A few Parisian pictures.

I will probably upload the pictures on Facebook later, but I wanted to post a couple here, with comments. I took these on the surprisingly good RetroCam app on my Android phone - I much, MUCH prefer Hipstamatic, but I don't have an iPhone and getting my iPad out is such a hassle for quick pictures. Still, this camera did not actually disappoint. I like the polaroid effect, and it does great things with contrast.

The house where Sarah Bernhardt was born - we came across this place completely by accident, since we had lunch shortly after our arrival in a place just across the street and then spotted the plaque. Still, pretty cool. I like Bernhardt.

One of the buildings of the Sorbonne. I really like this shot. I like places where everything is old and beautiful, except the subway, which smells.

Because I'm easily amused, I come bearing Happeh Hasidic Child versus Angreh Hasidic Child. I didn't actually buy either book, but they looked hilarious. The second one obviously says 'KVETCH', by the way, and deals with Yiddish.

Les Deux Magots - an overpriced café where Sartre and de Beauvoir supposedly hung out back in the day. Also possibly Racine, but not at the same time, and that may be made up.

The inside of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. I really love Gothic architecture, even if I dislike the heavy, incensey scent that always seems to hang around in those old churches.

I also love stained glass windows. Same church.

And a closer look at the star near the front. I really, really like this picture a lot. This camera app does a good job for contrast shots like this one.

Notre Dame. We didn't go inside... yet again... because the line is always crazy long. I need to investigate if there is a way to pre-order a ticket online, because I really want to see the inside. At least I've been inside the Sainte-Chapelle before, I guess - the line for that one was crazy as well.

Another view. I love the architecture of this church. It has a fairly interesting floor plan.

The gargoyles, seen from below. This picture turned out a lot trippier than it was intended, but I like it. They really are a fine example of the nutty side of Gothic. I love them.

Inside picture of the restaurant we had dinner at. The food was nice, but the menu was littered with weird French shit. I can say that, I'm Belgian. I don't want obscure meat on the bone, I don't want soup made out of shellfish, and I don't want to suck marrow out of a bone. I realize those don't sound that weird. I'm going to be quiet now. Good food was had.

I actually forget what this was. My mother and I have a tendency to just... walk through random gates. One day someone's gonna shoot us as trespassers, or something. But hey, it looks pretty.

Then, we went to Jewville, kind of - but only kind of - getting lost on the way. This was an old synagogue in the Rue Pavée. I like Judaism for many reasons, but one superficial one is the fact that a star is just a much nicer and less horrifying religious symbol than a cross. I mean, who are you gonna kill using a Star of David? An insect? (Six legs! You could conceivably crucify an insect on a Star of David! I'm going to be quiet now.)

We had lunch at an interesting Israeli falafel place. For some reason, I turned into a photography noob, and this is the only picture that turned out decent - the little Israeli flags on the wall just beside us. The food itself was good, but way too much. Which tends to happen at falafel places.

Of course, there were also heaps of bookstores - one was called the Temple Bookstore, or something like that, and it was beautiful. Of course, I made random purchases, some of which can be seen here. I bought Le Petit Prince in Hebrew/Yiddish - if you turn it over, it has the Yiddish text. This is good, because I can read Yiddish if I read it out loud. Mostly. The postcards are illustrations from Medieval Hebrew manuscripts. Score!

The red Christmas trees on the sixth floor of the Centre Pompidou. I oddly liked them.

And the view. This was the Sacré-Coeur on Montmartre. I really like how well you can see the hill.

And the Eiffel Tower. We didn't go there - I've been to the top three times before, and it's usually crazy crowded - but I figured I had to at least see it to make the Paris trip complete. :)

Okay, this turned into a much longer post than was intended, but oh well.

Paris s'éveille, if not too early...

I spent the past two days in Paris with my mother - we went there by train (which only takes about an hour from Brussels) and spent one night at a hotel, which was nice. Though Paris is very close, it had been over a year since I'd been there, so this trip was a lot of fun.

Our original goal in going there was the Munch exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, although I'm not sure why that was our goal since neither of us actually even knew where Munch was from. We eventually decided on the Czech Republic, but of course he turned out to be Norwegian. To complete the picture of total cluelessness, we also thought they had The Scream, but then they didn't. Anyway, it was an interesting exhibition and I enjoyed it a great deal. We also briefly visited the other special exhibition, which was about dance, but me and dance have a love/hate relationship. On the one hand, it is near the top of my list of things I would love to be good at but am not, and I love to watch it, but on the other hand I only really love to watch it if it's ballet dance or some pretty couple dance (like swing, or charleston, or lindy hop).

We also walked around aplenty, of course, and had some excellent food - and we also visited the Jewish area, the Pletzl, which was rather wonderful. I have always had this latent, crazy obsession with all things Jewish, which is odd since I really didn't grow up around any of it, but I had never seen any of Jewish Paris. Though the streets were in many places commercialized, it was still a really nice area with an old synagogue, nice food and coffee places (Kosher certified, yo) and a lot of really nice Jewish bookstores. I was really pleased, and also spent a lot of money, which is why I should really never visit Jerusalem, though I SEKRITLY want to.

It's not that expensive on a direct flight from Belgium.

This is bad.