eventually, and it was huge! we're not able to climb it because it's getting late and we need to rest, so finding the bus from arc de triomphe to ecole militaire (which our hotel is situated) is also a hunt.after cheking-in, we dispatched our backpacks and walked from our hotel to the eiffel tower, it's a not-so-long walk and indeed we got there and saw light! ay este the malufet eiffel tower. i only saw small figurines of it back then but now it was so so much bigger than me and i looked like i am the small souvenir. grabeh ang ganda. we never hesitated to go up, so we paid up to the 3rd level to see it. up there it's breathless kahit na super laks ng hangin parang bagyo! ang LUFET talaga! lahat-lahat. ang lufet mo pareng gustav!!
Winged Nike of Samothrace and the 'feeling' boy
it has been a long saturday, and we won't stop. super early sunday morning, we're alredy checked-out of our hotel and off to musee de louvre, because of it's long-queue reputation that we're so early. it's also raining and somewhat a blessing that the line was not long, only windy got to queue as i was away looking for the ever-so-hard-to-find-a-nearby-starbucks-although-abundant. i had a loooong walk around the area but to only locate it so nearby the louvre (and @#$%* there's one inside the louvre! FTW!!), well i got my France & Paris city mugs and i'm mostly happy until i became more happier when we got inside the louvre, Whoa!! i saw almost all the famous paintings, sculptures, ruins etc. inside, i think whole day wouldn't be enough to view all the works of art inside. highlights of the museum was the ever popular Monalisa, Virgin of the Rocks, Winged Nike of Samothrace (fave), Venus de Milo, Artemis and a whole lot more grabeh. as in. tulala kaming umuwe ni windy hanggang sa loob ng train na straight run from paris to amsterdam (with a few stops of course).
but paris was not the paris that we expect to see, medyo magulo at madumi na din esp. the subways, sana maayos nila dahil sobrang dami ng tao na gustong makarating dun so tidy things lang dun. but paris is paris pa din. lufet!it was a great weekend. napaka swerte lang namin ni windang dahil sa oppotunity na ito or talagang mga tsambalero lang kame. salamats pa din!! bwehehe!!fyi - sabog ulit itong post na ito, wlang check-check ng grammar at errors see more of the adventure here: flickr / multiplynext stop: italy?? (huy windy book na yan!!)
orange 1 just had a quick splash on our street
