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Leigh Halfpenny carrying a ball over a line during rugby practice.

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Welcome to my blog! I hope that you’ll find what you’re seeking here, from the unexplained to the unexplored, with a healthy dose of wonder—and occasionally, a small pinch of grumpiness.

Happy reading!

Justine

msunexpectedblog

I mean, did you even go to Santorini if you didn’t take one of those obnoxious pictures?*

*No one was hurt in the taking of this photograph, despite some wench’s best attempt to knock me over the parapet.

A couple more pictures from Santorini before we mo

A couple more pictures from Santorini before we move on to my beloved Crete ❤️

Despite all its flaws, Santorini is magnificent. It is said to have over 500 churches, but because many of them are private family churches, there’s no reliable survey.

A couple of views from the island of Thera (Santor

A couple of views from the island of Thera (Santorini, Greece) from Oía and Thera (also the name of the main town).

If you swipe to the first video and put the sound on, you’ll hear some bouzouki, which is both charming and a cliché.

The second video is that of a donkey train going downhill, since most cliffside towns are entirely inaccessible by car (which is a good thing, because the tourists don’t much care about the environment on the island otherwise).

The last video shows of a view of the entire caldera (the volcanic crater formed by the collapse of the magmatic chamber that gave birth to these islands) and the islands of Theresia (“small Thera”), Nea Kameni (“new burnt”), and Palea Kameni (“old burnt”) in the distance.

Very few things make me happier than being on a sh

Very few things make me happier than being on a ship at sunrise.

Santorini is magnificent, but like many magnificent places, it is capricious and difficult, as you’ll see in my next few posts. Still, it was on my bucket list of things to see, and I’m glad I did.

This is a throwback. I’ve lost that scarf since,

This is a throwback. I’ve lost that scarf since, I think. I miss it.

The things you see when walking on the Seine emban

The things you see when walking on the Seine embankments!

I found this to be of particular interest: the dates on the side of the old fire station mark the respective heights of notable floods of the river. The 1910 mark, right at the top, towers at 8.62 m (± 28 ft). Le Marais practically disappeared under water, and it took over three months for the river to recede to its bed, leaving devastation in its wake (including typhoid and scarlet fever, and the loss of all the publishers’ stocks).

Funny how History is hidden in plain sight if you know where to look.

You know me, I like an upscale brasserie. I’d

You know me, I like an upscale brasserie.

I’d never tried caviar before, and our visit to @fouquets on the Champs Élysées was the only excuse I needed to lean on my extravagant side.

We ate from the set menu (house burrata, basil and rocket chutney, free-range poultry supreme with tarragon, and all-chocolate variation ) and concluded with a “noisette” (which is Parisian for “espresso and cream”) and a little Armagnac.

Everything was delicious, fresh, and transformed with minimal alterations to the original quality of the products. And of course, Fouquet’s proved that the ancient wisdom according to which you can learn all you need to know about a restaurant by tasting its bread to be absolutely true. The service was brilliant. We got to talk with our waiter, a rather formidable young man who is passionate about Champagne and all the good things.

I highly recommend eating there at least once.

Four paintings by Vincent Van Gogh at Musée d’O

Four paintings by Vincent Van Gogh at Musée d’Orsay (they have many more). It was very moving to see them “in person”, all the some since my fiancé loves Van Gogh and had stars in his eyes upon entering the 5th floor gallery.

✨Portrait of the Artist, 1887

✨Church of Auvers-sur-Oise, 1890. Van Gogh painted it one month before his death. I love how the church seems to dance in the night.

✨Portrait of the artist, 1889. Musée d’Orsay describes the background colours as “light turquoise and absinthe”, which I really like.

✨Doctor Paul Gachet, 1890. The humanity of this painting never fails to break my heart.

Story time! Musée d’Orsay (Paris), Friday morn

Story time!

Musée d’Orsay (Paris), Friday morning. There’s a hell of a queue.

At the entrance, they have security guards, metal detectors, and x-Ray machines for your bags like you’d see at the airport.

“Excuse me ma’am, is there a knife in your purse?” the guard asks me.

“A knife in my pu—? Oh merde.”

Yes, there is a knife in my purse. A really cool Swiss Army knife that my dad gave me, and which I use to cut apples, screw random loose screws, and do all the things you do with a Swiss Army knife.

Merde. Merde. Merde.

“Please wait here,” he says while signalling to his colleague that there’s a problem.

I’m slightly panicking because I don’t want to get arrested, and I don’t want to give them my Swiss Army knife for fear of never seeing it again.

The colleague asks me to follow him.

Instead of, you know, making my life hell, he walks us to one of the ticket counters, jumping the entire queue.

“Please purchase your tickets here”, he says. We do. Ten seconds later, he walks us to the cloak room and politely asks me to leave my knife there.

I leave my coat at the cloak room with my knife in the pocket.

“I’m so ashamed,” I say.

“Don’t be. It happens more often than you think,” he says.

The guy behind the counter jokes that next time, I should bring some charcuterie too and we’ll all have lunch together.

Long story short, being an idiot got me the VIP treatment at Musée d’Orsay.

Follow me for more unhinged travel tips.

Had lunch at Pavyllon, a Michelin Star restaurant

Had lunch at Pavyllon, a Michelin Star restaurant led by Chef @yannickalleno. Forgot to take a picture of the main course. Discovered that I’m allergic to oysters. 10/10, no notes.

Oh Paris, you are SO dramatic. [View from the 5t

Oh Paris, you are SO dramatic.

[View from the 5th floor of Musée d’Orsay]

You need to see the Kunstmuseum.

You need to see the Kunstmuseum.

I’m desperately in love with the choice of insta

I’m desperately in love with the choice of installations at the @kunstmuseum.nl. I cannot overstate how brilliant it is. This is bucket list-worthy.

More stairs from the @kunstmuseum.nl because they’re really, really cool.

Delft is so pretty that it should probably be ille

Delft is so pretty that it should probably be illegal.

This is now a @kunstmuseum.nl stan account.

This is now a @kunstmuseum.nl stan account.

Beautiful Alfons Mucha exhibition at the splendid

Beautiful Alfons Mucha exhibition at the splendid Kunstmuseum in The Hague. Very comprehensive approach to Mucha’s work and time as well as some very rare pieces. If you want to see it (and you should), there’s only one week left.

The “Stalin Monument” in The Hague (Netherland

The “Stalin Monument” in The Hague (Netherlands) by Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, 1986. This installation is located in a phone booth by the Kunstmuseum, and the lamp turns itself on at night.
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In Madurodam (Den Haag), you can see the best of T

In Madurodam (Den Haag), you can see the best of The Netherlands at a 1/25 scale, and it’s lovely. A couple of rides lay the history of the country in a whimsical way, and you’ll learn how windmills and steam machines dried the sea and lakes to create the polders, why New York is no longer called New Amsterdam, or board an old but pretty KLM Douglas DC-3 Dakota for a virtual flight over The Netherlands. Plus, you’ll be able to challenge yourself and discover how many wheels of Gouda you can lift (or how many of them you weight), and you might even end up with a pair of those iconic Delftware clogs. What a nice day out!

What a lovely day out in Madurodam!

What a lovely day out in Madurodam!

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