
(Tiananmen Square.)

(The Great Wall of China.)

(Tiananmen Square.)

(The Great Wall of China.)
…so I won’t be blogging in the next couple of days. Bye!
I don’t know when it was that I began to dream of Paris. I think Sabrina (the remake with Julia Ormond, not the original with Audrey Hepburn) is to blame. After watching that movie, I wanted to lose myself in Paris. I wanted to cut my stupid hair in Paris. And write in my stupid journal along the Seine in Paris. I wanted to eventually find myself in Paris.
Of course, years later, when I finally stepped foot in Paris, nothing would go the way I wanted it to. I had only two days to explore Paris but ended up spending a third of that time in bed. On the first day, I was exhaused. Trust me, a 14-day trip through Europe is exhausting. (next time, will have to take a slower tour.) On the second day, I was sick and dehydrated. I felt woozy riding the Metro so we decided to walk back to our hotel. Great idea, except we didn’t expect the scale on the map to be so misleading. I was literally on the verge of fainting when we finally got back to our hotel. It’s sad really, because I missed seeing Paris illuminated (I fell asleep while the sun was still shining. It was around 10pm. Grrr.) But then again, who else can say that they’ve walked half of Paris, from right bank to left bank?
Anyway, here are some short thoughts and memories from my visit to Paris:
(Click on image to see bigger picture: 1 the Eiffel Tower as seen while in a boat along the Seine, 2 a view of Paris from Montmartre. would you believe I took this picture at around 9pm?, 3 the real Moulin Rouge.)
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Paris Je T’aime makes me want to fall in love in Paris. I had been waiting for this forever and was so glad when I saw it in the Cinemanila line-up, and so irritated because there’s only one screening. (Is it just me, or is the Cinemanila schedule this year just crazy?)
Favorite segments (in no particular order):
Ones that were Comme si, Comme ca:
Not-so-Favorite Ones:
Ahh…Venezia…beautiful Venezia which would have been so romantic if I were actually involved in something romantic. But Venice is still Venice and there’s no place like Venice. And all those rumors that the water smells bad are false. It does look like the older buildings are about to fall into the sea, but hopefully some historical preservation society or other will fix that.
Space is hard to come by in Venice, so our hotel room was about half the size of my bedroom. It didn’t matter really.
They say if you ride in a gondola under the bridge of sighs, you’ll be together with the one you’re with forever. For that, Tish, i see a future of sibling spinsterdom. haha. just kidding.
(Click thumbnail to see bigger picture. 1 me in st. mark’s square, 2 a view of the grand canal, 3 a full moon, which again, would have been so romantic if we had actually been involved in something romantic)
9-10 July 2006 – Rome
Rome is the kind of place that one can never tire of walking (of course you get tired, but there’s so much to see that you’ll wish you have the endurance of an Olympic athlete.) Every corner of Rome has some sort of historical significance or other, and even if you didn’t pay any attention to world history, you can only gape in awe at the wonderful architecture (or laugh at the funny faces in their sculptures.)
(Click thumbnail to see bigger picture. 1 the…umm…place where…umm. okay, forgot what it’s called and too lazy to google it, 2 inside the colliseum, 3 a sculpture with a funny face)
11 July 2006 – Florence
Really, how often do you stumble across one of your favorite composers giving a free live concert in a square in Florence? There I was, walking (actually running) after a tourmate (who was desperately looking for any leftover Italia shirts for sale) when this person hands us flyers announcing that Philip Glass is playing in the square tonight. Philip Glass! But I’m getting ahead of myself.
When we arrived, they brought us to a square overlooking Florence with a bronze copy of Michelangelo’s David. We stayed for picture-taking and cheap shopping at the many tourist kiosks and then we climbed the bus and they took us to another square where they took us to a shop for some expensive shopping (pretty leather…pretty coats…pretty bags…which we all tried to ignore because of the prices) then we had lunch and I found myself a 2007 calendar with Italian Film Posters. And then we went to another square with another copy of David and other beautiful sculptures like the Rape of Someone and Some Lion of Importance (haha, I’m sorry, I forgot their names.) And then we walked a long, long way to the Academy where we saw the real David amidst throngs of people. You’d think that when you see it you’d be like oh, okay, I’ve seen it, I can go now (which is what I felt for a famous artwork somewhere else…but that’s another story) but this was really…wow. Up close, he almost seemed like a real man. A really, really cute man. haha.
Then we were brought to the hotel and as soon as we opened the window, we saw…a wall! Ah, the irony: a room with no view in the city where they filmed A Room With a View. But the room itself was pretty, if a little small. And it had a fantastic little writing desk where I wrote a postcard to Nina. And then we went down to enjoy a delicious dinner (what I love about Italy is everytime we eat there’s pasta and oh how I love pasta) And after dinner is when Mike, our tourmate, dragged us along to look for said Italia shirt and we ended up in a then-empty square with flyers saying that Philip Glass was performing. Philip Glass! I love his music (especially the score of The Hours.) So we went walking a little more and then headed back to the square where suddenly there were people everywhere and when the concert actually started, all I could see was the top of Philip Glass’s head. But the music matters more and gosh, was it beautiful.
(Click thumbnail to see bigger picture. 1 a copy of david, 2 tish in the room with no view)
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