houseguests
March 19, 2007Seeing that I'm the only non-french speaking person on the project — I kept inviting people even before I got here so I can have some semblance of social life on the weekends. My first weekend, the team from the Netherlands came over. We spent, well, mainly eating our way to the sights. It was my first time to talk in Tagalog in a week, and the first time I had people to have dinner with. It felt good to have company after spending the whole week feeling like a total outsider.
Lea, Jonard and I went to the cementery at Pere Lachaise, where Oscar Wilde was buried, and then to the Musee D'Orsay which has the one of the most amazing collection of Impressionist paintings from Renoir, Degas, Monet and Van Gogh, just to name a few.
Today, we decided to try a walking tour. The Da Vinci code tour by Paris Muse was not worth the money, IMHO. It didn’t have a lot of information, nor did it delve into the deeper influences of the Da Vinci code. I just thought it might be a good idea to do a walking tour so I can get to know the city more intimately, but next time I’ll just do a historic tour, like what I did in Berlin instead of doing a 'pop' tour. I did learn one thing though: that Dan Brown took too much artistic license on his logistics (or perhaps he just has a bad sense of direction). I like writers who stick to the facts when the definite facts are available and he is not one of them.
We walked for about 3 hours in the inclement weather, mind you; it was raining too for a while. The cold wind is seeping back into Europe just when you thought it was already spring.
But oh man, the food warmed us up and was as heavenly as I first remembered.
