lolFinland: France

More precisely, Paris and Mont Saint-Michel.

It seems that uploading photos from the trip takes longer than the trip itself. A true testament to my laziness, if there ever was any. I simply got distracted after the London photos by the video games Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. Now, nearly a month later, I'm done with them and ready to upload some more. :)

So, we headed to Paris next. As I had been there before a few times, I got the pleasure of acting as a tourist guide of sorts. French people still manage to impress me with their rudeness.

It was indeed a good idea to travel before the tourist season, as usually the area beneath the Eiffel Tower is completely crowded.

Dogs playing in water. :)

The only place, where we really had to queue: Versailles. See, how the line of people turns left in the distance? The entrance is still further to the left, off-picture.

It's a pretty building, still. Second time I was there. Rather than living there, though, I'd just loot the place and buy something with a bit more taste.

The gardens in Versailles are doing a great job mimicking a painting through their sheer scale and geometric precision.

You could even rent Segways to tour the gardens with. That really is the coolest vehicle in the world. Would you believe that they are actually illegal in Finland, because our idiot leaders can't decide on whether they should be treated as cars, motorcycles, bicycles or just the chick magnets that they are? I'd really like to have one...

The white church, Sacre Coeur. Equal servings of tourists and very annoying Africans trying to tie strings around people's fingers, then charging money for it.

Place du Tertre near the white church. Many artists selling random paintings, and many more Chinese selling cheap, mass-produced knock-offs.

Moulin Rouge. A very expensive place. A big black dude shooed me away just for checking their menu by the door.

Napoleon's idea of building stuff that blends into the Parisian cityscape.

Notre Dame. A very nice, beautiful church. Spent a nice half-hour inside sitting in the dark coolness, listening to church-burning black metal on my mp3 player.

The Arc of Triumph on the Louvre grounds, behind it Concorde, Champs-Elysées and the bigger, more famous Arc of Triumph in the distance (a good 2 km away, actually).

The big one from closer up.

Musee du Louvre. It's a huge place. Two days of browsing it, and we barely managed to see it all.

There was a car show in the Louvre grounds. Seemed like a bit strange idea.

In the Louvre, posing between some ancient Persian statues.

Code of Hammurabi, the oldest written law in the world, from about 5000 years ago. Many interesting rules on it, often involving the death penalty. How about this "milder" one: "If a man knocks the teeth out of another man, his own teeth will be knocked out."

Ah, Venus de Milo, she's a beauty. :)

A lot of statues in the Louvre collection.

Om-nom-nom.

I'd like this one by my front door.

Yet more statues and other artwork in storage.

Are there any statues left in the Easter Island?

Paintings lining one of the main corridors.

Painter painting a painting of a painting. No photos, please.

The Raft of the Medusa. A really great piece. The French Romanticism is probably one of the last good things the French have introduced to the human civilization. (might be just my opinion, though I'm sure many share it)

A huge crowd of sheeples on their Da Vinci Code tour or whatever.

I don't actually see the point of all the commotion this thing causes. I mean, it's nice and all, but the paintings surrounding it are nicer. It's really tiny, too.