spending time with my close friend maxy and his fiance ysaline was very special. ysa prepared great dishes and deserts and taught me about french food and wine, being from normandy and working in wine marketing she is the perfect person for this!! and max and i got to catch up and see lots of stuff in the city including architecture and museums, we even discussed manet versus monet haha including 'olympus' (maxy- 'what exactly do you think she's thinking'), plus check out a few van gogh's including a rather detailed analysis of 'starry night over the rhine'. highlights were stuffing our faces with crepes, and drinking away the afternoon with spritz. tarantino also played a part in our trip, maxy perfectly recited the tomato joke which uma therman tells in pulp fiction and i ordered the 'le royale cheese' that jules talks about in the same movie. so many fun times together i look forward to one day living in the same city again!!!
the alcohol consumption mainly took place in the apartment of max and ysa, french wines of course. food included trying bof de tartare, one of maxy's favourites now. thanking you max and ysa for the good times i can't wait to see you both again!!!
of course being a tourist in paris was also magnificent, lots of rain however it didn't matter, the museums and architecture is breathtaking so it all worked out perfectly, too many places to mention; montmartre, including espace dali and the basilica and moulin rouge, pompidou, le louvre, musee de l'orangerie, musee d'art moderne, muusee d'orsay, notre dame, pantheon, jardin du luxembourg, ecole militaire, musee rodin, musee de l'armee, arc de triomphe, the gardens and palaces at versailles, the museum of french film (building designed by frank gehry)
from paris to ghent on euroolines bus... the bus was full of ukranians - men, women and children. the first movie was violent as hell and insanely loud, with one old, harsh male voice used to dub all characters whatever age or gender the character. the bus driver changed the film after 2 hours to a movie with half a dozen topless women playing games by a lake (is this typical for eurolines?). also the air con was pumping so much it felt like siberia, by the time we arrived in belgium i had the chills. Time for ghent...