Paris

It's been a while already, or at least it feels like it, since I've been to Paris. Strangly, it has only been two weeks ago. But when I think about it, words like 'beautiful', 'gezellig' and 'stunning' pop into my head. Just because it was...

1st day. Travelling by train from 9.30 till 14.30, with some delay. Dropped our bags at the hotel in Montmartre and left for our first of many trips with the metro, to visit the Eiffel Tour. Climbed hundreds of footsteps and stayed till it got dark. Took the metro to the Champs-Elysées, where we had diner. Walked to the Arc the Triomphe, went 'home' to have a drink and some fun at one of our hotel rooms.

2nd day. Breakfast at the hotel, with jus d'orange and croissants... Walked around in Montmarte, saw the artists work and the Sacré-Coeur, with a beautiful view on Paris. Visited place the la Concorde (wow!) with my mum. Visited the very expensive 'mall' la Fayette, because the only rain we've seen was coming out of the heavens. Went to Centre de Pompidou and had a very good diner in Montmartre again.
3rd day. We visited a Dutch church and an early rise was necessary. We splitted up in three groups afterwords, for three different musea. My sister and I went to the Louvre; an overkill with the most beautiful pieces of art ever. We all met again at Place the la Concorde, to leave towards the City Hall, and later on the great cathedral of the Notre-Dame.

4th day. We first visited Père-Lachaise and wanted to visit Sainte Chapelle, but it was closed. So we walked along the Seine, while visiting/seeing the Louvre, Place the la Concorde, Hôtel des Invalides and ending up on a bench next to the Eiffel Tower. The last thing we did was having a drink in the cafe of the movie 'Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain'. Left from train station Gare du Nord around 7 pm.

Place the la Concorde, view from the Eiffel Tower, the Arc the Triomphe and a shot from the bottom of the Eiffel Tower.

Grande Arche; BIG!

The Louvre

A fountain and a litte part of the Louvre, and the Sacré-Coeur.

My family, walking towards the Sacré-Coeur, the highest point of Paris.

Matthijs and Helene along the Seine and the beautiful cemetery Père-Lachaise, so huge you'll get lost

Typical Parisian houses and the roof of the beautiful building la Fayette, THE place to be, if you want to get sick of people...

The Eiffel tower and my mum waiting for the métro

'Canadian' commercial

Good morning, whole wooooooorld!

I saw this commercial about a (kind of) famous Dutch skater who emigrated to Canada, on the television a while ago. It's for the smoked sausages from unox, which we tend to eat with hotchpotch. When it came by the first time I became homesick emidiately :)

http://www.phonecast.nl/mov.asp?id=552&readid=02007010901901706&sendto=lotteklapwijk@hotmail.com

Off to Paris this Friday, and the sun is shining :)

Fantastic new year

Hi everyone, happy new year!! I hope it will be great...

For the past two weeks I've been enjoying the holidays and spending a lot of time at my parents' place. Reading some books, cleaning my room, playing some guitar and watch a movie. No soccer, no studying, no C.S.R. I visited Amsterdam twice, but I didn't really had time to take decent pictures of Amsterdam itself. That's really too bad, because now I'll have to go back at least once more ;) But I did take pictures of some Dutch art.

And I've been working a couple of days this last week, also Sunday night. I was supposed to be on a partyboat at 10 pm to start working, but they gave my the wrong address (in Amsterdam)... So I ended up walking for three hours, searching for 'my' boat in the different harbours, mostly in the rain. Finally, a bit before midnight, I was able to leave an very lonely industrial part of the city and I even found some cops! They felt sorry for me, and drove me to the right harbour. That's why I spent the first minutes of this year in the back of a police car :) Sounds interresting doesn't it? I bet none of you can beat my cool story... Anyway, my head touched the pillow at 8.15, while it still was a kind of dark.

Hope to talk to you soon. Lotte

Alternative christmas-bike-tree