A HUGE Congratulations to you as you’ve been shortlisted as one of the top five finalists for the Best Food Blog Award Category for the First Nuffnang Asia-Pacific Blog Awards Ceremony!
The Nuffnang Asia Pacific Blog Awards is the FIRST REGIONAL BLOG AWARDS. It’ll be a red-carpet event, packed with glitz and glamour, just like a big time Hollywood awards ceremony.
So I was thinking…
I’ve been cooking a lot more and while it’s not quite eatshowandtell worthy (i.e. fancy), I’d still like to write up on it (in a way) and take photos of the hard work that’s been put into the dishes.
Also, I’ve been noticing that I’m quite a big klutz in the kitchen. When we were making the Wagyu Steaks with Mash and Creamed Spinach, I managed to skin myself on the vegetable peeler whilst peeling the potato not once but TWICE: my left index finger and (I guess thankfully) my left thumb nail. I thought on Sunday that perhaps I should keep a little journal on what we’ve been cooking and how I’ve hurt myself when cooking.
We’ll see how it goes…
Yesterday, F and I made our version of Epicurious’s Greek Salad with Orzo and Black-Eyed Peas. We had it with Red Lea’s Large BBQ Chicken, topping lunch off with Nigella Lawson’s Triple Chocolate Brownies.
Modifications:
Injuries:
Near Misses:
Last time I helped out in making the orzo, I tried to cold-water rinse the pasta while trying to keep it from falling into the holes in the colander and burnt my fingertips on the super hot orzos in the middle. Stupid to have stuck my hand in there in the first place, I know. Thankfully, we had a colander whose holes were small enough to keep the orzos from falling out this time around.
F adapted the recipe from here.
Modifications:
Injuries:
None – I didn’t make them. Only helped out to pour stuff in while he whisked it. Hehe, yay!
We had enough salad leftover for lunch today and more than enough brownies for my office =D
My parents left in the wee hours of the morning for a little jaunt in Nantes (my step mum has relatives down there) and so we were left to our own devices.
Seeing that we missed out on climbing the Notre-Dame towers, I thought we could do that and then go to Musee d’Orsay because I loved it last time I went there, but didn’t really have that much time to properly check it out… plus some errands on the side like booking a cab to take us to the airport, mailing postcards, and visiting Pierre Herme’s patisserie. *ahem* haha
The booking of the cab took much longer than expected, mainly because the voice prompts were all in French and all I know is the usual very basic conversation words/phrases and the 2 ever useful phrases: Parle vous anglais? and Je ne sais pas. Thankfully I managed to get hold of an actual English-speaking operator (sucks being only fluent in one language! And double sucks when you’re not linguistically talented *sighs*) and finally confirmed a booking for the next morning.
The line for the towers is actually outside, running down the side of the church – silly me went into the church trying to look for it – and it was also pretty long. I think we waited for about 30-40 minutes in the windy coldness, during which I looked up…
… before we were tramping our way up the spiral staircase to the top.
I was kind of wheezing before long and my butt muscles were strangely burning (hahah TMI maybe? XD teehee), but was pleasantly surprised to find that we reached the top rather quickly. It was a strange feeling, as I remember the last time I climbed this tower it felt like forever and I’m quite sure I took mini-breaks because I got so out of breath!
Anywho, I know you just wanna see photos from the top =P
I always find scaffolding covers amusing – it’s like, this is what the building is suppose to look like under here, sooo here’s a drawn and printed version of it! I think of it as a kind of loading notification for buildings, like the ones you get when you’re waiting for a photo to load on Facebook. hahaha
I’m quite sure everyone’s seen this character, he’s one of the famous gargoyles to adorn Notre-Dame and I think he looks rather cute, what with that pose and cheeky tongue sticking out. hehe Off in the distance, you can see Sacre-Coeur!
Some less cute gargoyles…
And yes, I think one of them is eating a cat.
Climbing down the tower was exactly as I remembered it: looong and windy. It honestly felt longer than us walking up, which was really weird. By the time we reached the ground, we both weren’t feeling too good. hahah
Notre-Dame from the back:
We were feeling a bit peckish and while my brother had a pre-made hot dog (which they just reheated in the grill and added some sauce), I had the sweet chocolate, banana crepe…
Yuuuummmmm…
We ambled our way to Musee d’Orsay – one of my favourite museums. While I think most museums in Europe were previously aristocrats’ mansions and royal palaces, Musee d’Orsay use to be a train station! I fancy that you can see that with the structure of the building and the massive clock (which I got obsessed about and took a billion photos of)…
They really have expanded their collection from last time I was here – I got a bit overwhelmed and didn’t quite know where to start! Haha… Ended up deciding to work my way from the top to the bottom.
My brother got all huffy at me because he didn’t want to go to the museum, wanting to go home instead, because of his aching heels. I told him to sit down some where comfy and to wait for me to do the round. He adamantly refused, citing that f he were to do that, goodness knows when I’ll come back for him. Damn it… He had a point. So I ended up kind of rushing through Musee d’Orsay… again… just like last time… haha
As we walked into the museum, we were stared down by an impressive lion…
Our first stop was the Impressionists (including Neo-impressionsm) on the top floor…
I’ve always heard about Chat Noir, but I wasn’t too sure what it was all about. So, much to my brother’s suffering, we went downstairs to check it out. Seeing the displays made so much sense! There was no time to read the lengthy text accompanying some of the artwork, sadly enough, but basically it’s shadow puppetry, background included…
When we wandered even further downstairs, we somehow stumbled across the Hall of Festivities…
Both my brother and I were struck by how ornate and opulent the hall was, placing images of grand balls, rustling of gowns, fluttering of fans, and strains of “civilised” music. We both were sitting on the floor, taking it all in, when a guard/curator spied us and motioned for us to get up. Oopsy.
I realised something as I wandered (and wondered… *boom tish* lol.. ah I’m so lame hehe) through the museum: I adore sculptures. (Wait, have I already declared that? Terrible sense of deja vu O_O)
This sculpture was in the Hall of Festivities and I like how impish she looks – though admittedly her hair is a bit freaky at the same time.
It wasn’t the man on the winged lion’s back that arrested my attention, it was the winged lion itself, with its fierce almost-snarl and paw on an “evangile” scroll (whatever that was).
A stately (but naked) woman holding out a tiny (clothed) female… interesting – I would have figured it’d be the other way for some reason. And then I wonder WHY is she holding a little person? O_o
These two massive reliefs were placed back-to-back and rather had a “whoa” effect… towering over you with the frozen struggle between the hunter and the hunted.
I didn’t know this, but The Thinker was actually part of The Door of … and not a solitary sculpture.
I was going to put up more stuff from the museum, but I kind of got bored putting them on here – which I thought was a clear indication that it would also bore you terribly, so I’ll just cut to the end =P
One of the sculptures that really stayed with me from the last visit was of this young lady demurely sitting down, looking at somewhere far away. I tried to commit the statue’s name and artist to memory, but we all know my memory’s worse than a goldfish. So after all these years of wondering what it was, I’ve finally found out:
Jeanne d’Arc a Domremy by Henri Chapu
I wanted to go to Pierre Hermes after visiting the museum, but my brother was whinging and generally being grumpy pants so much that I didn’t think even the best macaroons in the world would taste any good.
So we went home.
*SIGHS*
Seeing that I was mostly navigating around Paris, we were a bit worried about our parents being able to get back home without getting too lost (I even had written very succinct and precise notes lol).
They actually came home about 30 minutes after their ETA, so we were pretty worried haha
Rome tomorrow!!! Woohoo!!!
(… well… in the sense of this time-line and not the real-time time line we’re living in haha)
In an attempt to not bore anyone with all that I found fascinating in the Louvre (and there was a LOT, which isn’t so surprising considering it contains more than 380,000 objects and 35,000 works of art), I thought I’d just put up those that I found really, really interesting/fascinating.
So, here we have Milon de Crotone by Pierre Puget. I loved the intensity of the sculpture – it’s really the little things that culminate into something quite splendid, like the indentations of the lion’s claws digging into his thigh (I fancy seeing it like a freeze frame just before it actually does draw blood and make a bloody mess of the dude’s leg).
I think I’ve got a weakness for things such as Pierre Puget’s Alexandre et Diogene below – I think there’s something about the way how they just pop out at you… and again, I find it amazing how an artist can convey movement and emotion so well through such a hard medium.
There’s something about this statue’s expression and body language that caught my eye – anxious? nervous? worried? contemplative? He’s almost like shrunken into himself and that clasping of hands! Hmmm… So the plaque says that this is Gudea, Ruler of Lagash, a seated statue dedicated to the god. Interesting…
The Google-translated plaque tells me that this is part of the façade that adorned the throne room. Imagine living with those things looming over you as you pass through or come to see the king/emperor – you reckon it’s something that you won’t even notice over time? (Which I think would be such a shame, they’re so magnificent!! … The winged Taurus’s anyways)
Now this is something I wouldn’t want looming over me every day – so entirely intimidating!! There aren’t just one or two of these monstrosities in a room, rather there’s at least 66 of these in the courtroom in the palace of Darius the First. Oh, and mind you, this is just the top of the column, so they’d be totally looming over you as you walk by underneath, staring ever so sternly at you.
I love Ancient Egyptian stuff – I find it so fascinating (but sadly, like
everything else, it doesn’t seem to stick in my head who’s who and what’s what *sighs*). Hopefully I’ll be able to see a real live mummy (well, not really live but you know what I mean =P) and a sphinx in their native country.
What I normally do is take a photo of a work of art that piques my interest and then take a photo of its plaque so I know what the heck it is when I come to caption it. This statue drew me in with her languid pose and then struck me dumb with her anatomy: boobs and a penis. My thoughts pretty much went along the lines of “Eeeerrr… Am I seeing right?? Are those breasts? Is that…?? Omg!!! What the!!!” lol Anywho, so this sculpture is called Sleeping Hermaphrodite… Well… yes… duh much? (I suppose it got straight to the point though *sighs* No faffing about)
One of the most recognisable sculptures: Aphrodite (or also known as Venus de Milo). My brother asked why she’s so famous and I told him because of her missing arms because, well, that’s why I thought why she’s famous. He wasn’t convinced. haha
I noticed a lot of people don’t look up… above Aphrodite is this gorgeous, if ostentatious, façade and cherubs (?)… and then my brother spied an entirely overlooked statue, almost hidden among the gaggle of people gawking at Aphrodite.
“Is that her husband?” he asked, pointing to it. I looked over to see a statue of Apollo with missing arms. I giggled and told him that it wasn’t.
Now, the Louvre boasts of containing all these works of art in over 60,000 square metres of space – and that’s just for the permanent collection! – but I think it’s at such a number that the mind just boggles (well, I know mine did! lol). That factoid kind of fails to also include how big these halls really are:
Soaring ceilings, wonderfully high arches… I speculated aloud to my brother what it would be like living here back in its hey day of being a palace – even as a maid or something. It would have been really something…
Psyche and Cupid (or Google-translated plaque: Psyche Revived by the Kiss of Love) by A. Canova is such a pretty sculpture. I simply adore the body language and its simplicity in conveying emotion.
Ahhh, now this painting needs no introduction. She is smaller than you expected and they’ve cordon the area off so you’re at least 3-5 metres away in a semi-circle from her. Her keepers are also pretty nazi, but that’s totally understandable.
All over the museum (and all museums I’ve been to), if they allow photography, allows non-flash photography; seems like not a lot of people read signs or just don’t care. One of Mona Lisa’s nazi keepers actually waded through the crowd, shouting at people “No flash! No flash!!”, and tapping some of the closer offenders (I reckon she wanted to slap them across the back of their heads instead).
It looks like the room’s fairly well lit, but because it is a rather dark painting and you have to zoom to get a nice close up, the shutter speed can be quite slow… which really sucks when there’s lots of discreet pushing and shoving happening all around you, especially if you’re dead centre to the painting.
The Victory of Samothrace is beautifully majestic and, like all the photos I’ve take of the works of art here, does not do it any justice to how elegant and wonderful it really is.
At the beginning, we decided to split up (parents together, and me with my brother) and meet up at 3pm at the Cafe in the Richelieu wing (I amended it to 4pm, thinking that I’d really would like to make the most of finally being amongst the Louvre’s permanent collection). However, we somehow managed to bump into each other at the Victory of Samothrace and I realised that while it was only 2.30 I was really buggered! Mind you, we started at 11.30 as well… haha, no stamina or stamina leeched by my brother’s constant bored/annoying presence (which did get quite amusing near the end as he kinda went loopy from being so bored – in his defence, museums like this one are not his thing).
We decided not to go to the 2nd floor, which housed all the German, Belgian, Flemish and whatnot paintings, and I told my step mum that we’d meet them downstairs at the appointed place, as we’ve finished with all that we wanted to see. They still had to see the Mona Lisa, so my brother and I figured that they’d be done in about 30 minutes to 1 hour max.
Bought some lunch, munched on it and belated realised that we were lunching at the cafe in the Denon wing! We quickly scuttled over to the correct wing and waited… and waited… and waited…
Over an hour later (with my brother standing over at the Denon wing for about 15 minutes at a time), our parents turned up. They had gotten lost because my dad thought that if they exited the (Denon) wing, they would go all the way out and then wouldn’t be able to meet up with us. So they turned around and tried to navigate through the halls to Richelieu, which was on the other side… which would have taken at least 15-20 minutes to navigate if you knew where to go (well, that’s just my estimation and I could be totally off haha… could be maybe 10 minutes if the halls aren’t so crowded and you REALLY know where you’re going).
They were so stressed out and exhausted when we finally met up that they just wanted to go home.
And so we did… but not before some last parting shots:
We have to take 3 trains to get to Sacre-Coeur from where we are, as it’s pretty much on the other side of the city. One of the stations we had to change at was Montparnasse Bienvenue, which was a bit bigger station than I had anticipated…
This is what a normal warren-like tunnel we would use to connect to another line:
And this was what at Montparnasse Bienvenue:
… yeah, it’s a bit O_O no? hahah So you could imagine it took some time to get to the line we wanted.
It was a loooong way to our intended stop, Abbesses, and we found out the hard way that it’s deceptively deep underground. We followed the crowd of people up the stairs and most seem to shun the elevators for some reason… and up and up and up and up we went, around and around and around – man, I would have gotten dizzy if I was going any faster lol.
We finally spiralled up above ground and spied a quaint little garden nearby: Jardin des Abbesses. The garden, interestingly enough, has a “Love Wall”, where the lady at the top says:
aimer c’est du desordre… alors aimons!
Which Google translates to: love is the disorder … then enjoy! On the wall, people have scribbled stuff like “I love you” (naturally), but there was one that caught my eye: a guy professing his love to two girls, one after the other and with an exclamation at the end “I love you both!!”. Interesting.
View from Square Louise Michel (a garden of sorts just in front of Sacre-Coeur):
I noticed that there was a sign out in front forbidding people from relaxing on the grass… ooookay, that’s a bit … nazi-ish. lol But I’m quite sure they have very good reasons… maybe.
The square is full of hawkers, like at Eiffel Tower, only worse, as there’s these guys who get you stick a finger out, loop some string around it, and they start plaiting whilst talking to you. When they’re finished and you try to extract yourself from it, they will demand that you pay them to release your finger. How dodgy is that?!
We saw a couple of people getting scammed and most would say, “Excuse me, excuse me!” to get your attention and rodeo your unsuspecting finger. I kind of smiled and shook my head whenever they tried to get my attention and they would, rather annoyedly, say, “I said: ‘excuse me!’” but I just ignored them. One guy was rather persistent and actually grabbed onto my arm, which totally freaked me out and I wriggled out of his grip, walking faster – not looking back.
Why is it though, that I feel bad in doing so? *Sighs* Anywho…
The view from Sacre-Coeur!
SC-238 sent Gunner out with the troopers to try and keep them focussed at the job at hand. However, Gunner really must like heights and/or the sprawling city beneath, as he exclaimed his enthusiasm of the view, totally forgetting why he was sent out with the troopers in the first place (who both sighed and traded a long-suffering look with each other).
Close-ups of Sacre-Coeur:
There was a Silent Prayer thingy on at the church and so photography was completely forbidden. There was a guy standing near the front of the door (on the inside) whose keen eye would espy on a non-observant tourist raising their camera to take a photo and would then sternly call out (whilst pointing at the offender), “No photos! No!”. Some people did manage to take photos (saw their flashes from afar) and some people did a dodgy like my brother:
I bought and sent a beautiful black and white postcard of stairs framed with snow-laden trees, the bottom of the stairs slightly obscured by fog (or falling snow)… when I found out that it was right next to Sacre-Coeur, I wanted to take a photo of it as well, just for kicks…
Ugh, remind me never to try and replicate postcard photos T_T Definitely should leave the job to the experts *sighs*
Not far from these stairs were another set of stairs that went down more directly to Abbesses Metro station and while it wasn’t as steep, pretty, or as long as the one above, it has its perks:
The expressions on the clones faces were priceless – Gunner even dropped his gun in disbelief that they had that many steps to go… (be thankful guys that we didn’t take the other stairs!! hehe)
We headed to the Louvre the long way (through the gardens), as we had some time to kill and we wanted to get some information for the next day (we planned to visit the museum), and got off at Concorde Metro station.
I adore this fountain for some reason, I have no idea why. Last time I was here they had the water on, but this is a nice change (it also allows me to get close without getting wet! yay!).
The troopers couldn’t stop staring (they definitely don’t have anything like this at home), but Gunner seemed a bit nervous, “You sure they’re not going to come alive and eat us?” Sometimes I wonder what exactly goes on in that helmet of his, but I think it’s better that I don’t know.
The Louvre, if you didn’t know know, use to be a palace… a massive palace! This is just one of the wings:
It’s hard to convey just how long the garden is, but this is looking back to where we started from:
You can see the Place de Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe! O_O I guess they really thought it out huh? I looked over to my left, where these neck-high hedges were…
Teehee… I had a bit of a giggle and my brother rolled his eyes, telling me to grow up (and then he went to take a photo himself haha).
At last, we finally arrive at the heart of the Louvre:
Gunner and the troopers decided to have a meeting, as they still haven’t seen any sign of Stormy (and his blasted blaster didn’t seem like it was enticing him out) and were rather worried about SC-238’s reaction to their lack of information.
I think they had come to a conclusion on what to say by the time we left, but they were being all secretive about it, so I just left them be.
Afterwards, we headed off to Notre-Dame. Now, I remember the first time we tried to find Notre-Dame, we kept on getting lost because while it looks like you can tell it’s on an island, you actually can’t – the island just looks like well… still part of the mainland.
I actually took the wrong exit coming out from the station, so we were much further away than I had anticipated. I tried to get my bearings as I got all confused which way I was facing (I knew what street I was on though but that didn’t help all that much).
I managed to get everyone on the right track and were crossing Pont Neuf when I looked back and saw some Gothic-looking structure peeking out between 2 buildings. I stopped, confused once again, and asked my dad if that was Notre-Dame, he looked and said that maybe it was.
Ugh. It wasn’t. It turned out to be St. Bloody Germain, we were on the right track before. *Sighs* So shouldn’t have looked back. We trekked back to the bridge and after a couple of almost wrong turns, we finally made it! Yay!
When I was taking that middle picture, I was in a fast moving queue that stopped and started irregularly. I was too busy focusing the shot whilst walking that I didn’t notice the line had stopped and actually walked into the lady in front of me. >_< oooopsy. Gave her a bit of a nasty surprise.
We were 15 minutes too late to go up the towers (they restricted access after 4.30pm), but on the bright side, we were allowed to take photos in here...
The statue was of Joan of Arc! I had forgotten that they have a statue of her in here. They also have some weird stuff happening on the exterior of the building (I guess that’s what makes Notre-Dame Gothic =P hehe)…
We had dinner at the Hotel de Ville McDonalds (for some reason we ALL got the Big Tasty, which is – I’m sad to report – wasn’t Tasty but was kind big… like a Whopper-sized big). We took our time as we were waiting for it to get dark.
It was a good thing that we did! When we came out, there was all this hullabaloo and we thought it was another protest, but it was an actual parade!! It was rather fun…. and we lost dad for a good 30-45 minutes, but he did get photos of the parade that I didn’t manage to get (ugh, sucks being short!!).
My brother left a couple of times to go look for him (hehe more like call him to come back to us), dad actually came back himself and so we had to wait for Tim.
The parade was the 12th Annual Carnival of Paris and this year’s theme was “Cosmic Carnival, Astronauts and Extraterrestrials” (which explained a lot of the costumes haha). It started at 3pm somewhere in Paris (i.e. at the bottom of the rue Le Vau, the 20th arrondissement) and ended up at Hotel de Ville (the 4th arrondissement) – that’s at least 3 hours! Boy, they must have been tired, but they didn’t look it! Such exuberance! =D
When we were finally together, we made our way to the Palais de Chaillot for some Eiffel Tower night shots…
Another long day had finished and we were so glad to put our feet up.
My last night in Berlin was spent swapping luggages (remember our 1-wheeled large suitcase fiasco?), looking for Rome accommodation, and trying to decide between a shuttle coach or risk a taxi to our hotel (we have 3 large suitcases and 2 small ones, plus 3 randomly sized plastic bags [one of which contains entirely of German junk food MUHAHAHHA]… and that’s not including my brother’s and my backpacks! I was a bit worried that they wouldn’t all fit into a taxi).
I think I got about 1 and a half hours of sleep that night, but then again, none of us really got that much sleep. So, it came as no surprise that all four of us were nodding off now and again while we were transiting on the Metro. We were lucky that we didn’t miss any stops!
There were a couple of hiccups along the way, but nothing we couldn’t handle. However, one really big hiccup left us stranded in the hallway of our relative’s building because there were lots of confusion about which unit number it was (we were given the access code and keys, but no unit number) and if it was really that building. It should have been straight-forward, really, as there was only one Giang in the entire building, but dad came back saying that the keys didn’t fit.
I told dad that we were in the right apartment building (how else would the access code and key work?) and that unit 202 should be our relative’s (who, which I think I should add, are on vacation in Toulouse so we have the place to ourselves)… and that it didn’t make any sense why the key didn’t fit!!
I think we were loitering around there (with my parents kind of wandering around, in and out, of the building) for a good 30 minutes (and with various of nice people trying to help us find the correct apartment number) before I had enough and exclaimed, “It doesn’t make any sense!! Here! Let us try the door again.”
Guess what? It fitted. *sighs* Then we found out that the elevator was broken and so had to lug our suitcases up to the second floor. *double sigh* lol
Anywho, after doing a spot of grocery shopping and lunch, we tried to find our way to the Metro station. A very nice lady stopped and asked us if we needed any help. She not only told us where to go, she took us there and made sure we bought the right tickets and everything! =D So very sweet.
Our first stop: The Eiffel Tower!
It was a bit disappointing to see that we came at a time that they’re doing maintenance on one of the pillars, but it’s still rather pretty and Eiffel Tower-ish hahah
What I didn’t notice or see last time I was here was the sheer amount of guys selling cheap Eiffel Tower keyrings and statues. “1 for 1 Euro… *we walk by* 3 for 1 Euro! Okay, okay, 5 for 1 Euro!!” I was very tempted in turning back to take up on his deal, but they seemed a bit dodgy… especially when I saw a handful of them high-tailing out of the area.
I wondered where the police they were running from were and about 10 minutes later I saw them:
Okay, they’re definitely not normal police people – I would so definitely run if someone like that was coming near and I was doing something wrong. We saw them at the airport as well when we went to pick up our luggage. Both times it was the female nonchalantly holding onto a big ass gun and both times it kinda freaked me out a bit. Eep.
A mandatory Eiffel Tower shot:
And of course we headed up the tower too (after a 45-minute line-up during which we saw a protest! … and you can see why it took us 45 minutes!! Crazy, it was like that with all three pillars!)…
The day wasn’t exceptionally clear (or sunny), but you can see the Grand Palace (the massive glass-domed building) and off in the hazy distance, sitting on a lonely hill top on the left of the picture, is Sacre Coeur.
It’s amazing how densely packed the city looks as well (does Sydney look like that??) from up top…
The sun was setting over the Seine (or at least I would like to think it was, if it weren’t for all those clouds!)…
This is where we’re headed off to next, the Palais De Chaillot, where it has several museums in it and… a cinema aquarium? *puzzled* Maybe it’s just an aquatic cinema… Anywho, it is a pretty good place to take photos of the Eiffel Tower…
I saw someone scrawled something funny, but too entirely true…
SC-238 sent the troopers out to the next rendezvous point for any sign or clue from Stormy. CT-275 hoped that bringing the blaster would somehow entice him out, but looking around, they didn’t see anything Stormy-related…
Pont D’Iena is the bridge that connects the Eiffel Tower and Palais de Chaillot; its beginning and end is lorded over by a couple of statues – one of which caught my eye…
Upon reaching Palais de Chaillot, the troopers were given a dressing down by SC-238 for not being able to find anything about Stormy (much to their dismay). Gunner, wholly oblivious to the lecture going on behind him, whooped enthusiastically at the view – they don’t have anything like this at home!
I found this rather strange:
Standalone petrol pumps?? Though come to think about it, I don’t think I’ve really seen a petrol station actually in the city at all, so I suppose it makes some sort of sense. =P
Some of the older (or perhaps just random?) Metro entrances has these fancier designs…
I quite like them and whenever I think of Paris’s Metro, I would think of these entrances; they seem to be from the 1920’s or 1930’s… or something (I’ve never been good at decor movements lol).
This is what a typical Parisienne subway station would look like if it was clean and didn’t have hundreds (okay, seemingly hundreds) of people on it:
So, we were making our way towards the Arc de Triomphe – we had it in our sights! – when dad got distracted by these old guys carrying flags.
“I think it’s a parade!” he enthused and dashed off to take photos of them. We sighed and followed suit.
I think it was a memorial of some sort, but after googling for a bit yielded nothing about a memorial being held on 21st February (or maybe my keywords sucked haha). They had to stop traffic for about 10 minutes for the procession and boy, there were some testy drivers when it was over.
I think I’m starting to get slightly obsessed with day/night shots:
We were so tired by this time that we pretty much fell into a deep sleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow, despite having a cold, cold apartment.
The clone troopers arrived at the designated rendezvous point and was surprised to see an abandoned camp site.
The clonies weren’t too sure what to be more upset about: the fact that a campfire was left irresponsibly unattended or that Stormy was nowhere to be seen. The commander, SC-238, decided that the missing Stormy was more upsetting, as no stormtrooper would willingly leave behind their blaster… and besides, he could give Stormy a good talking to about leaving campfires unattended once they found him.
When asked by clone trooper ST-631 what their next move was, SC-238 decisively replied that they would continue on to all the next rendezvous points where they would hopefully catch Stormy at one of them or perhaps find out whatever happened to him along the way…
… Meanwhile, Gunner and ST-275 were enjoying the heat of the campfire on such a cold night; ST-275’s delicate feet were especially frozen from tramping through the bushes all day and were blissfully thawing out (much to his relief, as he was certain that the commander would chop his frost-bitten toes off unhesitatingly).
