Disneyland, Sacré cœur and skeletons with my brother

I got visitors from Finland for the second time here when my brother who is inter-railing in Europe, stopped in Paris for some days. He came about two weeks ago on Friday, so just perfectly before the weekend for me to spend more time with him. The most interesting destination for us was Disneyland. H got there for the first time but for me and my brother that was already the second time. Not that I would have remembered much... Actually almost every place looked like I would have never seen them before, which might partly be true since Disney has got many new famous story tales since my childhood. The queues for the rides, especially the most "hardcore" rides, were long but there was much to see also outside the rides themselves.

The castle of Sleeping Beauty in the center of the park.

The theme park is divided in 4 areas. One of them is Frontierland. It looked like entering the Wild West with wooden houses and red rocks. We took a boat that went around an island that had the most interesting-looking roller coaster. Unfortunately the estimated queuing time was one hour so we decided to skip it.

On the other side of the central square there is Discoveryland that looked mostly having the theme from Star Wars. I have to say I was impressed with the robots they had there (and actually many robots around the whole park) because they seemed quite real. It was not only one part of the robots moving but the mouth was synchronized to the speaking and the arms and other body parts moved in a surprisingly real-life way. I enjoyed very much the Buzz Lightyear lazer gun war where the visitors got to collect points by shooting the stars and the bad robots from Toy Story.

Since there has always been living an adventurer in me, the most interesting area in Disneyland was Adventureland. Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, the dark caves where you actually didn't know the right direction, a robe bridge and a house in a big tree. I felt like a kid again! Taking the water ride of Pirates of the Caribbean was nostalgic because that became our favorite ride during the last visit. Though it had also changed a little bit due to the new movies. But a bigger change had happened with the Indiana Jones roller coaster that my parents have been talking about. I didn't take as a child but (/because) they told me it went backwards. This time I was more than willing to experience that so no wonder it ended up to be a disappointment because the passengers were facing forward all the time.

After experiencing the dangerous adventures it was time to feel at ease with the Disney princesses in Fantasyland. The funniest place there was the labyrinth of Alice in Wonderlands and the castle of the Queen of Hearts in the middle of the labyrinth. Even though Disneyland was maybe smaller than we expected and we couldn't take many (exciting) rides, it was a great way to spend a free day and live in a fairy tale for a while!

I could still use my next free day, Wednesday, with my brother and we had decided to visit the catacombs of Paris. The underground caves filled with skeletons was a tempting and a strange idea at the same time. Nevertheless, we had to pick another place to visit because of a strike that had at the catacombs. We were disappointed but somehow not that surprised. So, in stead we took metros to Sacré cœur. I had been at the church at least three times before but I had never climbed the 300 steps to the main tower to see the view from there. Good exercise and a good view!

"Life is beautiful, and you are like it!"

After Sacré cœur we needed to find a restaurant selling frog legs because that was one thing on my brother's list to do in France. Google Maps is a friend in this situation too, but many of the restaurants were selling those only as starters and with the price of 12-15 euros. Finally after walking and metros and walking we finally found a restaurant selling frog legs as a main dish. After the late lunch we still had time to go to the Natural history museum's paleontology part. Skeletons, skeletons and skeletons. I don't remember seeing that many skeletons anywhere before. My brother was lucky to visit Paris before he is 26 years old because he got inside to the museum for free, just like he would have got inside for free to many other museum here.

Some sea animals.

Also dinosaurus