And Outside The Rain Fell...

Day 4- Wow. Just that word.

Waking up in darkness and to the sound of Patwa asking me to call my landlady, I spoke in a half sleepy tone asking Katia to do something about our electricity. Expressing shock, she promptly arrived in an hour, switching on a simple tripped meter. Sigh. Technology. Which reminds me, technology here is everywhere. The door to our apartment has a alphanumeric entry code, credit cards necessarily have a chip, petrol stations are (wo)man-less, cycles can be hired without anyone’s assistance. Everything is just automatic!

We had a breakfast of toast and jam, and set off to finish chores – calling cards, tickets for our trip, rice and tamil street. Splitting into two groups at Gard de Nord, Patwa and me headed towards Tam street and were awed. It was Sri-Lankan Tamilian stores everywhere, selling everything that can be passed off as Indian. As Indian students on a budget are, we asked nearly at every shop for the cheapest calling card available and got something that can be as good as it can get. Too bad we will not be in Paris for the next 10 days to use it, cause we indeed got tickets to our trip outdoors finally. Albeit at an expensive price.

Venturing further into Tam Street, we stumbled upon this rather ancient church Eglise Saint Bernard. A towering gothic spire and some fantastic gargoyle-ish creatures kept me fascinated. The thing about Paris, as I have observed thus far is that every avenue ends in something that would make you go “wow”. The city is just that beautiful.

Taking a deviation on our way back, we hit Ed Superstores, buying apples at a bargain (a Euro a kg), milk(Euro .7 a litre) and cornflakes, we met the other two guys and picked up a calling card. The journey back also had us seeing one of those famous Parisian labour strikes, men and women in orange demanding greater salaries. A silent march, with drums and placards marked their protest. Interesting. Very interesting.

We retraced our steps to home, stumbling upon another church, something nameless. It was unmarked on the map, on the roads leading to it, next to it itself. Almost mysterious.

Coming home to a lunch of parathas and maggi, we worked on our finals profiles till almost 5 p.m. Inevitable delays meant our Paris trip began at almost 6 p.m., with Patwa ji taking the charge as the lead guide. Walking by pretty cafes, women, avenues and buildings, we walked across a labyrinth of streets, all the time heading towards the Siene. No one really bothered which way we were headed, all that mattered was we were seeing things. And today, almost unanimously, we saw the Paris that the world sees. And we fell in love with it.

A city is difficult to love, and today, it almost came instantaneously. We first walked across to the Church of Mother Mary, or BEATAE, Marie Virigini Lavretanae. It was Patwa’s first time at church, and it vaguely reminded me of the school chapel, although it was much larger in size. Next, we walked to the Eglise Sainte Trinite, the Church of the Holy Trinity.






I have always loved churches. Their spookiness and towering structures, their cold silence, the candles, the tiny chapel chairs and the organ, they all just evoke a mixture of emotions – many of reminiscence of bygone school days. Lighting candles in these churches is expensive, although it is completely optional to pay up for them.

Paris, now darker, just got better. We stepped next into Galaries Lafayette, our first Parisian mall. And wow. I say it again, wow! As much as I love to shop, this one would make my bro Sau go crazy! Every single brand that you’ve gone “damn, that’s expensive” was here, and how! Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Versace, Chanel, Mont Blanc – and these are the brands that only I have heard of. A not-so-fantastic Burberry trial perfume still lingers on my hand, the lady at the counter was feeling a bit too altruistic, spraying around euros like that. I’m coming back to this mall before leaving, to see that fantastic dome again, to explore all of its 5-7 floors and to shop! I shall. Soon. Dad, money!

We crossed Avenue upon Avenue of fantastic architecture, fantastic wrought iron lamp-posts, gold embossed angelic statues anointing buildings, you can just absorb so much if you just keep your eyes open.

(Keeping the nose open would make you smoke as much cigarette smoke as a chain smoker). See the Academie Nationale de Music, honouring music greats such as Beethoven, Mozart and Spontini. Flanked by two beautiful statues holding what looked like musical instruments, it was my favourite building thus far in Paris


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Strutting across a few theatres and many more cafes, we reached the end of another avenue to find Place de la Magdalene. Almost reminding me of the Parthenon at Greece, it had superb pillars towering over us. We sat there many minutes, taking it all in. It awed us, to watch the Egyptian Obelisk across the road, to watch traffic zip by, to watch silly tourists use a flash at night.


To breathe in Paris is something few can do, and that’s when it began to sink in, we are at Paris. We are in Europe. Paris. Love. Fashion. Cafes. Cigarettes. Buildings. The Eiffel.

Eiffel?

But where was the Eiffel?

Elusive so far, our first glimpse of it was so totally unexpected that we went “wow, man, this is awesome” almost in tandem. To catch Eiffel towering in the background with its spotlight revolving across the light, a dazzling beam of lights – it was lights all over.

A few disasters with the traffic later, I almost decided I’m going to follow traffic rules here the way Parisians do. Religiously.

Some outstanding photographs, and we came to the Egyptian Obelisk, apparently a gift from the Egyptian empire to the French empire.

Here we were – at Place de la Concorde - standing in a square that was surrounded by few of the most beautiful architecture marvels in all directions. Imagine. Imagine facing the Louvre in one direction, the Arc de Triomphe on another, the French Parliament on another and the Temple of Magdalene on the last. We sat there for what seemed like an age, just admiring it. My first sight of the Eiffel with the Arc, sitting in that square, and I said aloud, “I would want to bring my Mum and Dad here”. It was really that beautiful, speaking about it would only dilute its charm. And what has not been said about the Eiffel before.





We walked down on the banks of the Siene, watching an occasional restaurant or tour-of-Paris-by-the-night boat steam by. We even saw a Segway!

Coming down to our last stop for the day, we wanted to see the Louvre from up close, and man, the Louvre at night was outstanding. The slow trickling fountain, calm water falling down into the gutter, it was music to my ears in the crystal clear cold chilly day. And the glass pyramid, the miles of the former palace, now museum glittering in beautiful tungsten lamps, a facade more beautiful than anything I have ever seen.

Music from a distant wind pipe player could be heard streaming through, a gang of American cyclists, a couple of skaters who were dancing on skates, everything was really really wonderfully Paris.




We walked back 2 kilometres to our home, crashing in around 11.


Dinner was bread and maggi, we had too much to pack, too much to do. The next 10 days will be good. Very very good.

Hitting the sack now.

And Day 3.

Today was bound to be packed. Morning started off with me coughing violently and a slight fever. Don’t worry if you are reading this, I’m all great. Nevertheless, I was to open a bank account in France, and armed with the documents and quickly revising my French, I stepped into the nearest branch of Societe Generale. I surprised myself with my French, and the bank manager was a kind chap who could as much English as I French. A half hour procedure, two signatures and an invitation to visit India later, I had a bank account!

Heading back home, I followed the morning’s bread-jam breakfast with a Khichdi lunch. We were to go to Norway tomorrow, but we are not getting reservations currently. So, for now, it’s stalled and we are exploring Paris tomorrow!

A brisk walk to class later, I was attending 3 hours of an arduous “Financial Analysis and Strategy”. It was Prof. Ramesh Gupta revisited, and that can never be fun.

I finally got my course allocated, which meant that I was going to attend another 3 hour course. Now, this professor, well, he was superb! He was ebullient, brimming with energy, spoke a lot of sense, and had a quirky US humour. Coming into class dot on time, I got the front row seat, and looking at a towering 6.4” man from that angle is never funny. He was raining spit too, but I thoroughly enjoyed his class.

We came back home switching 4 metros! Line 3 to 5 to 7 to 8. And then we hopped on to Carrefour and picked up bread, a bottle of milk and orange juice.

At home, we treated ourselves to the last vestige of lemon rice in the near future, and I don’t plan to do much now. Off to sleep. Need to get well soon again.

Tah!

P.S. The power suddenly went off. This will be a night spent in darkness, but we are all quite exhausted, so I don’t think it matters too much.

Day 2 -> Paris

As compared to Day 1, Day 2 was quite a fizzle. Or so I thought. Promptly waking up at 6 am for the first day of classes in a new country, in a new world, I was ready for action. Helping myself to a quick breakfast of only an apple (juicy, red, very yummy, cost 0.3 Euros), a muffler and a monkey cap on my head, we set off towards college. It was indeed funny carrying heavy rucksacks to class, we had no other alternative indeed.

Walking along the roads of Paris is always beautiful. The city seems to be alive at 8 in the morning, the roads buzzing with traffic, men in superb suits cycling along on the cycle tracks, women in outstanding hairdo and beautiful dresses walking along, going about their work. The one thing you notice here is how staid the colours people wear here are – it’s always an overcoat in black or grey. And nearly every person here has their hair done beautifully (around 20 Euros, less 10% for etudiant).

The mopeds and bikes people use here are crazy – contrary to my perception, there are far too many two wheelers here, in far too many shapes, sizes, and even colours. I’ll post pictures soon of fancy scooters and scooterettes. Everyone here seems to enjoy zipping around in them. We reached class around 8.45, got ourselves entry speaking in broken French without an identity card and settled down into our first class. The professors so far haven’t marvelled me, but well, that’s that. People from other schools(especially European) are far too enthusiastic, not particularly the best though. My second class got cancelled for some reason. That gave me an opportunity to finish some admission formalities. We then went around a short walk around ESCP, with the magnificent Saint Ambroise looming large. It was just beautiful, staring into those almost Gothic spires and the plain, dual toned stones blocks. Too bad it wasn’t open, else I would have loved to see it from the inside. I will be doing that soon anyhow.




We walked on to the G20 supermarket, and my suspicion came true, beer indeed is a lot cheaper than mineral water from the alps. Good that I’m a teetotaller. Most breads have eggs in it, and I can now say I’m almost an expert and reading ingredients in French. Almost. We lunched on, believe it or not, a yummy banana each, and lots of around .5 litres of mixed fruit juice each. It wasn’t much, but we were just preparing for dinner, I guess.



Another class got done, and I once got lost in the blocks at ESCP. It’s not much of a college, a lot like Jain college in the kind of things it’s students do, and therefore, as a corollary, I love it completely. I love the way people carry off their hair here. Would get one hair cut before I come. Just one. Now I’m waiting for my hair to grow up.

At 8, when our last class ended, we were exhausted. The backpacks with the laptop seemed an enormous burden now. And we decided we’d invest in going back home by train. Probably the best decision in the day. We switched 3 quick trains, armed with a map and a destination, Gard du Nord.


We happened to stumble open this Pakistani chap here (indeed, it’s like the Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis share a unique cross-cultural bond) who helped us to the nearest “Indian” street which was a minutes walk away. Not too long, it had many Indian restaurants, a few Bangla stores and lots of South Asians.It was a feast to our eyes.

We jumped into the nearest Bangla store and picked up Ready-to-eat Parathas ( 2 packets of 5 for 1.6 euros a piece). We were starving, and this seemed cheap! We also found directions to a few Sri-Lankan Tam stores, which we would be rummaging through soon. We then took the arduous journey home, and the laptops were really proving to be a burden now with their weight. We happened to stop over at Carrefour supermarket, and it was almost a “Yippee!” moment when we found bread without egg at .69 Euros for a huge loaf. Grabbing on to it, we picked up butter and 2.5 kgs of potatoes (which I don’t like at all, but it’s vegetarian atleast!) and doing so, picked up our breakfast for tomorrow.

We almost crashed into home, and cooked almost right away. We picked Chana Masala (MTR Ready-to-Eat, I highly recommend it now), “microwave-d” it. We picked parathas, heating it. And together, huddled into our small kitchen, we just had the most delicious meal of our lives. Starvation and exhaustion don’t augur well together, but with food, especially Indian food, it all just vanishes. We gobbled 8 parathas (I did the cooking), and topped it off with plate-fulls of lemon rice each. Bless Tardi. Prits does an amazing job of managing it all. And I like cooking!

Prits and Tardi then drew out and elaborate plan for the planned journey to Scandinavian Europe this Thursday. I quickly arranged my documents and was to open a back account the first thing in the morning. Tired, sick, almost feverish and coughing violently, I slept like a log, prepared for another day tomorrow in fascinating Paris.

Day 1 : Bangalore – Mumbai – Frankfurt – Paris

It was a day everyone had been waiting for, for as long as I had first announced it. Mom, Dad, Bro and Bhabhi, everyone had come to see me off at the airport. It is always an emotional moment, I try not to look back as it can get teary at times, but this time, it was all smiles and a hasty goodbye.

Mumbai was uneventful, and I stopped over at Raut’s place, a beautiful sea-facing apartment in Versova (thanks to Pritesh). Life looked awesome going forward. We reached airport far too early, and after all the security checks, we were all ready and set for boarding.

The extra weight we carried was all adjusted amongst ourselves, which meant we faced little problem checking in. A decent in-cabin dinner, a seat refused to recline, a sumptuous breakfast and an on-time flight, I had little to complain about.

And then, Frankfurt. Fraport. The size of the airport was mindboggling. Everything was sparkling, and there were miles and miles of shops, check-in gates, and few annoying security checks. And efficiency. Everything worked to the clock, and we actually were able to board our transit flight quite comfortably, with only one hour between the two flights. A pleasant surprise. What amazed me about the Europe I had seen so far(just one airport, rated to be amongst the best in the world) was the way technology comfortably imbibed in everything you did. Whether it was checking in yourself or your baggage shifting flights without requiring any intervention, it all works seamlessly.



We reached Paris’ Charles de Gaul airport, but not before catching a glimpse of the towering Eiffel on a clear Autumn day. Flights landed and took-off like almost a taxi service. And the airport was old, almost a labyrinth, and nearing dilapidation. A super quick transit rail took us from the airport to the RER station terminals, and luggage hardly ever proved to be a problem. We took the RER from CDG to Gurd de Nord, and it was then that our Paris experience started. Paris was around 17 degrees, pleasant, with a cold wind blowing across.


Thanks to our landlady, we decided to walk around the station, finding our way to our apartment. Armed with a map and our luggage, we followed what we could from the map, and asked directions in the little French we knew.

I’ve heard so much of the French being rude, and it was indeed a surprise when an old gentleman patiently explained the way to our apartment from the station, and almost backtracked on his cycle to ensure we were not lost! Blessed be he, cause indeed we were quite lost.

The buildings, of what we’ve seen, are rather similar. French windows, clean lines and two-toned buildings. I’ll try observing tomorrow in greater detail. Sigh. Thanks to the map, we reached our place fine, and it was everything as was promised.


Fully furnished, it already had everything we could have asked for all ready. There are some issues with the internet, nevertheless, the landlady has been most helpful and the place is delightful, clean, cosy and very comfortable.

We had to reach college in an hour and a half, and we did so after helping ourselves to a quick lunch of two servings of maggi. The first one had far too much water, the second a little too less masala, but it was amongst the most delicious meals I’ve ever had. What with the hunting around for the apartment in a totally unknown city for more than an hour!


We figured the quickest way to get to the college was taxi, but heck, it would cost too much! We hopped onto the Subway (which is different from the RER Metro system, and probably more connected) and paid almost INR 100 for a 8 minute ride to our college. It required one stop over at Gard de’ East, and switching trains.



Walking the Avenue de la Republique made me realize there is so much of the Cafe culture here, with one dotting every street and delightful Parisians smoking away and sipping on to their holy water. It’s a way of life here, I guess. Smokers are everywhere! And there are far too many. Cigarette butts line the road, but somehow, it fits in. Everything so far does. It just seems right.
ESCP-Europe in many ways reminded me of Jain College, and I’d confirm once I have more details on hand. We finished what little work we had and decided to walk back to our apartment, to save on money and to see Paris in the best way it can be seen- on foot.




And that’s when I realized how beautiful the city is. It was massive, full of people sporting fantastic hair-dos and spectacular clothes, where mopeds zipped by the streets amidst BMWs, yet stopped every so often to let pedestrians cross streets. Dedicated cycle tracks, brimming cafes, light rain, unafraid pigeons, beautiful women and superb cars- I knew I would like it here.
We reached home in what was the shortest way possible by foot, stopping every so often to check grocery prices or see if we could anything vegetarian. We picked up a few apples for tomorrow’s breakfast. And came back to clean up a room that was thoroughly messed up. Katia, our landlady, was rather sweet, effortless handed us out instructions on everything we might need and promised to sort out our internet problems soon. She seemed good.

We settled in finally. To our home. In Paris. In the heart of Paris. The feeling is beginning to sink in. To stay in Paris is awesome.

But home was home. We rounded up the day with Lemon rice prepared by yours’ truly and TarDi, made more delicious by a hunger, a body clock fighting to fit in. And we watched Dil Chahta Hai.

Eurotrip has begun.

And how!