and so, im back from the paris-rome-venice trip, to a room that is not quite mine, in a house i dont belong to, in a college im not registered under, in a land i cannot call home. i woke up wishing i had less belongings, and a mind less scattered. but no, first things first, travelogue coming up (:
first night at paris: after an afternoon at sacre-coeur, we took a walk from our montmatre hostel to the red-light district of paris (pigalle) and i went a little trigger-happy at the famous windmill that adorns the Moulin Rouge.
fast-forward to a couple of days later (photos yet to be arranged!), this was taken at Rome, outside the Colosseum. Group shot! Me, louis, cui, weezi, jiamin (: Sunny Rome was a perfect picnic spot for financially-challenged backpackers looking for dry grass patches to laze on.
ooh i love this shot. this is back at montmatre: it was a night in paris, and we decided to splurge some moo-lah on dinner. ended up at this restaurant at the foot of sacre-coeur.
-laughs- my fellow scholar sportingly posing for a shot. ive no clue what this road sign is doing in the middle of Rome! hm, vacation shots are made of these. somehow, landscape shots sans people dont interest me any more than printed 30cent postcards do, though i have to admit the next shot is quite a beauty (:
venice! we had arbitrarily decided, while at the peak of st. peters basilica in the vatican, that venice should be ‘pizza, gelato and rivers’. disappointingly, weezi and i didnt manage to spot any of the above in the span of our first couple of hours in venice. the rest of the trip, however, was more fulfilling – pizza: 9 euros at giannis; gelato: 1 euro; river-buses: woohooo free! [albeit illegally so.]
afore-mentioned 1-euro gelatos.
my random stranger of the trip. while making a fool out of myself by posing infront of what appears to be a stripshow poster at pigalle (‘eh…hurry with the shot!’), this random stranger appeared to pose with me for the pic (:
who needs to step inside the colosseum. with sun, greens, shades, and not much money in the pocket, the view outside was pretty darn good enough for us.
ahh. the legendary 320-steps of st. peters basilica. this was mid-way to the top – at that point, we had no idea it was only mid-way. check out our triumphant smirks: silly tourists thinking they had scaled the height of the amazing basilica, only to unwittingly find out, on their way out, that we hadnt even started on THE 320-steps. it was a breath-taking view when we finally got to the top!
Paris was my personal favourite – champs elysses, arc de triomphe, the eiffel were all magical. of course, it might be that it was the first stop, and i hadnt gotten whiney and tired. But oui, would love to return to paris some time. I havent even stepped into the roland garros stadium (: or had a french manicure, or walked up the eiffel (we were too late and had to settle for the lift). or visited more than the gardens of the versailles chateau. or the paris disneyland -shufflesfeet- weeeell (:
