The sound of the ball hitting the post.

The imagery of the man above sobbing his heart out under the pouring rain.

The cheers of the red clad people around me when everything has fallen apart.

Definitely the most heartbreaking football moment I have ever experienced.

However, the bravery of the captain was second to none. To step up to the plate and shoulder the heaviest responsibility at the very tensed moment requires tonnes of courage.

Then came the divine intervention....he slipped.

....and the trophy ended up 2 inches away from the goalpost.

Such is football. Such is lady luck.

Despite everything, he is still the hero, the brave and commited leader in every fans' eyes, no doubt about that.

Chin up. The trophy is waiting for you next time.

So, 2 papers down. The easiest and the toughest one respectively. And, as usual, I did just decent for the easiest and was screwed left, right and centre for the toughest paper. Typical.

Let's continue where we left off.

Notre Dame

Made popular by the novel "Hunchback of Notre Dame", the Notre Dame gothic cathedral belongs in the category of Paris famous landmarks.

Notre Dame Cathedral

Regretfully, it was somewhere near Easter when we were there and the amount of tourists lining up just to go inside the cathedral was unbelievable.

Another view from the south

We decided just to admire from afar, snap a couple of photos and enjoy the street performances nearby...without paying.

Look at the crowd behind

Pantheon

The Pantheon in Paris acts as a burial place for the famous ancient people instead of a temple ala the Pantheon from Rome.

The Pantheon

This is where you will see crypts, tombs, necropolis and stuffs that you normally encounter while slashing demons in the Diablo game.

From the side

However, there was a cancer awareness event going on that day and we didn't enter the Pantheon. Well, it should be well worth visiting the interiors as it seems to look beautiful on the net.

Cancer awareness event

Sacre Coeur Basilica

Located at the highest point in Paris lies proudly the Sacre Coeur Basilica, another famous landmark in Paris.

The Sacre Coeur Basilica

From the side

It took us hours to locate the place as there were too many confusing streets before and the fact that we didn't know the basilica is at the top of the hill makes matter worse. Nonetheless, it was worth it when we finally arrived to behold the skyline of Paris from the top and of course, the majestic basilica itself.

Skyline of Paris

The Sacred Coeur is currently a Roman Catholic church and since entering the church was free, we got to admire the beautiful interiors of the church. Sadly, there are no photos available as I wouldn't want to disturb the peaceful service/prayers with my touristy act.

Thrown out by nuns and rolling down the hill definitely ain't on my things-to-experience list.

Miscellaneous

Other monuments that might be worth having a look at would be the July Column at the Place de la Bastille, where formerly the Bastille prison stood.

The July Column at Place de la Bastille

Or just walking past the Petit Palais musuem, and the Grand Palais exhibition hall.

Petit Palais

Grand Palais

For the avid fan of shopping, you could pay the Galeries Lafayette a visit for a wide range of fashion and designer goods.

For me, all see no touch.

The dome in Lafayettes

Or if designer goods are way out of your budget, you will be glad to know there are some stuff that you can always afford.

Bata in Paris, now this is unexpected

Due to my imminent final year exams, I realised that I'm running out of time and guess what? This is the semester that I SHOULD, MUST do well, as it will decide whether a first class would be a far-fetched dream or not.

Hence, I've decided to summarise the places of interest in Paris into 2 entries itself. I bet nobody would want to read about Paris everytime anyway. Furthermore, I have loads of backdated entries about London, Cork, Edinburgh, Newcastle, etc. that I believe I won't be able to finish anytime soon. I imagine how long would it take for me to write about my tours post summer. ~Shrugs.

So, let's see what else Paris has in store for us.

Arc De Triomphe

The Arc De Triomphe is another Paris famous monument located at the end of the Champ Elysees. 

The arc from Champs Elysses.

I had the privilege of staying near the arc seeing it from many angles every single day and I must say the view of the arc especially during the night is majestic. I'd never thought it was that huge.

Nightview of the arc.

Close up

Apparently, the arc was built to honour the generals who fought for France and beneath the arc lies a tomb of an unknown soldier. Don't ask me why this unknown soldier has a nicer home with thousands of visitors daily compared to other unknown soldiers. Beats me.

The tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Place de la Concorde

The Place de la Concorde is a major square which leads to the Louvre from Champ Elysses.

Place de la Concorde.

Smacked right in the middle of the square, a huge obelisk with Egyptian hieroglyphics was erected.

Egyptian obelisk.

In companion, beautiful fountains within the square wetting unsuspecting tourists who stands too near to them in the name of a photo.

Fountains.

Tuileries Garden

If you enjoy sitting down the bench watching people walking by, baking under the sun, french kissing your other half in an open area, posing for photos, then the Tuileries Garden is the place to be. Of course I'm not guilty of anything above. Ok, except for photo posing.

Pondering beside the pond and radio controlled yatch.

Decided she wanna tag along.

The Tuileries Garden is a huge formal garden with statues, nicely trimmed hedges, a pond with radio controlled yatch, little cafes and loads of people chilling about. Oh yeah, a huge spider to boot too.

Huge spider. One in London too.

There is another statue beside this that shows a kicking motion. I guess this one has fallen down after being kicked I suppose

Mini arc towards the Louvre.

Musee de l'Armee

Fans of Napolean, this is your museum. The Musee de l'Armee houses the tomb of Napolean and various army related artifacts that I couldn't be bothered with.

Why hello Napolean.

Especially since we need to pay to go in. The only thing that interests me was how beautiful the exterior of the museum is.

Golden Dome

Deserves a photo.

Golden dome, nice garden, long corridors and everything. Needless to say, I didn't go into the museum hence have no idea how worth it it is.

The size of the museum.

Seine River

To quote somebody, every beautiful city has a river running through it. London has the Thames, Paris has the Seine River. Obviously that particular person hasn't been in Klang for a very long time.

Walking along the Seine River, you could see plenty of Paris monuments and tourist attractions.

Seine river overlooking the Eiffel Tower.

Statues along the river.

King of the river.

If you are too lazy to walk, there are river taxis available for a charge, of course, to bring you along the Seine River while you ponder upon why you paid for it when you have two perfect legs. Just kidding, I'm sure the river taxis provide a different perspective of Paris entirely.

Water taxis

To be cont...

I was never an artsy-fansy person nor have I ever admit or try to act like one. That is quite clear by the fact that I will only visit musuems if they fall into the following categories:

1) They are hugely popular
2) They are free
3) Just because everybody else wants to

Not to say that a little extra knowledge will do me harm but I am always enthusiastic to read everything......for only the first 10 minutes before my eyelids start betraying me. Unless they are especially interesting/unique.

With the number of musuems in Paris that would rival M'sias number of shopping complexes, it was obvious that I only went to one during my 5 days stay.

The Louvre Musuem

Yes, just because it fits 2 out of 3 of the above criterias. Hugely popular and of course free. Ok, normally it would cost 9 euros for a musuem ticket but god knows what did I do to deserve the luck of 2 free tickets from a kind soul while I was queuing up to purchase my ticket.

"Do you need tickets? "
"Err..actually we are going... ~trying to find an excuse while wondering what is the catch"
"It's free! "
~beaming "Oh, Ok, thanks!" . I am such a cheapskate.

The morning crowd.

Well, the Louvre Musuem is popular due to it housing some of the world's famous art collection and scrulptures, its unique glass pane pyramid architecture and well.... who hasn't read Da Vinci Code before.

Glass pane pyramids on top of the main lobby.

The inverted pyramid

Oh yeah, before I proceed. If you are way underage, easily offended by small concrete penises or any art figures showing off in their birthday suits. Kindly proceed no further. Thank you.

A hermaphrodite. Spot the boobs and the small penis. I bet you have no problem .

Bearing in mind that I don't have the knowledge equivalent to an encyclopedia, except for a few famous artworks and greek gods, it was to my horror that everything there was in...well you guessed right....French. And you have to bloody pay for an audio guide.

Taking a cookie bite out of an ancient stone. Just because I don't know why it is there for.

A potrait of Marie-Madeleine Guimard.

Well, at least I can still read names. The small booklet in my hand stating the famous artpieces and locations in English suddenly upgraded into my personal Louvre bible. My girlfriend and I was practically having a treasure hunt searching for the famous art pieces from the booklet around the huge musuem.

Christ and Abbot Mena.

Borghese Gladiator dancing in the nude.

I have always imagine The Louvre to be huge. But not this huge. Taking into account that we did not stop to read anything on the exhibits because we plainly can't understand, and breeze through everything and maybe take a few (~ahem..maybe not quite) photos in the process, we took freaking 6 hours! And we didn't even manage to see everything.

St. Mary Magdalene.

Tomb of Phillpe Pot.

I wish you good luck if you are an artsy-fansy person who speaks French/not stingy enough to have an audio guide. You probably need days.

Say hello to mini Zeus.

Killing a snake with a ....err...stone?

Crown Diamonds of Louis XV

There were a huge amount of exhibits in the musuem from every corner of the world. The Greeks, the Italians, the French, the Asians, the Egyptians, etc, you will techically know a little history about the each part of the world through those exhibits....if you read whatever is on them that is.

With small Sphinx.

Mummy unveiled.

With huge Sphinx.

Napolean III apartments. Glamourous

The annoying thing about a famous tourist attractions is none other than the crowd. Whenever we reach a famous exhibit, it will probably take us a thousand tries before we can get a nice photo of the exhibit. Some people acts like a human statue blocking the view. There were people rushing to pose with the statue every millisecond.

Psyche and Cupid. The only shot without anybody blocking. Oh wait, what is that head doing behind there?

The Winged Victory of Samothrace

Like come on, give me some quality time with the naked dude already!

The Dying Slave by Michaelangelo

The worst crowd in the musuem was none other than one of their most famous exhibits, the Mona Lisa. I couldn't even steady my hands to take a zoomed photo when the kids are pushing into the crowd. Everybody was acting like a paparazzi pushing and shoving as if Miss Mona Lisa is gonna call it a day and hide in her chamber room after teatime. Ridiculous.

Needs no explaination

However, I am still pleased to have seen and pose with some famous exhibits and the real Mona Lisa. It was hard work you know.

How small the actual potrait is.

By the end of the day, we were worn out but it was fun trying to identify some exhibits, having a mini treasure hunt with the girlfriend and of course attempts to act smart in front of her. Lol.

The girlfriend with Athena.

" I think this is err....Athena...err..the Goddess of Hope! (Goddess of War actually..thanks to Mr. Cheese) And that will be Aphrodite...i think...don't ask me why she got no hands... "

Venus de Milo/ Aphrodite.

You get my point.

Who would visit Paris and not see one of its most recognisable structure ever?

The Eiffel Tower is almost synonymous to Paris. During our brief visit to Paris, the Eiffel Tower was the place we happened to visit the most.

I remember realising how truly beautiful the structure was when I first laid eyes on it from the Palais de Chaillot. Furiously nudging my girlfriend in the process of course repeating "The view damn nice right?" a thousand times and proceed to snap another thousand photos of the tower from a million different angles.

However, due to the vast amount of tourists there and our tight schedule (you see, we planned to WALK the city of Paris from one end to another, kiamsiap couple), we didn't manage to go up the tower on the first day.

A small fraction of the queues.

On the second night, we returned to the same place to witness the hourly sparkling of the tower. I must say that Paris has one of the best night views I'd ever seen before.

Night view from Palais de Chaillot

Sparkling Eiffel Tower

It was only during the third day that we decided to brave the cold with the long queue and go up the tower. Hearing the fact that the top platform has nothing much to offer but barricades and limited view, we opted to settle for the second platform and save a couple of euros in the process.

Happy girl on the second platform.

There were two ways of going up the Eiffel Tower - through the elevators or stairs with the elevator being the slightly pricier one. (I think it is free to go up the first platfrom by foot). Since I don't want to fall to a certain dead at a young age, the elevator it was.

The elevators.

From the second platform itself, the view of the entire city of Paris was right before our eyes. Other than the fact that the winds were incredibly chilly on top, I enjoyed myself identifying the buildings that we went to and snapping another crazy amount of photos.

Palais de Chaillot from the tower.

Champ de Mars from the tower

What a great experience being on one of Paris's global icons.

Peace messages on the pillars.

Now, cross Eiffel Tower on the list. Who is next? The Colissuem and the Leaning Tower beckons this summer.

Two presentations and a coursework due on the same day, what are the odds?

If this is not an evil scheme to torture us, i have no idea what is.

Stepping foot into one of Europe's culinary centre, it was hard to resist the temptation to taste what Paris has to offer...

...until we realised that it is also a place with the most exorbitant price tag in Europe.

To think how much I cringe at a 3.5 pounds McD meal - namely the cheapest meal available when I first arrive in UK.

Coke in French. Note the different metric system used.

The exact meal cost 6.5 euros in Paris. Almost 50 percent more expensive than UK. That is how expensive the food in Paris cost.

No wonder bread of all kinds are so popular in France.

Roti apa?

Other than cafes that serve overpriced sandwiches and baguettes (at least to my standards), you can see crepe stalls everywhere around the city.

A cup of hot chocolate which cost roughly 3 euros.

Crepe, a very thin piece of pancake is normally served with either sweet stuff like sugar, chocolate sauce, nutella or as a meal itself with cheese and ham. They cost around 2-3 euros for the sweet one and 5-6 euros for the more filling one. They are like the Ramly burger of Paris if you know what I mean, but of course, no question which one would I starve myself for.

Focus on the crepe please. Not my gaping mouth.

On a limited student budget, I am glad I was able to try some French dishes that you don't normally see on your dining room. It may not be the best representative of French cuisine, but at least it was what's best at that moment.

As far as I know, escargots are meant to be served in their shells and ate using snail forks and tongs like the one I ate years ago in a French restaurant back in Malaysia. This time however, the escargots I ordered came in a small sizzling pan served with garlic and butter.

Garlic and butter escargots.

No complains though as I gobbled down the snails with no trouble at all. Chewy texture, tasted like shellfish and incredible as a starter.

They looked like cockles to me

I have always heard how tasty foie gras are but never did have the chance to taste them. Until I saw them as part of a set meal in a restaurant.

The hunt for foie gras.

Just in case you are wondering, foie gras is the liver of ducks or geese that has been specially fatten for their liver. Tender, oily and sinfully delicious I must add. Too bad for the hefty price tag though.

Hot Foie Gras with crystallised dates

Due to the fact I have never tried veal before, veal was chosen as my main course whereas my girlfriend and her obsession with chicken chose a Yorkshire Pudding lookalike filled with wild mushroom and chicken with a glamourous name like Poultry vol au Vent.

Veal with too much spinach for my liking

A friend said it looked like beef rendang on a huge pastry. Another said it looked like something you find in the loo.

A huge version of Ferraro Rocher tops the icing on the cake on a satisfying dinner. Then we realised the restaurant is more famous for their desserts. Swt.

Grandparents of Ferraro Rocher.

Most of the meals we had are in fastfood joints other than a day when we managed to have tasteless fish and a bloody cow's buttock for dinner.

Nice looking fish.

First taste of chewy and bloody rumpsteak.

Well, at least it was decently priced and I get to choose escargots as starters!

Can't be choosers when you are broke can we?

I have decided this time around to go against the tradition of my blog and post no april fool's entry and attempt to deceive anybody.

Which doesn't normally work I know.

Actually I did thought of writing something to con you people. Something along the lines of:

" Hey, just came back from a wonderful holiday! And you know what? I saw the statue of liberty!!! In Paris! "

Then I proceeded to search a close up photo of the statue of liberty.

Then I realised that nobody is going to fall for that. You guys are too smart. So I did some superimposing and put a very constipated (to show that the sun is bright or something, how every detail is important) photo of me in front of the statue.

Hmm, this doesn't seem to work too. Not convincing enough. Seems everybody knew I am going on a vacation with the girlfriend in Paris, why not superimpose her photo as well!

After much thought, I realised what the heck, nobody is that stupid. It is April Fool after all. So I gave up the idea totally. So much for wasting my time.

Happy April Fool everybody. Don't fall for anything stupid please.

Musicals had never sparked any interest in me whatsoever throughout my life. I've never been to any play or watched any musical movies until when I got a free movie ticket to Sweeney Todd.

Although the movie wasn't as yawn-inducing as how I expected it to be, it was still mildly hilarious in my opinion.

But how can one not watch a musical play when you are in London? One of the places where you see more theatre posters around than movie posters.

During my girlfriend's short visit stint in London, we decided to catch a musical play which was top of her must-watch list. It was none other than the well known Phantom of the Opera.

I broke into cold sweat when I did my research and found out the value of tickets to the Phantom due to its popularity. Just say it cost less to watch a football match. But the mentality I had was "Why settle for second best?" since I planned to watch only one play as an experience.

Therefore, I die die also want to sit near the stage at the stalls to be able to savour everything. That is how I ended up watching the most expensive show ever in my entire life.

But the experience was well above my expectations. I thought I would be halfway dozing off listening to people story tell by singing but instead what I did was paying full attention and cursing the tall guy in front of me for moving his head so often.

View of the stage

I was amazed at how well the actors and actress could sing that I asked my girlfriend an extremely dumb question: Are the songs pre-recorded? What amazes me more was how the props and everything worked in telling the story and the swiftness in changing them between scenes. Utterly professional.

A very happy girl

Orchestra in front of the stage

Sensibly, photos and recordings weren't allowed when the play is on. During the interval, we strolled up to the top floors and was glad I chose to buy the slightly more expensive tickets.

The circle floors

Safety curtain during the interval

I really enjoyed the performance and that was unexpected of a person like me to do so. The songs are currently stuck in my head for 3 days and I even watched the movie version of Phantom.

I think a slight sparkle of interest in musical has ignited in me. Bad news for my wallet.

I am homeless, internet is scarce.

The girlfriend is in town and we are going for a holiday.

Which means some stuff like my thousands of backdated photos nobody care to read will have to take a back seat now.

Be back soon.