From Paris to Madrid

Time to put the pictures in words, although I’m not sure I have to anymore with so many teasers … Good Friday I left Amsterdam at 16.14 for a 3 hour trip to Paris. All went well until we came close to the Belgian border and there were some unexplained delays which were later transformed into ‘logistics’. Sure, that’s why the lights go out, stuff stops working etc. Whatever. 40 mins late I arrived in Paris where Sylvaine was waiting at the train station. So good to see her again after such a long time. We took the metro and had a lovely evening chatting away while enjoying some beers and snacks. We slept in the next morning and then headed into the city centre to visit the Catacombs. A very long queue (1,5 hours), but we met nice people in the queue so we had a good time anyway. The catacombs themselves were very impressive and a bit creepy as well, especially when you consider someone put the bones and skulls into that nice decorative pattern…After that we headed to a nice little cafe to enjoy a warm capuccino and make more plans.... we decided to have a quick glance at Notre Dame (just the outside) and the area around it and to head for the cinema. Which turned out to be a brilliant idea. We walked across Jardin du Luxembourg where there was an exhibition on Nomads (amazing pictures), saw la Conciergerie (which is on Isle de La Cité, the same island Notre Dame is on)  and the Quartier StMichel. Time to head to the cinema then!

We watched Desert Flower, a very impressive film about a young girl  who runs away from home after being forced to marry a creepy older guy. She becomes a supermodel and a strong advocate against circumcision. The scene in the movie where she is circumsiced at the age of 3 in the middle of the African desert is heart wrenching. 

The next morning we headed towards the Louvre, where we found out it was a 4 hour queue to get into the museum. No thank you. (it was the first Sunday of the month, hence free access and the first holiday weekend of the year). Still pretty from the outside though and one day I will be back in Paris and visit at a random day when other people have to work ;) From there we walked across Pont Neuf  towards Notre Dame, this time to see the inside and the view of the city from the top! The inside went smoothly and we thought we had deserved another capuccino, so we headed to a cute cafe nearby and enjoyed the streetview there (street artists galore in Paris). Full of enthousiasm we queued to go up Notre Dame. The queue didn't seem to be very long, but we soon found out that it moved extremely slowly. When we finally could go up (2 hours queueing later) we understood: it's all very tiny: tight stairways, small landings etc etc. But what a view! Definetely worth the wait and we had some nice guessing games while in the queue, so who cares. Time for some dinner and afterwards we headed home and watched another movie (forgot which one). Easter Monday was already my last day in Paris, but what a day it was! We walked across the red light district of Paris with its Moulin Rouge which was conveniently on our way to Sacre Coeur! What an amazing cathedral and most important of all: no queues. At all. Amazing. The interiour is simply stunning and the view from the top is also very worthwile. A nice juice at the Montmarte square with all its painters and off to the final activity of the day: a lovely full body massage. Time to get my bag, head towards the station, say goodbye to Sylvaine and go home. Thanks Sylvaine for a wonderfull weekend and lots of fun!  

The fun was not over yet, April has been a very action packed month! Thursday evening my brother came over and we headed to the Philharmony for a concert of Within Temptation a late birthday present from me to him. Brilliant as ever (and one of their songs was featured on the last Vampire Dairies episode) and nice to have some bonding time! That weekend I headed to Groningen to catch up with Marieke. We chatted, went into town and Ikea, watched a movie, I got a guided tour from Marieke around the new and improved Zernike area on Sunday morning after which we visited Ronald on Sunday afternoon. Always good to be back and chat away! In a year time I will be back up north again : D  Thursday evening Monique came over for dinner, during the weekend I visited Gillian and Mario in Almere to celibrate Gillian's birthday and last Monday we had our last Spanish class which meant TAPAS evening! Great to see how much effort everybody put into it and a nice end of the course. That's one thing I'll miss when I leave here, but I already checked that I can do the next course when I'll be back in Groningen. So no worries there.

This weekend was lots of useful things: since my neighbour woke me up at 8 on Saturday morning I decided it was a good time to start some serious cleaning of the house, pack my bag, do some shopping etc. Today I cleaned some more and cycled 50 km around the south of Haarlem where all the bulbfields are.Always lovely to see and these hyacinths smell amazing! Now just 2,5 days of work left until I leave for Madrid! Am so looking forward to it!