Good day again.!

Here I go again to Paris.! Why Paris?  Well, there's
still lots to see there, and since I've been cheating
on my Eurail pass, I have 2 days left of travel in one
of the 5 main countries.  I think I would die if I
killed a week in Amsterdam.  And, I actually ended up
finding my favourite museum here.!

Again, I embark on a night train.  This time, since
I'm travelling from a big destination (Frankfurt) to
another one, the trains is packed.  And since I
arrived 10 minutes before the train leaves, I don't
have a reservation and end up crunching it with 6
people in a cabin.  Could be worse though - some
people are stuck in the passageways.

I mean, Amsterdam's okay, but I can't party all the
time.  Plus, the Van Gogh museum is not to my liking. 
The collection is great, but everything is behind
plexiglass, so I can't truly enjoy staring at all the
brush strokes withouth tilting my head everywhere to
avoid the glare on the glass.

So, I re-entered the Louvre, and checked most of the
sections I missed the first time through.  Parts of
the museum are closed on different days since there's
a lack of security to cover the whole museum. 
Anyways, I got to see the Code of Hammurabi and a lot
of Egyptian sarcophaguses.  Still a tiring ordeal to
see it all though.  

I also met some friends while stumbling into a Panini
shop.  In total, that's 5 (groups of) friends I've ran
into abroad.  Is Europe that small of a place?

Oh yeah, I found the Holy Grail of food in Paris.! 
Previously, I was sick of the overpriced, poor quality
Parisian food (reminder: French Onion Soup = boiled
onions in water with processed cheese on top).  Now, I
found okay quality food, but at a real decent price in
the Latin Quarter.  

It's near the Notre Dame cathedral, and multiple
restaurant owners stand on the street to lure you in
with there good deals.  Firstly, as a basic rule, I
avoided all veal and steak, because it's never been
good anywhere.  I'd say my special homemade marinade
and my George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine can
make a steak 10 times better than anything there.

Secondly, I avoided anyone trying to advertise
"authentic French cuisine", because that's a tourist
trap.  The closest I saw to good French cuisine was in
the French Riviera, but I couldn't afford it. 

So, ironically enough, I ended up eating a Greek
dinner there - seafood kebab, potato, and some funky
rice for around $20.  The meat kebab is good too and
cheaper.  I was tempted by the Indian restaurant, but
a friend was able to identify it as a sham.  Anyways,
the best Indian cuisine I've found is in this crowded
little restaurant hidden in Montreal.

I always see dinners with fries here, and it's funny
because we never see fries unless we're in one of
those quick restaurants outside those mega-theatres. 
I prefer to avoid fries 'cuz it kind of cheapens the
meals - there's also nothing French about french
fries.  I think the Belgians make them best.

Worst food:  Following a craving for Vietnamese food,
I went into a Chinese fast food place (bad idea
already), and ended up getting egg noodle soup with
stir fry beef. I can't describe how bad that is,
unless you've tried good Vietnamese noodles, and are
expecting that.  Actually, in general, all those
Chinese places that microwave your order should be
avoided.  But the Parisians love it.

Oh yeah, the Eiffel Tower at night shouldn't be
missed.  Every hour the sparkling lights come on, and
it's hypnotic.  

I also ended up taking part of Parisian culture, in
the wrong way.  Being unable to find a washroom
nearby, and desperately needing to go, I ended up
doing the public thing on a tree on an island of a
busy road.

I also hiked up to the Sacre Couer.  Really nice
looking, and I spent some time doing some sketching
with my pastels.  If I can only find the driver for my
scanner, I'd put up some pictures and all my sketches
for everyone to see.

BEST SIGHT:  I don't know how I missed this the first
time around, but the National Museum of Culture there
is not to be missed.!  I stumbled onto this really
funky modern building, with escalators in tubes
running on the outside of the building, while
wandering around a touristy area.  Little did I know
that I would run into the coolest museum I've ever
encountered.

I could go on and on about this museum, but I'll keep
it brief.  It's a modern art museum, with multiple
galleries:

The first gallery is filled with large, abstract
contemporary art - lots of strange things, such as a
butt video by Yoko Ono, a large room with leaves all
over, etc.  Really strange, but cool works, mostly 3D
pieces.

The second gallery was the area more to my liking, the
post impressionist and impressionist works.  Matisse,
Monet, Picassos.  There were also a lot of pieces by
one of my favourite artists, Kandindsky, but not so
much his landscape art which I'm a fan of.  This first
2 galleries were really tiring to get through due to
the immensity of the gallery.

The third part was this wicked Alfred Hitchcock
collection, which was actually displaying in Montreal
last year!  It's a must see, with lots of items from
his movies, and freaky dark art.  But the best is this
dark room with multiple glass cases dimly lit
displaying the most memorable items from the movies. 
I felt like a cat burglar in there.  Plus, there was
this crazy rampant music all over making it more
exhiliarating.  I could have spent a lot of time in
there basking in the atmosphere, but that gallery was
only open for 10 more minutes.

The fourth gallery was my favourite.  The pop art back
from the 60's.  Andy Warhol's Monroe prints and photo
collection, the comics styles of Roy Lichenstein, the
giant papier mache of Oldenburg.  Lots of funky
furniture.  Lots of things put together from junk. 
Really inspiring - in fact, I'm actually building a
big sculpture piece based on these inspirations.  

One thing I noticed was that Canadian museums are
really full of this stuff.  When I was small and
taking lessons at the Art Gallery of Ontario, I always
noticed these ugly Elvis prints that were always at
the entrance - now I know they're real popular pieces
of art.  There are also more Marilyn prints here too. 
The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa also has much
of this.  I'm definitely going to head to Montreal
this summer to see what's there.

As for accommodations, by taking the night train, I
got a room in a hostel near the Eiffel tower.  It's
supposedly popular for backpackers, but I thought it
was pretty trashy there (Aloha hostel), relatively
speaking.  It's also overpriced.  The hotel-like
hostel I was in the first time around in Paris is
still the best for sure.  I also ran into another
friend there while enjoying my "continental
breakfast". 

Okay, I hope I haven't killed too much of your time!

Next stop:  Belgium!

Jesse