And Outside The Rain Fell...

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!

And the story begins...
Picture a young boy, his life more or less set. Many hundred hours spent in front of his accountancy books, content with the idea of ghastly 20 hours article ship. And that’s when the roller coaster ride began.

Today, I have a long to-do list set forth in front of me. There’s a lot I can tick off on that list now, a lot more is still to be done.