Tough Days

They loom ahead of me. A time for tough decisions and even tougher actions. Thoughts, decisions and actions that will change my life forever.

All for the best; that's my only comfort for now.

The days past haven't been extremely great as well. I went on a short trip to Gokarna, Udupi and Mangalore last weekend. It was alternately depressing and exhilirating. Depressing to see discrimination against Indians in India at Gokarna. Exhilirating to smell the Konkan/Malabar countryside. Divine to be in the Shri Krishna temple at Udupi after almost exactly one year.

Minor troubles keep me company; I am making friends with them now. C'est la Vie.

Scribbled this late yesterday.

Three Links

1. The Stuttgart pics
2. The Milan pics
3. A poem, after long

Bits of Paris

One of the most important things to have in your possession while you are in Paris is a map of the Paris underground, the Metro I mean. It’s available freely and though it can look a little intimidating at first, one can easily figure out what to do pretty quickly. The important thing to remember is that all trains travel from one terminus to another, unlike Mumbai where they don’t necessarily do so. The second thing to know is exactly which platform to go to, which can be figured out once you follow the correct colours that indicate each train route. And yes, lest you think that the distances between stations are great – No, they are not. Usually, the trains don’t take more than a minute between stations. Paris isn’t really a big city in that sense unless you want to travel into the far-flung suburbs, which themselves aren’t too far off actually.

I did take a while to figure out that the doors of the carriages didn’t open by themselves and had to be manually activated. Once I got the knack of it, I had fun getting off. No pun intended.

The best thing you can do to yourself is buy one of those a24-hour-All-Zone passes. They cost around 3.5 euros on weekends and cover zones 1 – 3 (zone 3 being the suburbs). On weekdays, you pay around 5.5 euros for a pass that gives you access to all stations/routes on zones 1 and 2. The helpful attendant at the counter explained the reason for this – something about more youth traveling on weekends and therefore the Govt. subsidizing on the rates.

If you are looking to do some random shopping without really bothering to hunt around too much (as I did, coz I didn’t have a lot of time), you go to Chatelet Les-Halles and take the escalator to Forum Des Halles. It’s a huge mall where you get pretty much everything that can be bought. The only shop I missed was probably a shop for musical instruments.

It’s not easy to buy a lot though, when you are earning in Indian Rupees, spending in Euros can prove to be quite expensive. So you really need to be laden with cash in order to spend a lot. I managed to pick up some really good stuff though, as mentioned in one of my earlier posts.

Of course, if money isn’t really a problem for you then you can go down to Saint-Germain or Odeon or still better, the road that takes you to Champs D’Elysees from Saint-Germain. This road is lined with fashion houses from YSL to Gucci to Armani and ends grandly on the Champs D’Elysees with Louis Vuitton. My French connection told me that there are long queues of Japanese who wait from early morning to get into the LV showroom to buy stuff. Allegedly they sell the same stuff in Japan for twice or thrice the price. As a result, LV has now limited the number of clothes etc. that the Japanese can buy. Quite enterprising, indeed!

I did walk down Champs D’Elysees (described by a shopkeeper of Tamil origin, as the beautifulest avenue in the world) but I didn’t really get all enamoured by it. For sure it was quite beautiful and all that, but I somehow expected something more natural. Of course, the trees lining the avenue on both sides were natural indeed but somehow the lighting that they hung on them (which is supposedly the crowning glory?) didn’t strike me as ‘that great’. The cafes on the UGC side of CDE were nice though and I had a nice cappuccino with the French connection. My cousin, who is a die-hard Parisienne now claims that only tourists actually find CDE beautiful and romantic; the French quite hate it and she personally prefers the walkways by the side of the Seine for a romantic hangout. I agree.

She also told me that the junction near the Arc D’Triomphe was quite a dangerous one and a number of accidents happen there. So I avoided getting too close to it. Had to rely on the camera’s zoom and a steady hand to get good close-up pics of the engravings on the Arc. Something went wrong somewhere. And I ended up breaking a rib or two in a bike crash a few miles from Paris. A few thousand miles to be precise - in Bangalore.

I also went for a ride on the Giant Ferris wheel at the other end of the CDE. Believe it or not, it was only my second time on a giant wheel. And I was alone this time as well. Managed to get a rare photograph that had both the Eiffel Tower and the CDE in the same frame.

The pics from my Paris jaunt are here. More explanations and commentaries, enclosed herewith.

The First Instalment

“Hello! Shall we go?” said a familiar voice that I had heard hitherto only over international calls. Only this time, the voice was barely two paces behind me. I turned around to look. It took me a while, clad as I was in a bulky jacket with the rucksack and overnight bag on my shoulders.

That was the first time I met Dee. At Milano Centrale (pronounced CHENTRRRALEY), at the entrance to platform no. 13. I had arrived barely 10 minutes ago from Torino Porto Nuovo.

The stay at Torino had been okay. The meeting even better. The shopping – zero, unless you counted the postcards. The train was at 7:10 am; I arranged for the taxi to pick me up at 6:15 am from the hotel. It was fun communicating with the Italians. They spoke little or no English at all. I still managed to have colourful conversations with my hosts in the hotel, with both of us gesticulating and waving and writing and sketching. I learnt that breakfast was prima colazione, lunch was pranzo and dinner was cena (Che-Na). We had deep discussions over the usage of masculine and feminine nouns and were ecstatic on discovering that Hindi and Italian shared similar nuances (which was not surprising for me actually, but I played along). I told them tales of India and they told me tales of Italy. It was a lot of fun, and then I had to go for dinner. So we bade Buona Cena to each other and made off. They arranged for taxi to come at Sei E Quarto (6.15), which it did. I reached Torino station pretty fast, thanks to empty roads. Managed to take a few pics on the way.

The only trouble I had was when the 'hot' water I used to shower at 5 am in the morning suddenly turned cold, and I had to finish the shower with ice-cold water in the region of 1-2 degrees. It actually turned out to be pleasant after a while.

Which reminds me, I have some photos here. These are from the various airports etc. I didn’t quite know how to segregate them by country since they are mostly trans-European in nature. So I just decided to classify the set separately.

It’s also a lil easier to go through (though there are close to 92 pics here) since the overall Europe collection is well over 500 photos!!!

Trigger-happy, anyone?

Long Overdue

Yes, it is. Never found the time once I returned to just sit down and write down all my experiences. And the way 2005 ended for me, the experiences just kept piling on right till the last minutes of the year. So if December started with a short, hectic and hopefully successful tour of Europe, it ended with a growl from King Kong. Add to that - really late nights in Mumbai and a near-death motorcycle crash in Bangalore barely a week ago, and I had the most happening month in a long time.

Last, but not the least, a bittersweet meeting with Dee in Milan.

I cannot possibly write about everything in one single post. Also, I am still really constrained on the time front, so I will keep it short and simple. I will probably add to it from time to time as time goes by.

So here goes…

After my last post, I shut down the laptop and got into the waiting car. Arya came along with me to the airport. I wasn’t nervous or anything, was just hoping that all would go well. I was ill-prepared for the trip – I hadn’t a shred of warm clothing on me and frankly, I wasn’t quite sure that the trip would happen at all, given the previous close shaves.

Anyway, I found myself sitting at the window in AF0135 from Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai to Charles De Gaulle Airport, Paris. Soon, I was to realize how similar CS and CDG were to each other…everywhere in Paris, I could see statues of CDG sitting on a prancing horse, sword pointing straight ahead. Not unlike statues of Shivaji in Mumbai.

So anyway, I had a three hour stopover in CDG enroute Stuttgart. It was 2 degrees Celsius outside, but the airport was okay. It was 22 degrees when I took off from Mumbai. I deliberately opted for transit via Paris instead of Frankfurt, so I could show entry via France. More on that some other time. I whiled away time by chit-chatting with the gun-toting commandoes guarding the airport. This is usual for me and I quite enjoy giving tips on improving security stuff. I did get some weird stares from a lot of people, probably coz I was carrying the laptop in a backpack? This was a cross I had to bear throughout my travel in Europe. I did get mistaken for a Spaniard a number of times; only a few people thought I was Indian…

It was quite an experience to travel the way I did…

Dec 14, Mumbai – Paris – Stuttgart
Dec 16, Stuttgart – Milan – Turin
Dec 17, Turin – Milan – Paris
Dec 20, Paris – Mumbai
Dec 24, Mumbai – Bangalore

Though I didn’t get an awful lot of time in each city, but I did get to see a cross of cultures from one country to another. I also got to see the lovely Alps, albeit from a distance. I flew over them at least 4 times, and managed to take some photographs as well. Next time, I hope I can actually get closer.

Going to Europe at this time of the year had one big disadvantage. It was getting quite cold and I had to deal with sub zero temperatures. Losing sensation of one’s nose can be quite an experience as I realized.

There was also one big advantage. It was X’Mas and I was in time for all the discounts. I got to see some lovely X’mas markets and places done up with lights n stuff, all decked up for X’mas. I didn’t do much shopping though, just picked up a good leather jacket, a pair of hefty trekking boots and this headlight-torch I have been craving for a long time. I did all my personal shopping in Paris though, didn’t really want to lug around too much weight.

Had some amazing experiences in Europe. The GPS driven automobiles in Germany probably topped the list. It was also so good to see pedestrians walking on the pavements as opposed to the main roads, like in India.

To be continued…