Euro Trip - Day 2

Oct 2. Paris

Happy birthday Gandhiji

A lazy morning saw me get up past eight and Bijo and Karine were off to work by then and the kids to school. Bijo lent me his magic blue book of Paris and I devoured the breakfast that Karine had left me. The metro system was amazing and it so easy to figure your way with a map in hand that is available so easily and people seemed friendly especially since I always asked, “Bonjour! Parlez vous anglais?[Meaning do you speak English or at least I hope that’s what it means]”. It’s good to buy a day pass or a pass for the number of days you are going to be in Paris because you are very likely to use the public transport a lot.

The people are usually very well dressed in Paris and it’s not just about wearing expensive clothes but they have a good fashion sense. That means knowing color combinations, styles, hairdos, shoes, importance of accessories etc. I spent loads of time on the metro staring at the local citizens with my mouth wide open. First stop Arc de Triomphe. I took many pictures and saw loads of Japanese tourists who took many snaps too but they always ensured that they were there in the snaps too. I personally must have taken over 10 pictures for them, cute couples, single smiling guys, and old people in groups. It’s very typical Japanese [at least from whatever little I know of them] to take snaps of themselves every place they visit.

From Arc de Triomphe you take a look down Champs Elysees and you know exactly in which direction you need to be headed. One of the first things you will notice is that there is a McDonalds that is full and overflowing. So I was like wow ‘familiar food’ and to my horror the only veg thing you can have is French fries. Cheeseburger is beef. You do not have to actually say French fries in Paris; you say fries and it is understood that it’s French. I guess the same goes for toast and beans as well. Anyways, so loaded with my fries, and a hair band that made me look very bad I began my walk down the Champs Elysees. Brands, brands and more brands is what you see and if you have lived in Dubai in 2008 you know all of them. So the walk was a brisk one and soon I was past the Champs Elysee.

From there on, on both sides of the road was the exhibition of the French Air Force celebrating 50 years I guess. Falcons, missiles, helicopters, engines, small planes, big planes, weird planes, landing gear, rear end of planes and the likes was on exhibit. And the place was heavily guarded as well with armed personnel who did not allow you to get too close to the exhibits. But it was an amazing display of the development of the armed forces over the years and you could actually see how technology has progressed over the years especially in the field of figuring out how to end human life.

More of day 2 later on…