It was three years ago. [Well, kinda.]
A boy looked at the Place Charles de Gaulles, Paris, from above through the monitor of his laptop. Utilising the free innovative Google Earth (TM) software, he set his eyes for a bird's eye view on that certain spot in Paris to look at one of France's national monument, the Arc de Triomphe (de l'Étoile). He was somehow awed by the triumphal arch which dated back to the time of Napoleon. It sat majestically at the focal point of twelve roads which meet at a roundabout circling about it, amidst the complicated network of streets and roads all over the city. The sheer complexity of the road network in Paris can be compared to a spider web, or more like cracks fully propagated across a whole windshield of a car (yeah, I know the comparison sounds terrible). He looked at the satellite view of the historic city over and over again... from a monument to another historical monument.. from the Arc to the Eiffel Tower.. and he wondered if he will ever reach that part of the earth, thousands of miles (and RM) away from his home country.. thus he just sat there and stared at the image on his monitor in admiration and envy.. [it sounds sad, or even pitiful, I know].. for he believed he might never be able to set foot on that land.. but little did he expect what God had planned for him.
Though nowadays we can just use maps.google.com. We can even get street views.
Three years later.. [Roughly.. kinda]
He walked (and even managed to get a bit lost) through the (crazy) network of roads he had seen years before. He saw the Arc he was so interested in years before..and he confirmed its existence using his three senses (two were irrelevant. No prizes for any correct guesses to what they are). He was.. in Paris.
Never had he expected to be able to get there, but he actually got to just a few days ago =]
To see the monuments with his own eyes, to feel them, just being there, and most importantly getting there with his own strength (accompanied by a friend, Faisal) is like a dream come true. He might not be a history enthusiast like some people he knows of but he can't help admiring the tales behind the objects of the past and the art portrayed by them. It took a great amount of time, hard work and creative minds to produce such results which survived through history.
The author in front of the Arc de Triomphe, Place Charles de Gaulle, Paris.
Ok that was a very long introduction from me. Long story short: I got to Paris and had been to almost all the historical places I've once dreamt of going.
It was a four days three nights visit from 19th to the 22nd of April last week, me and Faisal (who happens to be my kakngah's classmate when they were in Standard 1/2, the bro-in-law of a friend here in Cambridge, the son of my parents' kenalan when they were still at Sheffield, and the cousin of a friend of my bestest friend).
We stayed in a hotel near Stade de France. Although people were unable to come out of the UK due to the volcanic ash incident, we were able to, thanks to Eurostar trains and rails which were unaffected by it. Unfortunately my bestest friend did not manage to come although she planned to on the 20th due to that particular incident =[.
Overall in my opinion, Paris is not the cleanest city in the world. Every RER and Metro (the underground trains) stations I went to have some sort of pungent smell in a corner. The stations themselves did not look like it had been cleaned regularly.. Memang nampak agak kotor jer..
and most people I saw are quite rude. In the train I saw people putting their feet on the seats opposite them, and refused to put it down when another person (with a huge suitcase) gestured politely so that he can sit [more like ignored him totally and not even looking]. I know I can't make conclusions just from the behaviours of some people I saw there, but that was the image I got from them. I did meet a lot of polite and nice people there though.
It is also expected that most people there can not (or would not) speak English. I had to communicate quite a lot with few French phrases and sentences that I learnt from that small Collins French phrasebook. Some of the most frequently used were: "Vous parlez anglais?" (and hoped for the rare and relieving "oui" as the answer or "yes, I do") "Je ne parle français pas", "combien?", "merci (beaucoup)", "oui/non", "bon jour/soir/nuit", "excusez moi", "pardon". I can't expect to know how to speak french just from 4 days of staying there anyways.. unlike someone I know of who learnt it at the Alliance Française years back.
Day 1
We arrived at the Paris Gare du Nord station and got a teeny bit lost walking and looking for our hotel. Turned out it was FAR away..and we were walking on the wrong direction anyways... So we got back to the station and took the RER to La Plaine-Stade de France and to our hotel. We got out right after settling in, got to the McD nearest there and used its free WiFi (the hotel only had paid WiFi, which was very expensive) to plan out our sightseeing destinations. Faisal wrote on the map while I searched for any relevant information [and getting the much-needed dosage of YM and FB].
The first destination? The Notre Dame Cathedral.
Yeah it's a cathedral. The only reasons I find it interesting to visit was of the art both inside and outside the place, and that it was the setting for the old Disney classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame which I've watched countless times during my childhood days.
Getting inside was free, but I don't think it is if you want to get to the top floors, so we only toured the ground floor. The art was interesting, but the longer we are there the creepier we felt, so we just took pictures around the building and got out. We were walking towards the station before we found this:
*Gasps* a crypt? Just for your information:
crypt [krɪpt]
Faisal Badaruddin, my Paris travelling partner.
We stayed in a hotel near Stade de France. Although people were unable to come out of the UK due to the volcanic ash incident, we were able to, thanks to Eurostar trains and rails which were unaffected by it. Unfortunately my bestest friend did not manage to come although she planned to on the 20th due to that particular incident =[.
Overall in my opinion, Paris is not the cleanest city in the world. Every RER and Metro (the underground trains) stations I went to have some sort of pungent smell in a corner. The stations themselves did not look like it had been cleaned regularly.. Memang nampak agak kotor jer..
and most people I saw are quite rude. In the train I saw people putting their feet on the seats opposite them, and refused to put it down when another person (with a huge suitcase) gestured politely so that he can sit [more like ignored him totally and not even looking]. I know I can't make conclusions just from the behaviours of some people I saw there, but that was the image I got from them. I did meet a lot of polite and nice people there though.
It is also expected that most people there can not (or would not) speak English. I had to communicate quite a lot with few French phrases and sentences that I learnt from that small Collins French phrasebook. Some of the most frequently used were: "Vous parlez anglais?" (and hoped for the rare and relieving "oui" as the answer or "yes, I do") "Je ne parle français pas", "combien?", "merci (beaucoup)", "oui/non", "bon jour/soir/nuit", "excusez moi", "pardon". I can't expect to know how to speak french just from 4 days of staying there anyways.. unlike someone I know of who learnt it at the Alliance Française years back.
Day 1
We arrived at the Paris Gare du Nord station and got a teeny bit lost walking and looking for our hotel. Turned out it was FAR away..and we were walking on the wrong direction anyways... So we got back to the station and took the RER to La Plaine-Stade de France and to our hotel. We got out right after settling in, got to the McD nearest there and used its free WiFi (the hotel only had paid WiFi, which was very expensive) to plan out our sightseeing destinations. Faisal wrote on the map while I searched for any relevant information [and getting the much-needed dosage of YM and FB].
The first destination? The Notre Dame Cathedral.
Yeah it's a cathedral. The only reasons I find it interesting to visit was of the art both inside and outside the place, and that it was the setting for the old Disney classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame which I've watched countless times during my childhood days.
Notre Dame Cathedral (Top) and the Disney Classic Hunchback of Notre Dame (below), where you can see the cathedral at the background.
Getting inside was free, but I don't think it is if you want to get to the top floors, so we only toured the ground floor. The art was interesting, but the longer we are there the creepier we felt, so we just took pictures around the building and got out. We were walking towards the station before we found this:
*Gasps* a crypt? Just for your information:
crypt [krɪpt]
1. An underground vault or chamber, especially one beneath a church that is used as a burial place. [thefreedictionary.com]
A tomb? Creepy yet interesting... We hesitated but I managed to pull Faisal with me down the stairs and we reached the front gate. We pushed and pulled. It was locked.
Then I saw a door at the side, with a card reader.. "Might be the staff entrance" I voiced out. Our curiosity was pushing us to get in.. and suddenly the door opened and someone came out and went off the stairs. I blocked the door from closing, and asked Faisal nak masuk tak? We decided it was worth a try, if somehow we were found and told off that it was not a place to be visited at that time we will just oblige and get out, no big deal.. and the guy who got out cam tak heran pon ngan kitorang. After experimented a bit with the door to make sure we will not be locked inside, we walked through the passage. It was quite brightly lit, and near the middle I smelled some sort of perfume.. at the end was a turn to the right.. and I didn't know what to expect. It was already getting eerie with all the drawings on the walls of the passage... We went on and we saw them...
..arranged beautifully in rows..
rows and rows of...
....
.... cars.
We had apparently stumbled upon the Notre Dame carpark. Fun indeed.
Hati terasa geram tatkala merasa diperbodohkan.. Walhal ia adalah salah kami sendiri..
Can't deny it was very funny at the time.. we got out while cursing to ourselves and the innocent designer of the place.
Next we went to our next destination, le Panthéon near Luxembourg. Mula2 tersalah jalan (again) though, and got to the Luxembourg garden (Jardin du Luxembourg). Ok la gak, dapat tengok the Senate building and a LOT of people bersantai.. either lying down on the grass or sitting down on chairs provided while reading a book, studying or just chatting with friends.
*Oops. Gotta rush for lunch at the house of a visiting Prof from UM to Cambridge.. a bus ride away to Longstanton. Cerita terpaksa cut short here, will continue when I get back.*
[End of Part 1]
A tomb? Creepy yet interesting... We hesitated but I managed to pull Faisal with me down the stairs and we reached the front gate. We pushed and pulled. It was locked.
Then I saw a door at the side, with a card reader.. "Might be the staff entrance" I voiced out. Our curiosity was pushing us to get in.. and suddenly the door opened and someone came out and went off the stairs. I blocked the door from closing, and asked Faisal nak masuk tak? We decided it was worth a try, if somehow we were found and told off that it was not a place to be visited at that time we will just oblige and get out, no big deal.. and the guy who got out cam tak heran pon ngan kitorang. After experimented a bit with the door to make sure we will not be locked inside, we walked through the passage. It was quite brightly lit, and near the middle I smelled some sort of perfume.. at the end was a turn to the right.. and I didn't know what to expect. It was already getting eerie with all the drawings on the walls of the passage... We went on and we saw them...
..arranged beautifully in rows..
rows and rows of...
....
.... cars.
We had apparently stumbled upon the Notre Dame carpark. Fun indeed.
Hati terasa geram tatkala merasa diperbodohkan.. Walhal ia adalah salah kami sendiri..
Can't deny it was very funny at the time.. we got out while cursing to ourselves and the innocent designer of the place.
Next we went to our next destination, le Panthéon near Luxembourg. Mula2 tersalah jalan (again) though, and got to the Luxembourg garden (Jardin du Luxembourg). Ok la gak, dapat tengok the Senate building and a LOT of people bersantai.. either lying down on the grass or sitting down on chairs provided while reading a book, studying or just chatting with friends.
Blood-red tulips 8)
People in front of the Senate building.
They even have donkey carriages!
*Oops. Gotta rush for lunch at the house of a visiting Prof from UM to Cambridge.. a bus ride away to Longstanton. Cerita terpaksa cut short here, will continue when I get back.*
[End of Part 1]
vous ne savez jamais ce que l'avenir est pour vous ..
ReplyDeletej'aime la tulipe rouge sang..
p.s
pardonnez-moi s French.It "de Google Translate..kehehehehe..
haha mmg agak sangat google translate ;P
ReplyDeleteoh btw.that blue-ish buddy..does that remind u of cfd?andy chan did mentioned it in his introductory lecture.
ReplyDelete