Pumping iron

On June 19th I posted an entry declaring my intention to return to the gym. Well I'm pleased to report that I did join up, and have also attended a weights class. After just one session I don't look quite the same as the model whose picture I posted, but the micro bikini is quite fetching...

More art?

We spent an hour or two wandering around the Centre Pompidou, Paris' modern art museum. The Musee National d'Art Moderne, France's national collection of art dating from 1905 onward, has  100,000 pieces on display, including the work of fauvists, cubists and surrealists as well as pop art and contemporary works.

I enjoyed many of the exhibits, such as those by Matisse and Monet, puzzled at the Picasso paintings, and was positively appalled by these little gems:

Sightseeing in Paris

Paris was everything I imagined, but was made even worse by the 90+ degree temperatures. It was hot, crowded, noisy and worst of all, full of arrogant French waiters. We barely got inside any of the attractions due to the 3hr ticket lines. However we saw the outside of many of Paris' finest landmarks. Here's a few pictures...

And on to Paris...

We took the high speed train from Amsterdam to Paris. It was relaxing looking out of the window at the passing scenery, although like most train-lines it passed through the worst, graffiti covered areas as well as open countryside. Navigating the Paris metro with a large, heavy suitcase was difficult (at least for Tony who was the one carrying it). But we eventually made our way through the crowds to our hotel, the imaginatively named, Paris France Hotel.

What to say about our hotel? Well, as Tony stated, "I kept expecting Basil Fawlty to make an appearance". Nuff said...

The hotel has been around since the 1920s. The rooms varied, we had one with a really big, modern bathroom, and one where the shower was so small, if you dropped the soap you were guaranteed to be gripping the shower hose between your buttocks once you'd stood up.

We did have some great views from our hotel balcony though...

Time for dinner

Here we are connecting as a family at the rooftop restaurant "Floor 17" in our hotel in Amsterdam...

I believe its called "Art"

Today Tony and I returned to the Anne a Frank house to see if arrival before it actually opened would avoid the queues. How wrong we were! The line was three times as long as yesterday, so we gave up on that and went back to the hotel to enjoy a morning coffee on the rooftop terrace of the hotel ( floor 19). Later we went to visit the Rijksmuseum, which was in a very impressive building and contained pictures and other exhibits from Dutch artists.

I enjoyed seeing the 3 Van Gogh paintings, I assume the rest are in the aptly named Van Gogh museum. I was not so impressed with the other exhibits, but here's one painting that did catch my eye. I captured the main essence of it in this picture...

And here's a couple of pieces of modern art. The first one needs no explanation other than to note that this is not a model of an owl...

I believe for this last one, the artist had visited one too many " coffee shops" beforehand. Don't you just love the effort that's been put in, especially with the pubic hairs made out of nails !!

AmsterDAMN (thank you Robert!)

The first day of our vacation went well. After learning how to use the Amsterdam tram system, we made our way to the old town to take in the sites. A canal tour seemed in order so, after a false start on a boat whose propellor broke within the first 5 minutes, we set off on an upgraded boat where we were served a glass is something sparkling whilst navigating through the waterways of the city. Very relaxing, especially in the 100 degree heat!

We were amazed at the number of bicycles around the city, hundreds if not thousands. There were bicycle lanes everywhere and you were as likely to get run down by a bike when crossing a road as you were by a car or a tram.

Later we went to a photography museum, which included a section called people are strange, here's a couple of my favorite exhibits.