Aftermath of the France Trip

Hi!

Did you guys enjoy the Chronicles of France? Hope you guys didn't strain your eyes too much when reading those entries.

Anyway, I did promise to write about the weather before I left for France but I didn't have time, so let me make up by writing one now.

The weather in Lausanne is much warmer now. I can store the huge winter coat that I have and just wear the seater I have when I go out. However, the temperature can still get pretty cold sometimes, like the past 2 days where it had been raining.

We are in the transititon from winter to spring, although its now more spring than winter. The flowers are blooming and the birds are all coming out. Yea... Its definitely spring when the insects are out to bug you.

The trees were still bare and ugly when I left for France but after a few weeks, the leaves have grown back (and I realised that they were the same trees that I saw in France) and the neighbourhood seemed to have gotten more colourful.
This picture was taken just after I returned so the trees looked a little nicer.

Anyway, I had gotten back my results for the midterms. It turned out that I had not done as badly as I had thought I would get. Whew... The teacher was really very lenient in his marking (I think...) and so I got 58/78 (don't ask me why it had such a weird denomination) which is about 74%. Not too bad, but the average for the test was 80% (10 people got 100%... What the hell...) so I had gotten a little below average. But that grade seemed to be common, since the passing mark is 66% (or 4 out of 6 points).

Here, I don't have to worry about the bell curve, but I have to at least score 66% for a pass. Easier said than done... I'm trying. Its definitely not easy, but its attainable, something like the workload in NUS, except that its much easier since I don't have to make time for work and tuition.

Oh yea, I can post up the group pictures of me and my friends from the France Trip so I'll be doing that pretty soon.

See u ard!

How to read the Chronicles of France

Dear people,

I have completed the Chronicles of France.
Unfortunately, I don't know how to post it such that the first book would appear right at the top.
As such, here is what I am going to do:
Click on the books below and it will jump to the proper pages so that you can read in order.

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

Book 5

At the bottom of each book is also a link to the next book, so you can read it all in one shot though I wouldn't recommend it as it would be too hard on your eyes...

Have fun!!

Last Book of the Chronicles of France

Yay! Rejoice! We are at the last book of the Chronicles of France. 2 more days to go. Are you having a caffine high? Really, stay away from coffee. They leave your breath smelling bad.

Again, a gentle reminder to read this in a well lit room, with the screen 50 cm away from your eyes and turn off all your beeping devices!! (:-D)

Day 8 of the France Trip

I wasn't in the best of moods after being shocked awake so early in the morning, but since this was a vacation, my normal mood returned pretty quickly, after breakfast and a cup of hot chocolate at a roadside cafe. :-D I love doing that in France, especially in front of beautiful buildings. Its so frenchy...

We walked along the streets of Marseille and just explored the city since there were very little attractions to see. But, not before visiting some places that looked promising.

We wanted to go to Chateau d'If, the french version of Azkaban, opps, I meant Alcatraz. :-D
However, due to bad weather conditions, all the boats were not heading to the Chateau. And I quote the lady selling the boat tickets: "La mer, c'est ça" (the sea is like this) and her hand mimics the rolling wave action.

The port at Marseille is supposed to be busy with fishmongers with their fresh catch, but when we went there, it was pretty quiet. Perhaps we were too early... So, with our main attraction, Chateau d'If downfor the count, we had to go to the other places. So...

First, took a bus to the oldest abbey in Marseille, the abbey of Saint Victor, and took a look around. While there, we took a stroll (or rather, we got a little lost) around the area and saw this bakery that was famous for their navettes. Navette is a type of pastry that is supposed to be a Marseille specialty. I didn't buy my navettes from that store because it was so expensive! They were like 8 for 12 euros! No way!! So I bought the next best option, cookies. Haha... Anyway, while strolling along much later, I found another shop that sells navettes at a much affordable price, and so, I bought like 8 of them for 5 euros. So much cheaper right!!! But then I might just be paying for the brand and the packaging if I had bought at the first store.

Next, we went to the Notre Dame de la Garde, which was a really cool basilica. It is dedicated to Mother Mary with the aspect of her as the Lady for sailers and voyagers and so it has those marine crests around the basilica. Then, we to the Palais Longchamp, a really cool and magnificent place, actually, more like the facade of a palace, that had a huge fountain and really majestic columns. Great for pictures!

The Notre DameMe and the Notre Dame

Palais LongchampCloseup of the main guy in the fountain

After all those running around, we finally settled down and just took a seat at the opening of the port and watched the setting sun.

Day 9 of the France Trip

We checked out of the crappy hotel as early as we could and boarded the train to Lyon, making sure that we did not miss the train like the previous time. In the end, we were about 40 minutes early for the train. Ah well, more time for me to study...

We had breakfast at Macdonald's at the train station after before boarding the train to Lyon. It was my FIRST time eating Macdonald's in Europe. I hadn't even ate Macs in Switzerland cos it was SO expensive. But then when we saw the price for the brunch menu, it was really reasonable, 6 euros for a burger, a yougurt, 2 pancakes, a tea and an orange juice. I know, if you translate into SGD, it would be about 12 dollars and its insane to pay such prices for breakfast. But hey, we are in Europe, and 6 euros is really really decent for such stuff already.

So anyway, Lyon. Lyon was nice...

After checking into the hotel, we decided to chill a little in the nice hotel room and decide on our destinations. But the first destination that we have to head to was the tourism office.

Its like a habit. Once you get to the next town, locate the nearest tourism office to get a map and a transport pass, if needed. Maps are essential to travellers. I've lost count of the number of maps that I took from this trip. Many of them are pretty torn up by the time we left the city.

At the tourism office, we bought a city pass for the next day and I bought a book on Lyon. I figured that since we didn't know what was good in Lyon, and the picture book looked really nice, it wouldn't hurt to get one as a souvenir, like the one in Louvre or Chateau de Versailles. Never mind that my backpack was 10 kg and books are not the best things to bring along a backpacking trip...

Ah yes, did I mention that Lyon was nice... Its like a not so touristy Paris. Though Lyon has lesser attractions, it also has much lesser tourists, and it all added to its charm.
I think we are all suffering from the tourist-cathedral fatigue as we were already losing the enthusiasm of visiting churches that are out of the way. But, the Basilique Notre-Dame (another one for Notre-Dame) up on Fourviere hill is superb! Easily comparable to the Notre Dame in Paris! While the exterior is not as impressive as the Notre dame de Paris, it has 2 levels in the interior. The lower level is dedicated to St Joseph, the husband of Mary, while the upper level is dedicated to Mother Mary. Again, gold inlay, gold gildings, gold paint... Colourful murals, impressive statues, beautiful facades... The churches in France must have been really rich to do this huh?

Anyway, out of the Basilique, one could get a panoramic view of the city. Oh Oh!! Did I mention the very quaint tram that we had to ride to get up the hill? It was really something straight out of the old days! Too bad the picture I had for the tram was pretty bad.

Sorry for the sudden outburst... Umm... Let's see...

From Fourviere, we then walked down the hill and stopped by the Roman Theaters ruins that was near the Basilique. That place makes a great place for pictures too. I heard that it's used not for outdoor concerts.
On our way back to the city, we met this really nice lady on the bus. She was laughing at us during the ride as we were chatting about the places we should go to for dinner. Lyon was our splurge-for-dinner destination because we've heard so much (or rather it's my friend who had heard so much)about the gourmet in Lyon. Finally, unable to ignore her any longer, my friend said "why don't we just ask the lady behind you (me)? She have been listening and laughing at our conversation for some time already."

I was like: What? Are we embarassing ourselves? Not again?!

:-D

Anyway, the lady was really nice. We asked her about any restaurants or places where we could get good food for a reasonable price. Her instant answer was "In France?"
In the end, she pointed out a nice pub where we could have a decent meal and chill out for the evening for a reasonable price, and so, off we went to that pub.

So, to cut a long story short, we went to the pub, got dinner, then ordered beer on top of the wine that was included in the set. We all got rip-roarin' drunk and left the pub swiggin' on a bottle of wine.

Or so it would be if the alcohol was free and we were back in Singpore with someone to drive us home and we don't need to care about parents breathing down our backs. :-P

We had a fun time at the pub. We did order beer, but it was only2 mugs shared between 4 people, so it was ok. The food wasn't honestly great, but it was decent and affordable and the company was great. Thus, overall, it was a very enjoyable night. (The beers might have something to do with it too ;-D)
End of Day 9

Day 10. The last day in France!!

It was the last day of the France Trip and I was facing it with a mixture of Yes-I-get-to-finally-go-back-soon (I was kinda missing Switzerland... Or maybe just getting tired) and No-Aww...-I-still-wanna-stay-and-play-in-Lyon kind of feelings.

We checked out of the nice hotel that gave us extra towels and checked our baggage into the train station's baggage lockers before heading to the Old Town to do some exploration.

Today was basically a museum day, since our city pass includes free entry to museums and the free use of public transportation. We went to 3 museums.The Museum of Religious Art, The Museum of Automations and the Museum of Miniatures.

The first 2 museums were so-so, but the Museum of Miniatures was really awesome. Very detailed little pieces of art and stuff! One wonders how the creators don't suffer from extreme myopia...

After the museums, we went to this place where many shops selling Lyon specialties are. The place was really cool. I love that place... I bought a Lyonnaise Saucisson, cured meat that is a specialty of Lyon, and a big packet of soft sweets that I think is also a specialty. I was almost sad when we had to leave to catch the train back to Geneva.

It is very suficiant to say that I was very happy when I left France with a bagful of souvenirs and 4 blog posts full of memories.

Are you guys satisfied with my accounts?
Be nice, I spent an entire day typing these four posts instead of enjoying the nice weather at the lake. My eyes are about to pop out...

So as something nice for all you nice people who sat through god knows how many pages of stuff that I had written and almost 5 pots of coffee (are you still drinking that?) ...


A nice picture of me and the Palais de Justice in Marseille! And....
Me and the cheeses in the market in Lyon!
Autographed pictures are at 5 euros a piece. Grab'em while stocks last!! :-D

Book 4 of the Chronicles of France

Ah... Hope you guys are not bored with the stuff yet. We are only at Day 6!! 4 more days to go!!

Day 6 of the France trip.

After checking out of the hotel in Nice, we boarded a train to Cannes, which is quite near to Nice. Everyone knows Cannes as the film festival place and honestly, I think Cannes is really ONLY a film place... In short, it was like Nice. Except that there was no old town for us to explore. Thus, we headed to the next best alternative after exploring the handful of touristy destinations the guide had for us.

And that brought us to Sainte-Marguerite Island.

The largest of the Lerins Islands, Sainte-Marguerite Island is better known for the fort that is there. Fort Royal is most famous for the prison that held the so-called Man in the Iron Mask. It mainly served as a prison for the royalty in medieval times and had seen many famous prisoners in its time.

Well, the island is pretty enough. From what I read, there was a lot of natural attractions on that island. It was better known for its natural attractions than the Fort. We didn't really explore the island because we had about 2 hours to explore the place before the last ferry leaves, so we only went to the Fort and the museum that was attached to it.

The Fort seemed pretty small, only about 2 stories tall and only the first floor was open for public. There were some scary murals done within the prison by some artist who voluntarily locked himself in to search for his inner muse. Also, there were exhibits that speculate the identity of the man in the iron mask but there wasn't anything concrete. The fort once held religious prisoners too, and so there were some interesting accounts of these christian pastors on exhibit.

The island was almost deserted. There were hardly anyone in the museum with us and that added to the scary factor of the Fort. But once you head out into the sun, the island would feel peaceful, almost idyllic.

For the most part of the remaining evening, there was nothing much worthy to say, except that we came into this nice Turking fast food restaurant that sold cheap (well, relatively cheap) food. The nice man behind the counter, after knowing that (and I quote my friend) "Je suis etudiante, je n'ai pas d'argent" or I am a student, I don't have any money, he very kindly gave us a jug of water (the others didn't seem to have one) and even offered me a dollar discount off my meal (mine was 6 euros, the others ordered 5 euros meal). How nice of him right! So people, next time you visit Cannes, go to the Turkish Kebab place that's near the fresh food market and patronise that shop. Just because he is a nice guy!

End of Day 6

Day 7.....

We head out of Cannes and to Marseille on Day 7. However, because we didn't check that the bus to the train station only arrives every 30 minutes, we were late for our train. After some exasperating conversations with the train ticket operators, we managed to secure tickets to the next train tht heads to Marseille free of charge, BUT at 3 hours later. So, with 3 hours to spare, we decided to hit the streets and do a little exploring around the city, the part that we haven't explored before. So, we sat in the sun and just lazed around the beach like a bunch of people on vacation, soaking up the sun in the freezing afternoon breeze. (Freezing? Yes, it was definitely freezing. It was sunny but cold because of the howling gales there.)

Anyway, three hours later, we were on our way to Marseille. A hiccup of the train service along the way saw us running after a bus to take us to Marseille after the train mysteriously stopped and we were ushered out of the train. Ah, my back was singing after the run. Singing with pain, that is.

I instantly took a dislike to Marseille after that.

For one, Marseille was almost as dirty as Paris. The people also seemed unfriendly and, although I know we should be used to it by now, they stare at us a lot. Like openly stare. I guess they don't really have a lot of tourists coming there huh...

Anyway, we covered 2 main "tourist destinations" in Marseille that afternoon. A copy of the Arc de Triomphe that was in Marseille and a block of flats that was special because it had each appartment (??) individually designed and it housed the offices for architects, a hotel and appartments that were for people to live in. An interesting appartment.

Since we took such a long time in getting to Marseille, we only had a limited time to explore before heading to the hotel for the night.

Oh ya, speaking of hotels, the one at Marseille was really one of the worst I've stayed in. It can almost rival the hotel that I stayed in in Hong Kong. It has a weird opening time for their reception (only in the mornings and evenings) and there is only one toilet for the whole floor to share. That meant going out of the room for the toilet but the shower is attached to the room (individual showers). And when one goes to the toilet, the auto light function might cause the corridor light to switch off by itself after some time and so you would have to grope your way back to the room. Argh, I can grouse about the hotel for another half page, but I don't think it would be polite...

Back to the story then...

On our way to the hotel, we stopped by a boulangerie (a bakery that sells a whole range of baked goods) for dinner. The shop owner was a very nice lady. We had a couple of incidents during dinner but she was very nice and cool about it. Before we left, she even gave us some pastries, free of charge! What a heart!

Ok, so I guess Marseille wasn't that bad after all...

That night, or the following morning, at about 6 in the morning, I felt the earth move. It was very slight, but I knew it was an earthquake, thanks to the stupid article that my friend happened to see on their local newspaper. The paper said that Marseille was near a faultline and was pretty likely to have an earthquake that was the aftermath of the one in Aquila in Italy. If I had not seen that article, I would have been oblivious to it and went back to sleep, assuming that it was just some fat guy rolling around in his sleep upstairs...

Nah, it's actually pretty unlikely that I would think that way since it really felt like the earth suddenly became like a wave, the whole hotel was like vibrating. And so, I could not get back to sleep, afraid that the stupid earthquake might wake someone up and they might start panicking and cause the others to panic. Sigh... Thankfully, they slept through it like 3 logs and hardly felt a thing. Ah well, I'm just thankful that it wasn't serious.

End of Day 7 of the France Trip.

Jump to book 5

Back to part 3 of the chronicles of France...

I realised that I ran out of margarine after I had to throw out the little block that had looked bad after I returned from France... I don't think I can substitute margarine with cooking oil and the supermarkets are closed already... Shucks. So this meant back to dutifully typing the chronicles. Ah well, back to more of this then.

By now, I think it might be healthier to drink tea of chocolate instead. Too much coffee would be bad for your health. You could have some of the navettes that I had bought from Marseilles to go with your tea.
Just imagine it... Or lick your screen... :-D Just joking, just joking...

Remember to make yourselves comfy and read this in a well-lit room with the screen about 50cm from your eyes. Make the words bigger if you need by pressing ctrl down and scrolling the mouse wheel up...

Book 3, Chronicles of France
Day 4 of the France Trip

Day 4 was Easter Sunday, or Pâques in french and so, we decided to go to Versailles, the former capital of France after Louis XIV moved it there some centuries ago. Versailles is now just a suburb of Paris. A very fancy suburb.

Some of you would better remember it as the place where the Treaty of Versailles was signed at. To me, it's a place where a whooping castle and an equally huge garden is at. But as usual, there was a queue to get in, Luckily, we had bought our tickets beforehand and so we only needed to queue for entry.

The Castle of Versailles, Château de Versailles, is one huge and grand castle!!
Each room was lavisly decorated and sinfully furnished. I have never seen so many art pieces and gold in the same place before. Some of the pieces were the same as those in Louvre.

It was really cool! Each room has at least one painting or some gold somewhere. Really, the French Kings either had a lot of money or they were not spending their own money when they built this....

Words can't really describe the splendor of the place. That's what tours are for for you to experience it yourself. sigh, I wish I could properly express myself to tell you guys how awesome the place is. Even the pictures that I take when my camera is in a good mood is insufficient to do justice for such a place like that. So, for occasions like this, always be glad that there are guide books for the place! I bought the book on Versailles, so I can let the book tell you more about the splendor of the place - when you borrow it from me.
Pic of me in the famous Hall of Mirrors. There's really lots of gold here... And look, even the ceilings are completely covered with murals!!

The garden outside is, in my opinion, more noteworthy than the castle. Yes, gold is nice and all but sometimes the greenery is a nice change from that.

The garden is splendid! (I seem to use a lot of superlatives for this chateau but really, there is no other way to describe it!) I actually preferred the gardens to the chateau.

They must have hired a whole army of garderners to maintain this place! It looked great! There were statues of greek and roman gods, characters and others of the mythical world and many fountains.

The garden is so huge that it would take about 1 and a half hours of walking to finish the main path, and that is not considering the other trails that lead to other parts of the gardens! I can imagine that the french kings and Napolean would have ridden in the gardens. It would be really cool to explore the gardens on horseback!! But alas, we only have our feet to bring us around, and due to time constraints, we decided to just settle ourselves by the lake (THEY HAVE A MAN MADE LAKE!!!) and enjoy the view.

Pictures, pictures!!
This was taken by me...
This was taken by a professional from some website: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alessio72/1278478665/

End of day 4.

Are you still with me? Ok good. It might get boring now, since we are out of Paris now. After all, 99% of the French attractions are in Paris, no? :-D
Alright, for the staunch-hearted, let's trudge on!

Day 5 of the France Trip...

We boarded a plane from Paris to Nice, which was just about 1 hour 30 mins away. After putting down our bags at the hotel (Thank god for that!!) we went exploring to the old town of Nice. The last time I was in Nice, it was just a stop over for a hotel, and so, I was curious as to how the city itself is like.

Old Nice is a charming place. The narrow streets and the easy pace of the people reminded me of that impression of Paris that I had at first. Narrow streets that wind and turn so that one can lose themselves to the charm of the town and people who are in no hurry to get anywhere. They can stop and say a few "konichiwas" or even strike up a conversation that is not too creepy.

We didn't really explored much, just a handful of touristy places that were on the map and guidebooks that labeled them as must-sees. We really took our time with Nice. We ate at one of those restaurant that was at the foot of a historical church out in the sun with a busker strumming classical tunes on his guitar. Some time later, a singing lady came to busk for money near the restaurant too, so we had lunch in the sun, at the foot of a beautiful church and to the music of authentic french songs (the lady was singing Edith Piaf!!). And for after lunch dessert, we ate gelato from the stores nearby. How great was that...

One thing to note was the italian influence in Nice. Because of its proximity to Italy, Nice has many italian restaurants and gelato stores are a common sight.

Before dinner, we strolled to the flea market and looked around a little before they closed for the day. There, we met this lovely lady who was manning a store. We struck up a conversation and chatted a little, IN FRENCH!! I am very proud to say that I understood 90% of what she said and that we had a decent conversation! (She was speaking slowly in easy words and pronouncing her words, so she was easy to understand)

We spent the remainder of the day sitting by the beach and watching the sunset.

In all, we left Nice with a very nice feeling.

End of Day 5...

For continuity's sake, I'm going to end book 3 here. See you in book 4! Before that, here's some pictures of Nice.
The narrow streets of old Nice.
Spring is in the air!
Beer and Lemon Gelato!

Jump to book 4

The rise of the iced coffee

Ok, grab that unfinished cuppa from the fridge and lets continue where I left off yesterday.

Book 2 of the Chronicles of France

After lugging around my 10kg bag all over the 1st district of Paris, I was looking forward to having a good night's rest at a friend's friend's apartment. So, after meeting up with the aforementioned friend's friend, we headed to his place.

I'm grateful to have a place with a bathroom, toilet and heater to sleep. (That's all I'm gonna say.)

The next day, we woke up real early to get a headstart for the day. Or at least, that was the plan. By the time everyone got over our fatigue, it was already 10a.m. So we hastily cleaned ourselves up, ate breakfast, and headed to our first destination, Champs-Élysées.

Known to be "la plus belle avenue du monde", the most beautiful avenue of the world, it would be just that if there wasn't so much traffic and noise around. It really is just a much prettier Orchard road with more prestigious labels along the road, less glass and concrete and more stone and brick with lots of additional details on the buildings. Not to mention that there are monuments marking the start and the end of the street.

Most people around the world would be more familiar with the Arc de Triomphe, the huge Arc that marks one end of Champs-Élysées. The Arc is magnificent from afar. Champs-Élysées is really a very beautiful street. The rows of trees that flank the street, the architecture of the buildings and monuments at the end of the street regardless of which direction you take, it all has a very French-y effect (pardon for my lack of a better expression).

We mainly walked down the street, soaking in the atmosphere of it all while making our way to the Arc. The shops were just too expensive. Don't bother walking into shops that remind you of how poor you are... However, that being said, one couldn't resist going into Louis Vuitton. Well, one would be blind to miss the huge LV sign (gold plated, no less) on top of their building. I spent some time wandering around the interior of it while waiting for my friend to choose a bag (She used daddy's emergency credit card). I tried to call home to ask if anyone wanted anything from LV while I was here, but funnily, no one picked up the phone. Ah well, can't blame me for not trying...

After my friend purchased her LV bag, we went to the cheapest place we could find on Champs- Élysées for lunch and had our meal like a French, out on the sidewalk watching the traffic go by.

Next up, we went exploring around the other parts of Paris. My friends wanted to go to this place that sold really great macarons, Pierre Hermes. It was a piece of whatever-flavoured-macaron-you-had-bought heaven in your mouth for a price of 1.65 euros (about 3.30 SGD) for a little one. Its expensive, but really, you have to try macarons in France and Pierre Hermes is as good a place to splurge on as LV or other luxury goods. We bought 5 each (it came in boxes of 20s) and so I tried 5 different flavours of heaven. Was completely happy for the next few hours... :-D

All righty, next, we went to the Louvre. Was looking forward to it the whole day. The whole museum was filled with artworks! There were 3 levels, each with 3 parts to it. I spent more than 3 hours there and I had only went to abput 5 parts in total. I went into the part where Mona Lisa was kept but guess what, there was a whole swamp of people there pushing against the barricade, trying to take pictures of the painting.
See what I mean?
Frankly, I find it very amusing. There is like a thick layer of glass in front of the painting, a security guard and a barricade around that painting. It was the only painting that I saw that had such a treatment. But then again, it was the only painting I saw that had such a crowd around it.

Walking on, I explored the sculpture collection, italian and french painting collections. There were so many things that were picture worthy and I had to remind myself that I have limited battery and space for them. But I did buy a book on the Louvre and its collections. After all, they have better pictures and more explanations than the french ones that were available. (Why would an international museum like the Louvre only have explanations in French? C'est bizzare!)

Anyway, after the Louvre, it was already pretty late into the night, so we went back to sleep.
End of day 2...

Paris is really a tourist destination. One can instantly tell by a couple of indications.
1) tour buses
2) Hordes of people that are herded from destination to destination
3) Long queues at ticket booths to monuments.

The third day of our France trip started off with a tour of the Eiffel tower. Unfortunately, there was such a long queue for the tickets that we had to stand in line for the tickets for close to 2 hours. After that, we still had to queue for the lift to get to the top of the tower. That made a total of 3 hours of waiting just to get into the lift of the tower. It was exasperating and I was thankful for once that I had brought along my notes to study.

The view from the Eiffel Tower was amazing, as predicted, but nothing that you haven't seen from the Notre Dame. At least the Notre Dame had gargoyles and chimeras to pose with. But then again, it's just a touristy thing that one should do when one is in Paris. Thus, that 3 hours of queuing was well spent in my opinion.

For lunch, we met up with a friend of my friends who was also in Paris at tht time. We went to this little African restaurant that had just opened. The restaurant owners were nice. We even had a free glass of champagne to celebrate their first day of opening! The meal was pretty nice. I had blood pudding as appetizer (a friend chose it and I didn't know what it was at first, but it was really nice! Especially with the salsa that went with it!) and beef stew with rice for the main course. It was expensive to us, but probably cheap considering that it was Paris.

After the lunch, it was back to wandering around Paris. We visited Sacred Coeur and La Defense. The trip to La Defense was especially unforgettable.

La Defense is the business district of Paris, with nothing much to see except its Grande Arche, so it was a pretty boring trip that would be a waste of time. Or so I thought. But I was sorely mistaken, thanks to a very nice old man who took the time to show us around the region!!

This weird old man was really a nice guy! He introduced to us the other side of La Defense that was underneath its glass and concrete skyscraper facade. He was very entertaining and funny, sharing with us the art pieces and statues that littered the district like monuments do to the heart of Paris. This was the part that I liked about backpacking! The people that one gets to meet, the experiences that one would experience that is so different from the scheduled experience that tours tend to have. We would have NEVER met this strange man if we were in a tour! It was really great!

Ah... I should stop now for your sake. Its the end of Day 3 in France and I have 7 more days to go. While I don't think that I would have as much stuff to write for the later days, it is not a good idea to make you trudge through a few pages worth of blog post. Hell, you have a great deal of patience if you made it so far (with the help of several pots of coffee, I suppose).

So, i'll go make myself a btch of those cheese thyme biscuits while you guys rest your eyes a little.

A bientot!

Jump to book 3

Chronicles of France

Hey people!!

I'm really really sorry for putting this off for so long. Its been a heck of a week since returning from France. Let me just grouse a bit about my studies first, s'il vous plait.

I had 2 midterms on the week after my return from France. So, in order to prepare for it, I had to carry around my file of notes for 2 subjects (it must have weighed 1 kg!! Way too heavy for my 10Kg bag!! But add I must, for I already feel guilty that I am not staying in Lausanne to study...)
Yea, I know you are doubting my ability to study during the trip, but I must say that I tried!! In the end, I only managed to study finish one subject (operating systems) which was pretty good, considering my only time for studying were during the flights, train rides, waiting in LOOOOONG queues in Paris, and the little time I had before bed.

Don't ask me how the midterm for Operating Systems went, though. I'ld be too depressed to tell you... Conversely, the other subject that I DIDN'T study so hard for (Graph Theory Applications) came out pretty ok. 20/30. Not impressive, but my teacher said that I did well (my teacher is a very nice lady, that's why). In any case, it was way better than I expected.

But anyway, I know you guys are itching for me to get on about France, so settle yourselves comfortably with a cuppa and some chocs or biscuits. For your comfort, please turn off all beeping devices and read this in a well lit room with the screen about 50 cm away from your eyes.

Let the story begin....

Long long time ago, or rather about 2 weeks and 2 days ago, 3 friends and I boarded a really early train to Geneva Airport to catch our flight to Paris. Initially, I was worried that my huge-assed backpack that weighed 10kg would not be allowed as a handcarry bag onto the plane. Luckily, after much pushing and punching, I managed to squeeze the bagpack into the measuring space for hand-carry. The 10kg bagpack was a little snug in the corners, but fit it did. And so, it was ok to be brought on flight.

The 1-hour flight was uneventful (what else could you say about 1-hour flights?) and we landed in Paris at around 8 plus in the morning. After spending too much time in the airport to settle some stuff (like to buy our transport passes and get maps and information) we finally arrived in the paris Paris!

We went straight to touring the place and I found out why people kept calling Paris the city of romance (or smth like that, I think). For one, the streets were just lined with buildings and trees that look really postcard worthy. There were so many statues and decorative carvings around the city. It was like the kings just decided to litter the city with statues of themselves and various carvings just for the fun of it. The trees are also something note-worthy. This particular species that line the streets of Paris has leaves that are translucent and so, instead of a shadow, the tree casts a green hue on the ground. Very romantic if you are at a park with those trees as shade.

Really, Paris is almost as bad as Rome when it comes to touristy spots. Like Rome, you could virtually turn round the corner of a neighbourhood and go, whoops, there's another monument/statue/cathedral to see. Its almost annoying in that sense. They just have so many bloody monuments!!

Sigh.... Ah well, back to the main story, if you are not bored.

To cut a very long day short, we didn't really visited a lot of places, but we did walk past or spotted many attractions (well, you can't really miss the Eiffel Tower thats sticking out over the short european buildings...). The highlights of the day was the Notre Dame de Paris.

Boy oh boy, the Notre Dame is one magnificent cathedral. Definitely a must-see in Paris, or France. Just the exterior of it is spectacular already! It must be, since we walked like 3 times round the cathedral and taking pictures of it from most possible angles. Yea... we didn't mind circling the cathedral so many times since it was so magnificent.

The interior of the cathedral was amazing as well. I don't take many pictures of the interior of churches and cathedrals as a habit but I had to stop myself from taking too many pictures since I had to reserve space for the remaining of the trip. However, my camera does not work best under the dim conditions of the cathedral interior. Thus, sadly, I had to delete all the pictures that were too horribly taken to be seen.

We also climbed up the bell tower of Notre Dame, the same towers where Quasimodo prowled in Victor Hugo's famous novel.

The experience was breath-taking. Literally.

Imagine this: Carry 10 kg of luggage on your back and wander through the streets of Paris for 3 hours. Then, climb up 400 stairs of the Notre Dame's bell towers with the same bag in ultra narrow, claustraphobic-inducing stairways and medieval stone steps. Imagine my euphoria when I came out and someone told me that I had to climb another 200 steps up!

Now, if you can't catch sarcasm, before, I'll tell you blatently that I felt like punching the face of the guy who said "Pas fini. Allez, allez!" (not finished yet. Go, Go!).

But believe you me, the view at the top is definitely worth the excruciating climb.

It was of a good weather that day in Paris and so we could see very far off the city. The top of the tower could be traversed, so we could get like a 270 degrees view from there. It was really great to be amidst the gargoyles and the saints of the cathedral's facade, looking down on what they have been staring at over the horizon. Not to mention that I can now boast of climbing 400 steps and making my way gingerly down after that with a 10kg backpack on my shoulders!

Ah... Due to time constraints (or rather a biological need to sleep immediately), I would have to continue this tomorrow. But in all, this concludes my first day in Paris. Well, almost, since there's more on the first day than just this but I need to leave this for tomorrow.

Most of you would have finished half of your cuppa already. Perhaps you can put it into the fridge to enjoy for part 2 of Jiehui's Chronicles of France.

For now, some pictures of the first day...

The trees that I was talking about.
Me and my 10kg backpack
Of gargoyles and chimeras that loom off the towers of Notre Dame
The facade of Notre Dame. I know it looks small, but its actually long, so its bigger than it looks.
Me, my huge-assed backpack, and a nice picture of the Notre Dame.

Till tomorrow then...

Jump to Book 2

I'm back!!

Hi people!

I'm back from France with much to share.
Unfortunately, I've got 2 midterms coming up and a project to due soon (yes, I am a bad student) so I can't give a full account.

Be patient. I will devote my weekends to a full blown account here.

Ciao!

A day's trip to Basel.

I've been kept plenty busy this past week studying for one midterm and finishing up the report on another that I don't have time to do anything fun. But ah well, next week is the Easter break that's coming up, so I'll be going to France this Thursday!!

However, I did go someplace today, like most other Saturdays. Saturday is like the only time I have of the week to go out to play... Ah, but anyway, I went to Basel today with several other friends to pick another friend up from the airport there. And since we're there, we took a quick look-see around Basel.

Basel is located in the German part of Switzerland, a good 2 hours plus ride by train from Lausanne. It's an old city, with many museums and old style architecture. Basically, we had limited time to visit the places we wanted to visit, so we only visited like a handful of attractions in Basel. But what stood out from the attractions that we went to was the City Hall and the Münster.

The City Hall (or Rathaus in german) is this red building in the Marktplatz (I'm guessing it means Marketplace...). It instantly grabs one's attention when you walk into that area. Its red walls stands out against the other buildings around it. The exterior walls are as colourfully painted and decorated as the inside of the place. Although I don't think we went in deep enough into the building to see how the building got its name, the decor of the building did impress me. I realised that murals are a huge thing in the old european times. Many old and important buildings that I visited had some kind of impressive murals somewhere. Even ordinary buildings have smaller murals that looked pretty nice. The only mural that I remembered seeing in Singapore was the Mr. Bean thing on the side of this building. I would see it when I'm on the train to school. Can't remember which area though... Somewhere in the west, if I'm not wrong.

After the City Hall, we walked on, following the route on the maps and visiting some odd statues and fountains here and there. We got to the river Rhine and this lady told us that we could take a boat across the river to get to the Münster pretty quickly. So, after a pretty enjoyable ride, we got to the Münster, which is another place that is pretty nice to look at. Its a church and there was a service going on, so we couldn't enter the church area. But we did explore the interior a little (where it was permissible)and take a few photos.

Nothing juicy to talk about Basel, actually. Maybe 'cos I spent too little time there. Maybe the next time there would be better. But for now, pictures!

This time, I shot entirely with the Olympus and my shaky hands somehow got less shaky today so I got a few more decent pictures than usual.
A picture of the Basel Theater. Just walked pass it, didn't enter, but from the ads outside, it seemed like a pretty hip place to go for a play or a concert...
The City Hall. Had to shoot at an angle to capture the clock tower...
Interior of the City Hall (1)
Interior of the City Hall (2)... The entire building is painted red with the murals painted above it.
The Munster from the opposite bank of the river Rhines
A nice shot of the Munster (well, at least I like this shot)

Random picture of me with a fountain. That statue is a dragon. Not very obvious, I know...
Well, stay tuned for pictures from the France trip. I'm looking forward to it.

I have to finish up any work that I have on my hands so that I can go to France in peace for the entire week so that means I might have nothing interesting to write about.

Shall I talk about the weather then? We'll see...

Until then, stay tuned. (yes, u can gloss over my entry on the weather. It will come in 4 days, before I leave for France... I forsee that that entry would be particularly boring.)