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Paris, Travel, France, River Cruise, Seine Cruise, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, City Cruise, Lafayette, Paris Shopping,
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Travel: Paris River Cruise + Travel and Saving Tips for Your Trip to Paris

February 7, 2016

Finally on my last installment for Paris! Since I’m writing this in the middle of the night as I suffer from monthly lady pains, I’m just gonna make this a quickie post. Also, so I can proceed to writing about Geneva next. 😉

After our half-day trip to the Versailles, my husband and I quickly went back to the city to do some last minute shopping for souvenirs and sight seeing. We first dropped by the Palai Garnier which is the official home of the Paris Opera.

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It’s definitely a grand building and a pleasure to look at. After exploring that area for a bit, we went straight to the Galeries Lafayette. Not to splurge or anything but to just stare and be in awe of the ceiling. Yes, we’re kinda weird. But just look at it!

Paris, Travel, France, River Cruise, Seine Cruise, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, City Cruise, Lafayette, Paris Shopping,

We walked around, getting lost in rows and rows of shops till it was almost sunset. We made our way back to the Eiffel Tower so we can catch a river cruise along the Seine. We wanted to do the cruise at the right moment to maximise what we could get out of it.

Normally, we wouldn’t make much effort just to join a cruise but since the ticket was included in our Paris Pass, we decided that it might be a good way to end our trip.

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in Europe, France, Paris, Travel

Travel: The rest of our 2nd day in Paris (Pantheon + Champs Élysées + Ladurée

December 2, 2015

* So sorry for the short hiatus! I’ve been running around like a headless chicken these days as I’m so busy with some freelance work, family visits, and travels. If you ever miss me for not being on the blog, you can always find out what I’m up to on Instagram, Twitter, or Snapchat (carolific) though I do suck in making snaps on the go too. 🙂

Paris, Travel, Diplomat's Wife, France, Budget Travel, Europe, Europe Travel, Pantheon

We started Day 2 with a quick trip to the Pantheon which is located in the city’s Latin quarter.

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Before entering, a photo of the husband outside the Universite de Paris’ Faculté de Droit (Law). Yep, I married a lawyer. A geeky one at that. 😉

Okay, back to the Pantheon. Originally built as a church for St. Genevieve, it was turned into mausoleum after the French Revolution and is now a place to bury remarkable French people.

Paris, Travel, Diplomat's Wife, France, Budget Travel, Europe, Europe Travel, Pantheon

Its crypt is the final resting place of writer/philosopher extraordinaire Voltaire, philosopher/writer/composer Jean-Jacques Rousseau, poet/dramatist/writer Victor Hugo, and chemist-physcist Marie Curie to name a few.

A lot of visitors to this place – particularly foreigners – often forget the nature of this building. Most visitors make so much noise, blowing the solemnity of the Pantheon into smithereens. That’s why I suggest to visit this place early in the morning. Less people – like parents laughing and shouting at their kids as they run after them across the vast hallways.

Paris, Travel, Diplomat's Wife, France, Budget Travel, Europe, Europe Travel, Pantheon

Behind the Pantheon is the St. Etienne du Mont that contains the shrine of St Genevieve – the patron saint of Paris.

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in France

Travel: (Paris Day 2) The Louvre + Tuileries Garden + Place de la Concorde

November 15, 2015

** It’s quite sad that this post (which has been sitting in my draft pile for over a week due to pending edits) was scheduled for posting in the wake of the senseless acts of violence in Paris. My heart goes to the victims and their families as well as those who perished in Beirut due to a similar incident.

A visit to Paris won’t be complete without stopping by The Louvre. While the city does have a lot of museums, nothing compares to the Louvre when it comes to the number of historical artefacts it hosts. It sounds so basic to say that the Louvre has got to be one of my favourite museums in Europe – but it is. Tied with Rijksmuseum, to be honest.

A dream job of mine would be to work there and have a humungous employee discount at their souvenir shop. I’ll just buy all the books I want. 😀 😀

My last visit before this year was in January 2013 and I wrote a quick article for Rappler on some of my must-see pieces. You can find that article by clicking on this link: Visiting The Louvre. If you’re a first time visitor and would love to get a few tips in getting in and exploring the museum, I think that article can serve as a primer.

For this post, I won’t go into detail on the pieces anymore since I already did that in the Rappler article. This is going to be more of a photo diary from our recent visit in August.

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in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Denmark, France, Geneva, Leavesden, London, Malmö, Paris, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Travel, United Kingdom, Versailles, Volendam

Beauty + Fashion [VIDEO]: The humungous (affordable) Europe haul

October 1, 2015

Hi everyone! Finally publishing this requested video which takes over 20 minutes. Crazy long, I know! But there’s just so much stuff to show you! So this is the video where I prove to you guys that shopping in Europe can be VERY affordable. 🙂 While I do have family there who heavily subsidised our trip and spoiled the hell out of us while we were there, the stuff I actually paid for didn’t leave my wallet in a sorry state. I missed Europe and all the things I can get there but I am proud to say that as always, I kept my head and didn’t go wild. Whew! (Always a struggle though if you’re into beauty products and clothes!)

Also, as a disclaimer, I didn’t include everything and even had to cut off a lot of parts just to keep it this short! I kept the most interesting bits, though. The home stuff, I’ll probably talk about them in another entry.

You can check the list of products I mentioned after the video if you don’t want to go through the whole ordeal. 😉 I also put them in order so you can easily forward through the video if you’re only interested in a few products!

A friend of mine who saw this video first before I uploaded it also asked why I didn’t get anything from Sephora during the trip. Answer: Because of the low Ringgit, everything is cheaper in Malaysia at the moment! So it would have been a disservice to my wallet and shopping skills if I shopped for makeup there that’s readily available in KL. 😀

Also, I was able to keep my hands off the Charlotte Tillbury and Tom Ford lipsticks that I wanted with the logic that if I pass on them now and just buy them when I have more savings, then, I will be able to buy more stuff in Boots! Haha! Crazy, I know. I’ve been taking extra freelance work lately as I’ve been saving up for the high end stuff that I want for my next trip – which may be coming sooner than I thought! 😉

Enjoy!

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