(Disclaimer: I've got no photos yet cos they're with Alvin and I haven't gotten them yet... But i've TRIED to make it as exciting to read as possible.. hahaha)

France
Day 4 - 6 Dec 05 - Nice/Paris

The morning part of day 4 was spent taking a stroll through the fruit & flower market in Nice, which is supposed to be one of the "signature sights" of Nice... but I guess fruits & flowers are kinda rare is winter... =) So after a while of walking through the market, we decided the beach was a nicer place to spend the rest of the sunny morning before heading to the airport...

So off to the beach we went!

It was quite a nice, quiet pebbly beach... a little cold but the sun seemed to be doing a good job of warming us up... it was so nice that i decided to take off my shoes and go for "foot reflexology"... haha... my poor trodden feet were crying out for a massage... =) and it was fun to have the waves come crashing onto your feet... *satisfied look* the only thing that stopped me from going for a swim was that there wasn't a changing room anywhere in sight...

After a while, we kinda noticed that damn! there're only hunks on the beach and no babes around, and we had a flight to catch... so we had to head off to the airport, where we took another Easyjet flight to Paris.... So we arrived in the city of L-O-V-E, Paris and after checking into our ho(s)tel, we went off to the Eiffel Tower.... which isn't one of the seven wonders of the world, unfortunately....

Being energetic youths, we decided to scale million steps that the tower had... (also because we were cheapo travellers who didn't want to pay the additional €7 to take the lift.. ;p) The night view from the Eiffel Tower was breath-taking.... you could literally see the main sights of Paris from the tower.. Then when we reached the 2nd floor, we realised that we had been conned! because we still had to take the lift from the 2nd floor to the top floor and we had to pay! Grr... 'tis is how the world operates... *mumbles*

Day 5 - 7 Dec 05 - Notre-Dame/Louvre/Chateau De Versailles/Moulin Rouge
Started the day at the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral... Remember the Walt Disney cartoon: the Hunchback of Notre-Dame? Well, that was kinda set in this cathedral... all I can say is every cathedral I visit seems to outdo the previous... it just gets better doesn't it? =) It's quite an impressive huge cathedral... Makes me wanna watch the Hunchback of Notre-Dame again...

Thereafter, we set on a Da Vinci code trail in search of the holy grail at the Louvre... Remember the inverted pyramids? =) The Louvre is quite a really really huge museum.. But I got bored of it after a while, cos most of the explanations were in Français and my French is as good as Britney Spear's singing... I guess I was only really interested in seeing Mona Lisa.. I mean, come on, it's Mona Lisa.. I was quite amused that everyone was just so mesmerised by Mona Lisa... I bet the other paintings in the room must have felt really envious.. It's a good thing we live in the real world and not in Hogwarts.. (Note: Muggles will probably not get this joke.. ;p)

So after 2 hours of Louvre-ing, we metro-ed to Le Chateau de Versailles (The Castle of Versailles).. If it sounds familiar, it's prob cos you heard of the Treaty of Versailles... duhz... it's a really HUGE castle and what I thought was the most spectacular was the garden.. It's so... nice... Manicured bushes, flowers (in winter!), fountains & more! There were even people rowing in the lake at the end of the garden! (just how huge is it?!?!)

Headed back to central Paris after that.. Went to check out Moulin Rouge (two horny guys in Paris.. what to do... ;p) But it's BLOODY EXPENSIVE! it's €100+ for a meal + show! Not till I become a millionaire... Then we decided to walk around Moulin Rouge.... and it's pretty much the Geylang of Paris! It's the same feeling I got when I was walking through King's Cross @ Sydney! haha... They were just touting on the streets, "Boys, you speak english? Come in and take a look!"

Of course, we were decent people. =) so we decided to watch a movie instead.. And what better than to watch a French movie in France? So we got two tix to L'Exorcisme d'Emily Rose (The Exorcism of Emily Rose).. It was really scary, especially when you didn't understand a thing about what they were saying... and we're wondering whether it was real, but someone was carried out during the show from the front row......... hmmz.......

Day 6 - 8 Dec 05 - Le Panthéon/Disneyland Paris!!!/Stranded in a Phone Booth
We started the morning by visiting Le Panthéon, which is the tomb of many famous French people, like Marie Curie, Pierre Curie, Victor Hugo, etc. But those were only peripheral to the Foucault Pendulum that was suspended from the dome of the Pantheon. It was gigantic! As a Physics student, this was of exceptional interest to me... Really enjoyed it... =)

After the Pantheon, I had to bid farewell to Alvin for what had been a fantastic France trip, as he was flying back to Singapore the next day from Heathrow.. So i went in search of the promised land: Disneyland Paris! How can someone like me miss it! It was a little costly though, but worth every single cent though. I went to Disney Studios first, which is like an adult version of Disneyland where they had special effects stages, rides, & more.... Then I made it just in time to Disneyland to catch the Christmas Parade (who could miss that!)... It was just so... happy... to be immersed in the euphoric atmosphere.. I felt like a sponge soaking up the happiness around me, except there was so much of it around! Got lots of souvenirs too.. hehz

While I was at Disneyland, I also checked out the Tourist Information booth to find out how I was gonna get to Paris-Beauvais airport the next morning to catch my Ryanair flight to Milan. Only then did I find out that Paris-Beauvais airport wasn't exactly in Paris but in the small town of Beauvais! And no way did Ryanair tell us that when we were booking our tickets! Neither did they tell us that there was only ONE bus service to Beauvais! And my flight was at 8.20am, so the bus was supposed to arrive 3 hours earlier at 5.20am(cos the bus journey would take 1.5 hours), but the first metro train runs at 5.30am! wat the hell.... so it was either I walked from my ho(s)tel early in the morning, which would have taken me 1.5 hours, or I could try and get to the airport the night before and spend the night there, which was what i tried to do...

So kenny lugs his backpack and find the supposed bus park where he is supposed to catch the mysterious bus to Beauvais airport... And when he reaches the bus park, Lo & Behold! The bus isn't there! Damn.. And there are no signs to tell you where to wait or what time the bus would arrive! and this is the part where I say that French drivers are SO RUDE! I was trying to get help on where I was supposed to wait for the bus, and i walked to several buses that were parked in the bus park with drivers on them, but before I could ask them my question, they shrugged their shoulders and waved me away! HOW RUDE! *growls*

And I decide that the phone booth was probably the warmest least cold and the safest place around, and started to set camp in the phone booth... After some intermittent sleep and putting on many layers (5 layers of clothes, 2 layers of trousers, ski gloves & hat) & still freezing, I decided that freezing to death in the phone booth wasn't exactly the glamourous type of death i wanted to have so I decided to pack and walk around in search of the mysterious toilet/WC instead.

After some walking, I finally found a public toilet.. and I notice that there are two homeless guys sleeping beside the toilet. As I approach, one of them notices me and starts talking to me in French as I was about to surrender my 20¢ to the toilet. And he kinda notices that I didn't speak French after a while.... and he walks a tree beside the toilet, picks up a ladder and puts it on the toilet and climbs up the ladder, fiddles with some buttons on the top of the toilet, and VOILA! the toilet door OPENS! oooh... I'm like WOW, MERCI BEAUCOUP! (thank you very much!) and I went it... then i realised, damn the door doesn't close! but I decide that it's 4am in the morning, there's nobody on the streets, and i was just peeing.. so what the heck.. after I was done, I exited the toilet and suddenly, the door closes! WOW! how amazing... I thank the homeless guy again and walks back to the bus park... I just thought how interesting it was that a homeless guy actually helped me to get into the toilet FOC.... or maybe he was just hoping to get the money I was about to surrender to the toilet, although he didn't seem to be signalling that.... looks like there is love in this world after all!

Day 7 - 9 Dec 05 - Paris(Beauvais)/Milan
Starting around 5am, there was suddenly as exodus of people from all corners of the bus park and gathered to wait for the bus.. I wondered where they all came from at such an unearthly hour.. And at 5.15am, the bus arrived.. I'm thankful for the long bus ride after barely a wink of sleep before that... and when we arrive at Beauvais, I'm stunned to find that Beauvais is a really tiny midget airport.. it's more of an airfield really.. it's like there's only 2 berths? and the "boarding lounge" was some makeshift tentage.. oh well.. they said it was under renovations.. although i doubt it'll be any better..so finally, after a really long adventure, my plane arrive and I head for Milan to begin my next leg of adventure..... =)