The Epic Eurotrip--Chapter 26: In Hindsight......

Throughout this trip, I crossed out so many things on my bucket list.

- Eurotrip

- Visiting Florence

- Visiting Venice

- Visiting Paris

- Visiting Rome

- Having a legit French cuisine in France

- Drink coffee at Champs Elysees

- Drink coffee at Louvre

- Drink coffee in Rome

Well, that's a lot of coffee to drink. This trip really opened my eyes, and now I can also tell people "I've been to Europe." To some, it's not a big accomplishment, but it is to me, who has never been to that continent, ever. Let along that so many memorable things happened.

I do want to rant a little, as I promised. Since I followed a Chinese tour group, sometimes things got too Chinese and I couldn't handle.

- Chinese food: Almost every single arranged meal was Chinese food. Even when the meals were not arranged, the tour guide still took some people to a Chinese restaurant (ex. Lyon). I mean, I understand that some people have Chinese stomach and cannot live without Chinese food. I'm okay with A LITTLE Chinese food (maybe one to two meals throughout this trip.) But the amount we had was just too much. Others seemed to be okay with it. That's the sad part. I talked to this white guy (whose wife is Chinese. That's why he was there.) about it, and he was like "Jonathan, I'm thinking about the SAME GOD DAMN THING!!!"  I want some local food. I had to go out to find food sometimes because I couldn't stand Chinese meal after Chinese meal, and I do not want to buy bread from China town and eat it as dinner!

- Tourists' manners: This is not just toward our own group, but tourist population overall. If you want to go to others' houses, don't you need to follow their rule? What's with all the "I'm just trying to have fun" statement prove? Flashes, graffiti, talking loudly, there are so many examples of poor education of tourists. I can't say I'm the leading example of a good tourist, but at least I know to follow the rules when I see a sign.

- People's "I was here" picture: I'm not a big fan of those type of photos. I take these pictures with only scenery, and I have to be there to take these pictures.Why do I have to be in the picture? It's not like me being in the picture will make the picture look better. There's one exception, though. If human interaction makes a different taste of a photo, then I'd do it. When we were at Buckingham, someone touched the butt of a statue and asked me to snap a photo. Without the touch, it's just a statue. But with the touching, the flavor totally changes.

- People's lack of interest in history or knowing where they are: Yes, sometimes it gets dull, but is this part of the trip? I've heard people asking where Eiffel Tower is when we were in Germany. Or after the guide repeatedly saying "We're in Italy," someone asked if we were in Paris. Come on! people! Don't just take meaningless photos when you don't even know where you were! At one breakfast in Italy, someone told me "this is what French coffee should taste like" after drinking an espresso shot. I was like "ugh......we're kinda still in Italy......" Well, you judge.

- Trip was too rushed: I knew this was going to happen when I signed up for this trip, but that doesn't mean I'll like it. It's okay, though. I'll use it as an excuse to go back again :)


Last but not least, a list of cities I want to revisit or visit (since I didn't go this time):

- Paris: not enough time this time. Definitely going back. I think I can stay there for a week easily.

- Rome: same thing. I want to go to see the old Roman remnant.

- Sienna: Didn't go this time

- Milan: didn't go this time

- Berlin: Didn't go this time

- Barcelona: didn't go to Spain for this trip

- Madrid: same thing

And then there's the eastern part of Europe (I heard Ukraine girls are beautiful!) and northern part of Europe (Vikings!!!!! ROAR!!!! okay just kidding) I want to visit as well.

Wow......I'm gonna be broke.

The Epic Eurotrip--Chapter 25: Really Back to Reality (France--Paris)

I promise this is the last post......okay maybe one more for conclusion.

Before moving on from Louvre, here's one of the arches in Paris. Again, there are total of 3 arches, small, medium, and large. The medium one is the most famous one.

Small arch.

You might see a difference in size and quality in pictures. Well, at this time my DSLR went out of battery (and memory) so I had to use my iphone instead. I guess I can live with that.

After leaving Louvre, we went to Notre Dame. It was rainy and cold, so I stayed inside most of the time. At the entrance, there's a huge sign telling people not to use flash when taking picture, again in many languages so you should have no excuse. However, flash kept going off when I was in there. How often did I see the flash? You can start counting time after you see a flash. Keep counting up every second, and restart when you see another flash. Guess what? You will never get to 5. Tourists really need to be educated before going on trip. This is the rule locals set up, and, however inconvenient for you, if you want to be there, follow the rules!

Side view

The glass window inside. Very beautiful.

The Pieta

The facade.

Notre Dame has many gargoyles onside. Back then, people said these stone creatures are for scaring bad things away, and there are stories about how these will come alive at night. The truth is, this is simply for decoration and for the rain to go off the building easily.

We passed by Musee d'Orsay but didn't go in. It was closed when we arrived. Too bad. We still took some pictures outside.

Yes we were in the shuttle. It was raining okay? We didn't really wanna step out.

Well luckily, when we arrived at the Arc de Triomphe, the weather got better again. I stayed for 20 minutes to watch the ceremony to honor the dead soldiers during WWII. There's a flame there that never seizes.

The Arc de Triomphe

The flame that never seizes

Old soldiers at the ceremony. They were nice enough to let me take a photo.

After that, I walked to Champs Elysees. I bought a cup of coffee there. Drinking coffee at Champs Elysees, check.

The Champs, after rain.

Finally, this famous street!

AND MY COFFEE!!!

I walked along the champs for a while. There are a lot of people there, walking, shopping, talking, whatever. Since it was raining earlier, there weren't many people outside drinking coffee.

There are of course a lot of shops, but I didn't bother to go in. Again, we were short on time.

Then we went to dinner. This time it wasn't so expensive, haha.

Onion soup. There wasn't enough cheese......

Escargot. Taste really good with the salt on bottom.

Steak with potato cake.

"Floating Island." It's egg white floating on cream.
Not super sweet, and the aroma is really strong. I liked it.

After dinner, we took a break and then went to watch the Moulin Rouge show. Moulin Rouge has been around for over 100 years, and they kept coming up with new shows while keeping some of the old ones (like the Can Can.) It's not a concert hall. It's a restaurant with a stage. People spend like 200 euros for a 4 course dinner. Totally not worth it. Honestly, the show was good, but not good for 100 euros. Especially when the seating was so bad (they forced over 100 people in there when the capacity was only 90.) You had to sit with strangers very close to you, and our table wasn't facing the stage, so you had to turn your head 90 degrees in order to watch the show. There are a lot of boobs so that kinda made it up, though.

No picture could be taken inside, so I can only show the outside of the building.

The sign. The windmill really moves.

See how many people there were.....

AND this really concludes my trip. We went back to the hotel and drank some more (we had wine at dinner and the show.) Everyone got drunk, and we were all happy.

The next day we hopped onto the planes (people came from different cities) and waved goodbye. I told myself I'm coming back for sure, one day.

The Epic Eurotrip--Chapter 24: Back to Reality (France--Paris)

This is the last post about my trip. What a trip, right? I'm pretty sure people had more awesome eurotrips than me, but hey, this was my first time and i enjoyed it fully (there are exceptions, though.) Let's finish strong.

Back then, Louvre had a lot of tourists. In fact, too many, so French government asked people to design a new entrance to hold a large crowd. When I.M. Pei designed the modern part of Louvre, many people objected as they think it would destroy the old feeling of Louvre (it somewhat did, in my opinion.) However, without it, there's nowhere to place all these people. I mean, they even created a food court under the pyramid!

The Louvre food court. You can't tell where it is if no one tells you.

I got coffee in Louvre. Nice stuff.

In I.M. Pei's design, there are total of 5 pyramids--1 huge one at the middle and 4 smaller ones surrounding the big one. However, only 3 are upright above surface as the location of the last one is at the middle of the road. Solution? Make it upside down.

And here it is, the upside down pyramid.

We actually went from the parking structure to the building. That's why we passed by food court first. We also ate there since we had no time for lunch. After lunch, we finally made it to the main entrance.

Main entrance. There weren't too many people at this time.

According to the tour guide, this time (end of May) was peak season. The peak season is usually summers, and you would not want to come during peak season as you will be jammed in crowd (again, think about black friday.) We actually started from underground to check the structure of Louvre. Louvre wasn't originally a palace. It was a fortress.

The model of originally Louvre.

Its purpose was to protect the kings and royals from attack. But after being so peaceful for a long time, the king at that time decided to take down the walls and build a palace instead.

You can still see the base of the fortress. This is the only remnant or proof
that such fortress existed.

Neon lights on old fortress wall. Remember how I said that old meets new destroys
the feel of oldness? Here's an example. I really don't like this.

Honestly, Louvre is so big. You can spend days in here just looking at those art pieces. Even for someone who's like very artsy like me can stay for 2 or 3 days. Unfortunately, we only had one afternoon, so we could only visit so many rooms. I'll just share some pictures and add needed description.

Egypt Room. Sphinx.

Lion Sculpture

Room of golden ceiling.

Stop touching yourself.

This was one of the keys in Da Vinci Code, but the truth is......

There are three main attractions in Louvre out of so many pieces:

- Mona Lisa by Leonaro Da Vinci

- Venus de Milo by Alexandros of Antioch

- Nike of Samothrace by some Greek dude

The first one we visited was Venus de Milo. When they first discovered it, they quickly named it Venus de Milo because they realized this statue is for the God of Love. However, they did not realized that this style is Greek, and Venus is Roman. Therefore, the correct name should be Aphrodite de Milo, as Aphrodite is the Greek god of love.

Venus de Milo

This statue has no arms, and they still can't find the arms from where they found this statue. Honestly I have no idea why this is so famous. People deemed it pretty, but otherwise I don't see how this out-stands the rest of the pieces. After some research, it seems like the fame has a lot to do with propaganda French were using. The French returned this back to Italy, and that piece was regarded as the finest of all at the time. To replace the loss, the French simply said "hey! Look! This one is better!" and somehow it caught on......

The discussion about this statue is about the position of the arms. What if she has arms, where would the arms be? Is she pointing something? Is she just laying them down? Is she crossing arms or touching her body? There are lots of "proof" for each argument, but so far none can be really proven.

And then we saw the Nike of Samothrace 10 minutes later. It's a winged person without head and arms. It is claimed that this statue was originally placed on a ship like this. The English name is the Winged Victory. It was believed that the arms should be carrying some kind of weapon or symbol of peace like "olive twig" or something like that. However, it can never be found. The only other segment that was found was her right hand. It is now placed  in a box next to the statue. 

Nike of Samothrace

This is said to be the best angle to view this.

The right hand.

This piece is held to be one of the great surviving masterpieces of sculpture from the Hellenistic period, and from the entire Greco-Roman era. The significance comes more from the fact that it has missing pieces (I guess that's why people say "the best is the one you can never get.")

There are many other famous pieces, but I'm not gonna spend time to add info.

Through a long, long hall.

Okay, maybe I will. Check the picture below. It is one of Da Vinci's piece.

Look carefully for every detail.

The person is John the Baptist, Jesus's cousin. He was the person who came before Jesus to set the way for Him. Now, do you see him pointing up with his hand? Check again. Is he really pointing? If your answer is still yes, enlarge the picture and check once more before moving on. Do you see a little brown stick? Yes! He's holding a cross! LDV (kinda weird to call him this but I'm too lazy to write his name again and again) did such a good job for hiding little details in his paintings. He added layers and layers of paint and only leave a little trail for audience to follow. I think this is why Dan Brown can make up so much stuff from his paintings.

Mary, Jesus, and John the Baptist.

This is the time when Jesus turned water into wine (I think.)

Le Radeau de la Méduse, the Raft of the Medusa. It's painted by tar
and the colors are getting darker and darker everyday. One day this paint
will turn black completely. Go see it before it's too late.

Probably the best picture I took on this trip.

Dying Slaves by Michelangelo. There's a monkey on the back of the
statue on the right.

Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss.

And here it is again. The first Coronation of Napoleon

And finally, we got to see Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa is located at the middle of one room and is protected by bulletproof glass. Thanks to that, taking picture of it became really hard. A huge crowd doesn't really help......

The crowd in front of Mona Lisa.

Let's go back to Leonardo Da Vinci a bit. In the post of Florence, I showed where the painting was done. This painting is said to be painted for 8 to 10 years by Leonardo. The model was believed to be Lisa del Giocondo, who was the wife of Francesco del Giocondo. Francesco asked Leonardo to paint the portrait of his wife as a gift, and Leonardo said okay. I doubt Francesco has ever seen the painting himself, as this took so long to finish. Later on, when the French king invited Leonardo to go to France to work on some pieces, Leonardo took this painting with him, and he died in France. French king was like "lucky!" and gratefully kept the painting.

There was a story about this Italian who sneaked in Louvre and stole this painting. He took it back to Italy and hid it under his dining table. Of course, eventually the painting was found (after 2 years), and this has become a joke in Italy since. "French people are useless. They can't even find a painting under a table." The Italians praised him actually, for what he has done.

Mona Lisa brought many speculations about how, who, and even what has been painted. Leonardo brought in the first portrait with background, and he chose this specific pose to show the dignity and faith of a young wife. However, people claimed that the smile looks different to different people. Some find it joyful, and others may see it a reluctance. Some think she's pregnant due to the swell of the fingers (and no ring) while others believe that she wasn't. When they scanned the painting with infrared, they found that, on the very bottom layer, is a portrait of Leonardo da Vinci himself. Thus some said this is actually his own portrait hidden in someone else's. We all know that this guy is very good at hiding things and leaving only a little trail for people to follow (check the John the Baptist painting again.) Some even say she has no tooth by the way she smiles. Or rather, just because she has no tooth, that's why she can smile in such way. Some also said this is a portrait of Leonardo's boyfriend hidden in Lisa's. Oh, apparently when he went to see the French king, he brought his boyfriend with him, holding hands. He was probably one of the first people who came out of closet.

And finally, here it is.

The sad part is there's one painting I did not see. The "Liberty Leading the People" has been one of the painting I really want to see in person after watching Les Miserables. Hugo was inspired when he saw this painting and wrote that uber-famous musical. Check the person on the right of the woman. He's the original Enjolras. Where is the painting, you ask? Well, there are too many art pieces in Lourve, so now they have branches. For those branches, they have to have something that people want to see, or else there's no ticket sale. Therefore, from time to time they have to ship one or two famous pieces to those branches. This one is currently in Abu Dhabi.

Seriously, guys, when you plan a trip to Paris, make sure you stay for at least 3-4 days. Louvre alone can take at least one full day. There's just too much to see. One afternoon is definitely not enough. I left feeling really unsatisfied, and I was probably the least artsy person you can find on earth. There are also other attractions you must see as well, so plan your trip and stay in Paris longer. It's worth every minute of your time. I'm definitely going back again.

I just have to.

After Louvre, we went to Notre Dame. There's another pieta displayed. It was also where Napoleon got crowned. Again, I love the feeling of being at the same place famous people have been.

However, I realized how long this post will be if I try to finish the rest. I still have Notre Dame, Arch, more food, and the Moulin Rouge to cover. I guess I'll have one more post.........

The Epic Eurotrip--Chapter 23: The land of Dreams (France--Paris)

After breakfast, we went straight to Versailles. Versailles is actually not located in the city, but the suburb area. This was actually done on purpose. When Louis XIV ordered to build this palace, Louvre was actually the main palace where nobles lived in. Louis XIV thought that this place has got too crowded and too dangerous (as the palace was located at the middle of the city,) so he decided to move out. Thus, The Palace of Versailles was created.

Louis XIV started the construction, but it's not until Louis the XV got to the throne when the palace had finished building. Louis the XV enjoyed the life in the palace until his death. Then it came to Louis the XVI, the last king before French revolution happened. This is why there was a famous quote, and it pretty much goes like: "Louis XIV built the palace, XV enjoyed the life there, and XVI paid the price."

The front of the palace. It's huge and golden.

There were a lot of people already in line. Good thing was that the line moved pretty fast so we got in after a while. The first things people asked for was bathroom. I think the breakfast had something bad in it as many ran for the bathroom. I was one of them, and after I finished my business, I realized that I pooped in a palace where nobles used to live, and I felt glorious, very glorious. Now I can tell people " I shitted in Palace of Versailles."

That aside, we started touring. Like many of the palaces we visited, there were many rooms, but only several were open. The main topic for the tour was the life of Louis the XIV, as he was the one who had a lot to do with this place. Louis XIV apparently had really long, wavy hair, and he was really proud of it. Many of the paintings, statues, or sculptures emphasize his long hair.

Louis XIV in Roman warrior's outfit.
He really liked this apparently.

This guy was such a narcissist. He not only loved his long hair but also his entire look. He called himself the Sun King and compared himself to Apollo, the Sun God. Well, he compared himself to the god of sun, but little did he know that his grandson became more of Icarus.

Another one of his portraits. 

We walked from the west wing (I think), through the Hall of Mirrors, to the west wing. Then we moved to the garden in the back. I'll just show some pictures.

Back then, they changed the decoration for each room when season changed (remember there are thousands of rooms.) In summers, they used things like silk to decorate; in winters, heavy carpet/linen was used to block out the cold. These are not like what we use today. They went bad (due to mold/tear) so fast so that they had to exchange them often. And you know royal people would not use cheap stuff. This all happened while the people were starving. No wonder revolution happened.

The chapel royals used.

Nice paintings on the ceiling. 

Hall of Mirrors, where Treaty of Versailles was signed.

I just wanna take this picture so I can link this.

Okay, so this room deserves some words. During French Revolution, the rebels stormed this palace, and they started burning everything. However, soon enough they realized "wait a second......we burn shit down and we got nothing back! WE SHOULD FUCKING SELL THESE SHITS INSTEAD!!!!" So they grabbed whatever they can see, furniture, art pieces, people, whatever and sell them outside.

After a long time, the French government actually tried to purchase all the stolen stuff back to restore the old look of Versailles, but they don't know what belongs to which room, except this one. They found that all the furniture share the same patterns as the fire place. Since the fire place was not movable, the rebels couldn't take it, so they let it be. Therefore, this room is claimed to be the only room that has the full set of what was supposed to be here before the revolution.

Look at the swirls on the furniture

Then compare the patterns to the fire place.

This following painting shows the crown of Queen Josephine, Napoleon's wife. There are actually two of the same paintings, one here, and the other in Louvre. This painting describes what happened during the crowning of Napoleon and Josephine. The paint is called Le Sacre de Napoléon, or the "Coronation of Napoleon". The tour guide thinks that it should be called the Coronation of Josephine because it's actually showing Josephine, not Napoleon. However, I have a theory.

Back then, the crowning of a king is done by the Pope. Since Catholicism was the main religion and sometimes treated higher than the kingship, Pope was always the one doing the crowning. The kings, of course, are not so happy about it.

"I'm the king. Why should I still listen to you?" Is usually what the kings thought. Napoleon went further. Remember Napoleon wasn't born in a royal family. He was just a great general who gained so much popularity, and he fought so hard in every battle to get to where he was. Therefore, he was like "all you priests are completely useless. Why are you so mighty? When it comes to war, you still need people like me to fight for you. You don't deserve to crown me!" So he basically took the crown and crowned himself as king. The painter, Jacques-Louis David, doesn't want to piss off the religious people too much, so he, with help of hundred of his students, painted the crowning of Josephine instead of Napoleon even though the name of the painting is still "Coronation of Napoleon."

There are two of these. One here and one in Louvre. These two are supposed to be identical, but to tell the difference, Jacques-Louis made a minor alteration. Check out the bottom left corner where five girls are standing. One of them is wearing pink dress while the other four are wearing white. This pink dress shows that this one is the second one being painted. Remember, both are real and painted by the same people. The difference is only for telling which one comes first.

Coronation of Napoleon

Back outside

Must be expensive to build this.

Backyard (huge), it started raining so there weren't many pictures.

This gives an idea how big this place is.

There are actually many other pictures about the rooms and palace, but I guess I'm not gonna save them to save some space on my blog.

Next stop: Louvre, Moulin Rouge, Arch of Triumph, Champs Elysees