Bonjour Paris!

When using a computer, never ever forget the Number One Golden Rule: Save Often! It's quite frustrating losing a blog post after spending 45 minutes writing and researching French words and various web-links. Mere!

After a week and a half in Belgium, it was time for us to pack up our bags and take the show on the road yet again. (After 5 months of living out of a suitcase and being technically "homeless", you really appreciate a friend who will let you stay at their house and use their high-speed internet, hot water, car and just about everything else that I used to take for granted.)

We jumped in the car with Mai and her friend Morgan and drove 2 hours to Paris. We said Au voir to Belgium and crossed over the border to France. Mai and Morgan had been planning this day-trip to Paris and they were nice enough to ask if we wanted the lift (heck, it saved us 100Euros that we would have spent on 2 train tickets!).

Our first two stops were the Musée Maillol and the Musée National d'Art Moderne. The Musée Maillol had a stunning exhibit by Bert Stern. In 1962 he photographed Marilyn Munroe for a Vogue Magazine spread. The collection of photographs were stunning and they captured her natural beauty (she didn't have any makeup on in any of the pictures). The Musée National d'Art Moderne, The French national modern art museum, had an exhibit by American minimalist sculptor, Dan Flavin (who we saw at the Tate Modern in London a few weeks before). He's famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures. Simply brilliant.

After the two museums, we checked into our budget hotel that we would call home for the next four nights. In an attempt to create value, Gav booked us in something that fit into our buget and let me tell you: Paris is not cheap. (Check out the photo in my Picasa webalbum. The link is at the bottom of this blog entry.) The hotel sure wasn't the Hilton (New Hilton Sydney?), but it was exactly what we needed since we had a crazy agenda of trying to see as much of Paris as we possibly could.

This was my first time to Paris and I was blown away by it. No matter how many times you see images of the Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe, nothing can prepare you for the feeling you get when you see it in real life. We took a ton of pictures, so please check out the web-album link below.

Enjoy!



Welcome to France!



Paris seen from the 2nd floor of the Louvre.


Real life Parisian Dog Shit.

Paris Day 1

Sep 27, 2006 - 17 Photos