Frosty

Wijnpers

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:39:10 GMT

Well, it's official. We've got the job! Thanks everyone for your advice. It's really appreciated.

Help!

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:44:06 GMT

Well, deadline to decide if we want the job is coming up fast. And I’m stuck as can be.

I’m in desperate need of some advice.

For those of you who are not up-to-date, here’s the short version:

Through an internal job-offer, I got the opportunity to work as a groundskeeper at the Wijnpers school in central leuven. The job will run alongside our normal jobs and basically means opening and closing the school and doing some other small tasks, like checking for signs of vandalism/keeping an eye on fire-safety etc.

In exchange we get to live on the schoolgrounds in a very nice house (and central in Leuven) with all expenses (gas/electricity) paid.

The reasons to take it are obvious, but let me list them:

Richard is enthusiastic and supportive, which is very important for me. Obviously this is a 2-person job/decision.
Very nice house (3 bedrooms and huge kitchen) in central Leuven.
Saves expenses and our financial situation isn’t too great, so it’d be a big relief.
Huge area for Ruri to run around it (it’s an agricultural school, so many fields/natury bits around it).
Something totally different and adventurous!

Reasons I’m hesitant:

We’d have to move between Christmas and new year. I HATE moving with a passion. I hate rushed/forced moving even more. The thought alone is depressing me.
The grounds are HUGE. Simply walking across them and opening all the buildings will take 30 minutes, doing our daily inspection will take at least an hour.
School opens at 7:00. So I’d have to get up 1 and a half hour earlier than I’m used to. Getting up before 7:00 is a sin as far as I’m concerned. I hate it, I’m bad at it and it makes me grumpy for the rest of the day. I guess I’ll adjust, but at the moment it’s an obstacle.
The school closes at 16:30, which is fine by me. We can do the rounds then. But unfortunately there’s evening school every weekday. This ends at 21:30. So we would not be able to go anywhere later than 21:30 on weekdays. If friends come over to roleplay on friday, we’d have to do it at our place and have to take a fairly large break around that time. On the other hand, Saturdays (our chosen free day) and Sundays (only school till 12:00 then) would be fine.
Aside from evening school there’s dance-classes in the evenings (I’m not sure which ones), which might mess up our schedule even more.
We’d have to be on standby all the time as our phone line is the schools phone-line after normal business hours. No clue how often this will be used. I'm worried about this really messing up our independance/flexibility.

On the one hand I am thinking I shouldn't do this if it (already) causes me this much stress. On the other hand it feels like throwing away a great opportunity simply because I'm scared of change/having a bad case of winter-depression.

If we don’t want to do this, we really should mention something tomorrow/wednesday at the latest. I am completely torn, so any advice/opinions are very, very, very welcome!

moviegoinggoodness

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:38:35 GMT

For those of you not on Facebook (anyone left?) we're going to see Avatar (the James Cameron movie, not the Last Airbender) this monday at 20:15 at Kinepolis. So I guess we're buying tickets at 20:00 at the latest. Want to come along? :)

Silent Hill 2 Review

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:31:46 GMT

Inspired by several “scary Halloween game” articles, I chose to delve into a horror game that seemed to be near the top of everyone’s list: Silent Hill 2.

And although I don’t often write about games anymore (something I’m intending to change, but that’s another topic) Silent Hill 2 left enough of an impression for me to want to say a few words about it.

Let me get the bad stuff out of the way first. This is by no means a perfect game. The gameplay can be a bit linear, involving a lot of backtracking and key-collecting.

The game is a bit old and although the graphics are still fine, they are starting to show their wear. The port to PC (this is the version I played) is, as is often the case with console to pc ports, not too great. There are no mouse controls and the keyboard controls feel sluggish and unintuitive at times. The camera angles are often stuck in a way to intentionally obscure your vision, but just as often you do have to manually adjust the camera in order to see ahead of you.

Also: bugs. If you’re unlucky it might take some work to get your pc version running without glitches. Fortunately the game ran mostly fine for me. One movie was skipped for some reason and I had a few occasions where the sound entered some sort of loop and I had to reset the game, but other than that I had no problems.

Now the good stuff, which is fortunately also the important stuff: Story and atmosphere. As Yahtzee pointed out in his review, the atmosphere in this game is amazing(ly depressing). Wandering through Silent Hill invokes feelings of loneliness and loss unlike any other game I know.
The story revolves around James Sunderland. He’s received a letter from his wife:

“In my restless dreams,
I see that town.
Silent Hill.
You promised you'd take me
there again someday.
But you never did.

Well I'm alone there now...
In our 'special place'...
Waiting for you.”

And so he’s traveled to Silent Hill, wondering all the while which “special place” she’s referring too (be more specific, woman!). Only problem is: His wife died 3 years ago!

All too soon it becomes clear that James is a protagonist who doesn’t have too much regard for his own life, as even warnings of the many strange happenings in the town do nothing to deter him. Here is a man who has nothing left to lose.

As usual in Silent Hill games, the town is filled with a thick fog and truly disturbing creatures wander the streets. This is no Resident evil, however. Most of the creatures are easily avoided and combat takes a backseat to careful exploration and puzzle-solving. As you progress through the game, things become more and more surrealistic. More and more it seems as if you’re truly descending (sometimes quite literally) into the nightmarish mind of a truly disturbed individual. Everything is drenched in symbolism. This is true for the locations James visits, but also for the monsters which you slowly come to suspect might be nothing more than demons created by James' own mind.

Unlike most horror stories that focus on cults, hauntings and resurrecting ancient demons, Silent Hill 2 takes its themes of loss, guilt and lust, and explores them to almost uncomfortable levels. There are some horrific images in this game, and I can safely say it's earned its mature-game rating.

I was hesitant to try this game, as it’s a bit older and a console port of a genre I don’t usually play, but I’m really glad I did. It’s by no means perfect, but I definitely enjoyed the experience. Should you be hesitant to try it due to the gameplay issues, I can fully recommend watching the “Let’s play” by Lordvega, to be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgRaZFp6uWE

There, another game gone from my “game-classic, must play” list. Now I'm all ready for Dragon's Age!

Droomkronieken

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:06:51 GMT

Got to love having a camera. It allowed me make a gazillion pictures of the Changeling midsummer-night's Larp session.
If you played, or are just curious, here they are

Needless to say: we had fun!

Super fast linky update

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:32:57 GMT

So, I haven't updated in a while (except for attempting to plan seeing the Startrek movie).

What else have I been up to?

Well:
We visited Vienna! Pictures are here.
We played tourists in the city, seeing the sights and also played board games with Namy and his friends.
Special thanks to Richards parents for buying us a camera. Now we can make pictures of interesting buildings when we go on vacation and of Ruri, the rest of the year.

Talking about board games, the BSG board game is really fun! And there's an expansion on the way for increased fun-potential. :)

Aside from board games and computer games (ATITD still rocks!) we haven't actually been roleplaying as the exams are upon us and we finished our Exalted campaign. New games will start in a few weeks though.

My one exam "inleiding tot de wijsbegeerte" (studying for fun, really) is done, but Richard still has two more to go.
In the meantime I've added another useless skill that's good for cocktail parties (too bad I don't drink cocktails) to my resume: talking about famous philosophers. I must say I actually enjoyed learning about them. :)

Startrek: The final confrontation

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:20:09 GMT

Hi all! Going to give it one more try!

Who wants to come to Startrek?

Designated place: Kinepolis Leuven.
Designated day: Sunday 14/6
Designated time 16:30 (movie starts at 16:45). It's a bit of an annoying time, but it's also the ONLY time the movie still plays.

Richard and me have by now seen it in Vienna and can vouch for it being a fun movie (even if you dont usually like Startrek).

Startrek problem

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Sun, 24 May 2009 10:28:43 GMT

Got a problem with the movie tonight. Kinepolis sneakily went and changed their schedule behind my back! The movie is no longer playing at 19:45. Instead it's playing at 16:45 (too early) and 22:30 (too late).

So I'm afraid I have to cancel. Really sorry about the misunderstanding. :(

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Fri, 15 May 2009 23:33:15 GMT

Another season of Lost over and done with. Only one more to go. I know I'll miss it when it's gone.

Seeing how I'm probably the only person left on the planet actually still in love with Lost, I won't write too much about it here. Especially since there are wonderful blogs out there, like the one of Doc Jenssen, whose recaps and theories are a must-read for anyone still watching the show.

I really like his thoughts on the season-finale:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1550612_20245769_20278837,00.html

He might not be 100% right, but I do think he's on to something with his theories regarding Jacob's visits and what we might see happen next season. It would be an interesting direction for the show and I could see it leading towards a wholly satisfactory ending. Whether he's right or not, I'm sure we're in for quite a ride... next year.

Next year... that's so far away! There'd better be some good shows in the meantime. I might try watching Dollhouse. Anyone got other suggestions? It seems I have a year to kill...

Brainwash

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:58:48 GMT

Brainwash in Leuven is usually a great place to get a haircut.
No appointments, fair rates (same cost for men and women) and fairly friendly staff.

Brainwash in Leuven is not a good place to go to on a thursday when they're understaffed. The very friendly, but stressed out barber totally didnt understand that I wanted blonde and red stripes in my hair, as usual. He thought I wanted blonde stripes, then have them painted over with red, resulting in this:

Figured I should share this picture, before I decide to wash my hair a gazillion times. ;)

Startrek?

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Sat, 09 May 2009 12:44:34 GMT

Who wants to come see the Startrek movie?

I'd suggest going sunday may 24th, movie of 19:45. Not too late, since most people have to work the next day.

Here's the trailer:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/startrek/startrek_trailer2_large.html

Vice guide to North Korea

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:07:15 GMT

I've always been somewhat fascinated by North Korea. Mostly because no-one really seems to know anything about it. What's going on in that strange, strange country?

Strange, strange things according to this documentary:

http://www.vbs.tv/shows.php?show=1442318652

If you have as much as a passing interest in North Korea,I can fully recommend checking it out. (Note: there's a "skip ad" button at the top left of the movie screen, which you'll be grateful for since there are 14 - 5 minute episodes, with an add in front of each one).

Wow

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:38:34 GMT

Wow, this reminds me of that guy singing opera on (I think) the same show, a while back:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

(Sorry, another un-embeddable movie, you'll have to click the link).

Small update

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:58:08 GMT

I hate to say it, in case I might jinx it, but it seems my computer may be fixed!

It now has a different processor and a different video card. Also Erno updated the bios, which might've helped.
That is to say: it worked fine for a few weeks, but the past few days I've been getting bluescreens. I think those are unrelated to my previous problems though and probably much easier to fix, so yay!

Thanks so much to all of you who helped me out! Love you guys!

I'll leave you with a totally unrelated (but very enjoyable) link. All the classics in one place:

http://www.youshouldhaveseenthis.com/

Linkies

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:37:08 GMT

Thanks to Richard pointing out the site http://www.419eater.com/ I've now wasted two evenings reading the letters there.
The owner of the site has an interesting hobby: He baits scammers. Nigerian e-mail scammers to be exact. By turning the tables on them in various clever/silly/creative ways, he gets them to sent him money/pictures/paintings/record audio-books for him/re-enact the monthy python parrot sketch.
Recommended reading (under the "letters" section) is "Busted!" and "The tale of the painted breast", but they're all great really.

If you're still bored after all that I can recommend playing Blush. You can play it in your browser. It's a very pretty little game that plays a lot like the cell-stage in Spore (but then fun).

Bork?

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:35:18 GMT

This might be old news... but when I tried changing my google preferences from Dutch to English, I noticed some straaange languages in the selection screen.

My favourite so far is "pirate" ("I be feelin' lucky!) because it's more understandable than "Klingon" (jlSuDrup!) or "Hacker" (EyE Am ph33|1n6|u(ky).
And what to think of "Bork bork bork"? ("Ee'm feeleeng loocky!") or Elmer Fudd ("I'm Feewing Wucky!")

I love google :)
Did you find any others?

Geekyness ahoy!

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:17:51 GMT

In my previous post I briefly mentioned Spoony. In case you havent tried any of his video's yet, (and dont feel like sitting through 5 hours of Phantasmagoria 2, or Final Fantasy 8) I can recommend this one, in which he tries explain all about D&D, using the old Dragon Strike board game... well, sorta....

http://www.spoonyexperiment.com/2008/01/05/dragon-strike-board-game-review/

nine

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:23:46 GMT

While I'm posting trailers, I must say I'm really impressed with the teaser- trailer for the new Tim Burton movie: "9"
It's still a while off, but I'm looking forward to it. I usually dont care too much for computer animation, but this looks beautiful.

Do yourself a favour and watch this one in hd (preferably full screen).

Find it here

Lost season 5

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:19:57 GMT

It's that time again.

That time when Tv shows that were on hiatus are restarting and I spent several livejournal posts venting my excitement at the new episodes. I was going to talk about the great new BSG episode, but then I watched the start of season 5 of Lost and I remembered why this is my favourite show!

Here's a trailer:

Spoilers below the cut:
For those of you who have seen them, here's my thoughts on the new 2 episodes:

Lot's of things going on! I don't know where to start. This show is getting more and more complex. So many characters and plotlines to keep track of. Personally I'm loving it. Fortunately for those less dedicated than me there are useful sites such as: http://www.buddytv.com/slideshows/108-lost-characters-you-need-to-know.aspx

Since we have to start somewhere, let's start with Ben. He is slowly turning into my favourite character, despite his extreme creepiness. He seems to be working with the good guys for now and I'm tempted to believe his goals are atleast for the "greater good". But we know he's willing to do anything to achieve those goals and I've no doubt he'd betray/kill Jack or any of the others in a heartbeat if it suited his purpose. I wonder what he'll do now that Hurley's become such a difficulty for him.

As for Hurley, he's still seeing ghosts. Is he truly insane now, or is there something more going on? Since this is Lost, I'm guessing the second. Can't blame Hurley for running away either. Although in his own way, Ben seemed to be telling the truth for once. Hurley throwing his sandwich at him made me laugh.

Sun. I more and more dislike her. Obviously the episode's title "the lie" refers to the greater lie told by the oceanic six. Yet I think it also refered to Sun's lie to Kate. "I don't blame you." - yeah right. She's out for revenge and will happily drag Kate (and probably Aaron) down with her. Which makes me wonder who the people going after Aaron were. Did Sun stage it all? Did she hire that detective in order to convince Kate that Aaron was in danger? It wouldn't surprise me.

I guess time travel will play a big role from now on. It's good that we're getting some answers, but it also saddens me a bit. I like the mystery and hope the show wont become less intriguing when some of the greater mysteries are solved. Don't count on the smoke monster being explained this season though. The writers have said that's a mystery that will wait until the very end, and if you ask me: rightly so.

A bit miffed we didnt see Desmond meet Daniel's mom. Will be interesting to know who that is. I'll go with the popular theory and say it's the enigmatic ms. Hawking. Hopefully next episode we'll learn more. I can't wait!

Aquaria!

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:42:34 GMT

More indy games! There's just so many good ones out there!

I've been playing Aquaria. So far it's been a wonderful, beautiful game.

But I'll let the trailer speak for itself.
(Not embedding it, because I never seem to get that right and you're going to want to watch this one in HD anyway.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyZJo7RpCwo

VGL ftw!

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 16:37:45 GMT

Just checked the videogameslive website and look what it said under (late) 2009!

Belgium date: TBA
Holland date: TBA

Videogameslive is coming here!
Who's going? I know I am! :)

Sleep paralysis: I can has it

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 12:49:54 GMT

Something strange happened last night.

I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling like something was wrong. I was having that uncertain, frightened feeling you have when you wake up from a nightmare (altho I couldnt remember any dreams). Ruri was sleeping on my left arm and my right arm was a bit tingly, as if I had been lying on it.
So I decided to crawl up against Richard to calm down and continue sleeping.... but I couldnt move. I tried moving my right arm, then my left. And putting some force behind it, but to no avail. Starting to panic a bit, I tried to call Richard, but I couldnt make a sound.

After a few minutes of frantically trying to move and increasing panic, it suddenly went away.

Sleep paralysis is a bitch. This is the second time it happened. But I had dismissed the first one as a dream. This time I was clearly conscious. I could see the room, hear Richard breathing, feel Ruri on my arm.

Freaky stuff. The internet (wikipedia) teaches me this:

"Sleep paralysis is a common condition characterized by transient partial or total paralysis of skeletal muscles and areflexia that occurs upon awakening from sleep or less often while falling asleep. Stimuli such as touch or sound may terminate the episode, which usually has a duration of seconds to minutes. This condition may occur in normal subjects or be associated with narcolepsy, cataplexy, and hypnagogic hallucinations. The pathophysiology of this condition is closely related to the normal hypotonia that occur during REM sleep.^[1] When considered to be a disease, isolated sleep paralysis is classified as MeSH D020188.^[2]

Physiologically, it is closely related to the paralysis that occurs as a natural part of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is known as REM atonia. Sleep paralysis occurs when the brain awakes from a REM state, but the body paralysis persists. This leaves the person fully conscious, but unable to move. In addition, the state may be accompanied by terrifying hallucinations (hypnopompic or hypnagogic) and an acute sense of danger.^[3]"

I'm just happy I managed to skip the "terrifying hallucinations" part. ;)

Edit: For those of you who are interested in some follow-up reading, there are some interesting articles here:
http://www.dreamsnightmares.com/sleepparalysis.html
here:
http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa112000a.htm
and here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2001/nov/18/life1.lifemagazine7

Parisathon, day 4 - Paris

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:42:36 GMT

We couldn't go to Paris without seeing well... Paris. We took a long walk past the Seine, saw many beautiful places and made many more pictures.

Our hotel was very close to the Opera, where we started our walk.

From here we walked past the bibliotheque nationale to the Louvre. We didnt have time to go in (well, we did, but then we'd have to forego on seeing more of Paris), but we did take our time walking around outside. Considering the French kings used to live here before moving into Versailles, it was as impressive as you'd expect.

There are also glass galleries near the entrance where you can see people admiring the art inside. Even without going in, there's a lot to see and do here!

We then crossed the Seine (avoiding all the people that wanted to draw us), and had lunch in a small cafe a bit out of the way of the main tourist roads.

Following the Seine we arrived at our main destination: Notre Dame. There was a small museum underneath the cathedral square, with some archeological digs and general information about the history of Paris (this is where Paris began), which we visited.

We also visited the interior of the cathedral. However we decided to pass on climbing to the top, because the lines for that were longer than the ones in Disney land!

There was a lot of Christmas decoration here too:

We continued our walk past the Seine, this time heading towards the Eifel tower where we arrived in the evening. We both agreed that although not particularly pretty, the tower is atleast very, very, very big.

This is where we concluded our tour. Before heading to the station, we had dinner in the nicest restaurant we had been to in Paris so far. A small italian restaurant with a very friendly owner and very tasty food (including home-made tiramisu and chocolate mouse).

We then took the Thalys home, where we arrived well before midnight.

All in all, Paris was tons of fun!
As a final note, I disagree with anyone saying that Parisians are rude. Nearly everyone we met in Paris was totally nice and helpful (it does help if you speak some French).

I'll finish with our attempt to take a picture of ourselves underneath the Eifel tower (you can vaguelly see it in the back). You can find more pictures we took of Paris here.

Thanks for reading!

Parisathon, day 3 - Euro-Disney

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:09:10 GMT

Our action-packed trip to Paris continued with a visit to Euro-Disney. All in the Christmas-spirit. Read more beneath the cut.

Still a bit tired from our Versailles trip, we slept in a bit on saturday. We had no worries about having too little time, since Euro-Disney was having a late-opening till 23:00. We arrived there around 13-ish and thanks to the online reservation we'd made for the tickets, we didnt have to stand in line.
Euro-disney was all decorated for Christmas with a HUGE christmas tree on the square in main-street. Add to that the fact that Disneyland was celebrating its 15th birthday this year (which also meant extra decoration and lights) it was very, very beautiful. Unfortunately I dont have pictures, as we didnt want to risk taking Jules' camera into rollercoasters with us.

Now I'm not above "stealing" other people's pictures, but I can't really find any pictures online that capture the shiny-ness. This one might be closest:

Ofcourse christmas also meant many (other ) tourists, so it was pretty busy. We tried to avoid the rides with the longest waiting times and so we started with the Pirates of the Caribean and then the Haunted mansion in Frontier-land. We then decided to check out the new movie park, as neither of us had been there before.

The tower of terror was truly a sight to behold. I would like to try it sometimes (in the far, far future and after some convincing), but Richard is not one for extreme rides and I'm not one for huge heights, so we entertained ourselves by watching various other people plummet to their (simulated) doom.

As a somewhat roller-coaster-compromise, Richard agreed to ride the Rock 'n roller coaster with me. It's a rollercoaster on the music of Aerosmith. And we both came out loving it! It is one of the fastest coasters I've ever been in. You get launched at an incredible speed. It's also over very quickly (which might be a good thing). Considering our lack of camera, we decided to buy the overprized (and badly edited) picture as a souvenir because our expressions are a good indicator of how Richard and I experience rollercoasters. :)

In the movie park we continued to the "Armageddon - special effects" show, which was fun and I can definitely recommend. (Atleast as long as there's no waiting time.)

We then had food at one of the disneyland restaurants (the fast food place with the rollerscating waitresses) and in the evening went on several more rides. Especially thunder mountain was very much fun and very pretty at night.

We finished our stay in Disneyland by watching the Fantillusion nighttime parade. This was a lot of fun (I loved the dragon!) and has become my favourite disneyland parade, replacing nostalgic childhood memories of the electrical parade. I can't help it, I'm a sucker for Disney. :)

Unfortunately it was then time to say goodbye to Disneyland and head back to our hotel. After a short train ride, we arrived and had a good night's sleep, ready for our last day in Paris.

Parisathon, day 2 - Versailles

marijke.nol@gmail.com — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:47:17 GMT

On the second day of our Parisathon, we went to the palace of Versailles. Read about it, beneath the cut. Warning, many pictures!

After having breakfast in the hotel (available till 11:00 so we didnt have to rush too much) we took the train to Versailles. Parisian public transport is pretty easy. Metro stations are everywhere, prizes are reasonable and the connections are very fast.

Versailles itself is huge, and very impressive. The sheer amount of decorations is almost overwhelming. You can probably spent an hour in each room without seeing everything.

We wandered the castle for several hours and could have spent several more in there, but we wanted to see the gardens too.

Since it was winter, the gardens were free to visit and there were a lot less tourists. We visited the two smaller palaces on the Versailles grounds, then headed for the lands behind Marie-Antoinette's estate. The queen sure had some strange things build there.

One of them was a shrine to cupid. We arrived there exactly at sunset.

Behind the shrine was the Queen's hamlet. A small medieval village,, almost frighteningly ideallic. According to wikipedia: "Here, it was said, the Queen and her attendants would dress as shepherdesses and milkmaids."

The queen was into roleplaying, it seems.

As it was getting late (and our feet were dying by now) we returned to central Paris, where the Christmas lights had gone on.

We then made a brave attempt at finding affordable and non-fast food in Paris (we'd had our fill of fast food, the previous day), but found that a bit too ambitious. We had to settle for ok food at a slightly overprized rate. (I still cant believe cola is more expensive than wine in many Parisian restaurants. 4 euro's for a cola seemed to be "normal"!)

Eventually, after a long, tiring, but exciting day we arrived back in the hotel where this happened:

To be continued with day 3: Euro Disney!

If you want to see more pictures of our trip, feel free to check out Picassa at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/marijke.nol/Paris#