EuroTale: Part 2
The following are my closing diary entry on Italy trip:
.... we reached Venice at about 12:30pm. Rome was my primary destination, while for Jhawar it was Venice. His enthu regarding offer tickets had led me to believe that he was also aware of other practicalities in Venice. My illusion disappeared upon reaching Venezia Mestre. Jhawar was totally oblivious of the local travel and accommodation.
After some searching and shedding a few extra bucks, we finally got hold of a couple of A/C cottages by the beach at camping village FUSINA. The rest of the day was spent in navigating the thoroughly confusing alleys of Venice. Its a nightmare with a map in your hand and without a map its rather suicidal. The best part of the trip was however, the return ferry ride at night. The wind and the lights made it a memorable journey on water.

Its 2:30 at night and I'm the only person awake at level 3 of Terminal 1. The departure board is filled with flights from 6:00 to 6:55 am, numbering 40 in all. With no sign of LH1355, I don't know how long I'll have to wait before check-in starts. On top of that the possibility of luggage overweight and the transfer at Frankfurt is constantly bugging me.


Lets switch over to the Paris trip. Most of it is taken from my diary entry at the airport, with some interesting incidents thrown in, that I couldn't recollect it that night. Here it goes:
Paris trip was a special one. I had convinced Bishu to join us, which finally materialized our plans of a Eurotrip together. With my work progressing decently, I left far Paris with high hopes and a fair amount of money to spare. Erlangen junta joined us at Stuttgart ZOB (Zentraler Omnibus Bahnhof ... phew .... Central Bus Station) and we boarded the Eurolines to Paris.
The bus was a bloody lousy one. Our expectations of European luxury coach was badly hurt. There was very little leg space and on top of that the A/C was shutdown. The night was not particularly comfortable (especially after the 'provocative' sleeping style of a lady in the adjacent seat, which sparked 'interesting' discussion with Bishu and some 'dirty' thoughts!!) and next morning Paris greeted us with clouds and drizzle. It took us quite some time to understand the "Entangled thread" ... the Paris metro and roadmap. While most of the group was busy pouring over the map, I hungrily stared at a girl in pink, who was apparently quite amused at our attempts at deciphering and deciding which route to take. At the same time, I also appreciated the French government's effort to promote "safe amour" by setting up automats for 'rubber' alongside metro ticket counters. My mind drifted off to "Metro Rail bhajan"s and "Paris underground bhajan"s!! Finally, the confusion was over and junta darted off to the nearest metro gate. Unfortunately, my "observations" had to be cut short and giving one last "top-down scan" (which was appropriately returned!!) and I embarked on my Tour de Paris.
After learning it the hard way in Rome and Venice, we first scouted for accommodation. After a failed attempt, we did find decent accommodation. This greatly boosted our confidence and dumping our bags, we prepared ourselves for a hard days sight seeing. Little did we realise how long and hard the day was going to be!!!
We started off from the banks of Seine. Pont Neuf was the first landmark to fall, followed by Notre Dame. Along the way, we came across the Paris Police Headquarters, with views of a man in handcuff being taken in. Before coming to Paris, I had vowed not to have packed food or McDonalds during this trip. Thankfully, I didn't have to break my vow for my first meal. So, while others were relishing their "economical options" and the "gay parade" (no prize for guessing who enjoyed it the most, ... after about an hour when I finally found him, the smile on his face was to good to miss. He seems to have experienced some mixture of visual orgasm and intellectual nirvana!! More on the gay parade later), we (Rajat, Reddy and me) had lunch at a small restaurant near Norte Dame. The 3 course lunch consisted of warm bacon salad (awesome), grilled salmon with pasta, served with enough cheese to kill the entire population of Paris of arterios sclerosis twice over. It tasted so-so. I washed it down with a glass of ice cold Chardonny. The dessert, Chocolate mousse, was however, out of this world. With our tummy filled to satisfaction, we set off to Tour de Paris: part deux.
Now lets have a closer look at the gay parade. After finishing lunch, it took me some time to locate Bishu, who was apparently oblivious of the passing time. Mermerized at the level of freedom of expression that was encouraged in France, he got sucked into the whirlpool of celebrations (which primarily consisted of dancing in front of a convoy of trucks which displayed bright messages in French supporting homosexuality and being sprayed upon by liquids of questionable composition. Though they apparently looked harmless, I can bet that it was not distilled water). With some effort, I pulled him out from a group of 6.5 feet negro enunchs. Believe it or not, for a few moments, standing in that precarious situation, I contemplated with horror, the possibility of being 'violated' by homosexuals. Thankfully, my worst fear did not materialize .... phew. Curiously enough, the gay parade seems to have ignited some hormonal explosion amongst couples, who were kissing each other great passion and presenting great photo opportunities. But as is the case with budding photographers, I was totally lost in the "sea of amour" and cursed the lip-sucking, tonsil-probing deluge all around me.
Away from the celebrations, we reached a more desirable section of Paris along the banks of Seine. We got ourselves a 2 day pass for the boat shuttle on the Seine. It was a nice and worthwhile experience, especially for the fabulous views of Notre Dame that it yielded. It also reminded me of "Before Sunset". Amidst clearing skies and a view of the Eiffel from water, we disembarked at Champs Elysees. This grand boulevard (along with Broadway) is probably one of the best known road stretches in the world. With the Arc di Triomph, at its end, it seemed to have some resemblance with our very own Rajpath and India Gate. The showrooms of the best known fashion brands line this street. After lots of snaps on the zebra crossing and around the arc, and some well deserved rest on its steps, we moved on. It is amazing to think that, we were walking on the same road through which Hitler's army crushed France and entered Paris. But unlike the Colosseum or the Sistine, it didn't feel of smell like history.
Next destination was Eiffel Tower. We got off at PASSY (the reason for mentioning it in capitals will be explained later). The very mention of the name caused someone's eyes to spark with excitement and hope. It took to me quite some time to determine its actual cause .... the waves building up inside needed a weak spot to burst forth. That poignant moment came after a few hours, when years of wait, gave way to an honest confession!!! But for the time being we were engrossed by the view of the Eiffel and the fact that it grew in size with every step.
The initial hurdles of the long queue and the temporary closure of the top level, failed to deter us and finally we reached the summit of Eiffel, as the dying glow of the dusk faded out and the "City of Lights" was coming to life. It was an unforgettable view. As I was relishing the view, it came. Probably, it was too much for him to hold back ... and I was pointed towards the approximate direction of something whose abbreviation is ISP. The confession consisted of the full form of ISP, the feeling elicited by the name PASSY and a dreamy eyed description of certain flashbacks. Its rather cheap to discuss about someone's private life, so I won't reveal the details of the confession. But, if this alumni of ISP happens to come across this blog (which is highly unlikely), then please pull him out of what he described as, "Its a sweet dream, ..... I don't want to come out of it"!!
Once down the Eiffel, I came across Jhawar- who inspite of empty pockets, was beaming in the glory of having banged the hell out of a hooker in Amsterdam, the previous night (sorry for being so crude ... but the moment can't be better described).The marvelous view and the light show, extracted its revenge in other ways. It was midnight, when we left Eiffel and too late to find transportation to the campsite. So inspite of having accommodation, we prepared ourselves for a night out in Paris. After reluctantly stuffing a long-chicken, some fries and a coke, we set out on our nocturnal adventure at 2:30 am.
After aimlessly roaming in a nightbus (N11 if I remember correctly) and being laughed at a couple of girls for almost falling asleep, we reached Champs Elysees. Instantly, the scene transformed from deserted streets to party atmosphere. The entire stretch was filled with people- drinking, dancing, kissing and returning home after a hard night of partying. We were surprised to see so many people, most of whom were extremely well dressed, at the dead of the night. While we were in the western part of the city, sampling the fashion sense of Parisians, its worthwhile to describe what others were doing. Kishore, Luthra and Chetan - being chased by lap dancers and prostitues in Paris's red light district, Jhawar and Faddu - camping out under the Eiffel and relishing their "loss of V" the previous night, Rohan 'uncle' ... sleeping snugly at a friends place. Now back to our story. Fortunately, Champs Elysees helped us in passing our time and later we took another night bus to Nation ( pronounced Nasio ... French is a treacherous language for outsiders!!) for the first metro at 5 am. After some drama (which included falling asleep while sitting on the rail of the bus stand) and drizzle, we reached the campsite at 7:30 am. We set our alarms at 10:30 am and hit the bed.
The alarms failed to wake us up. I finally got up at 11:45 and hurriedly set off for the final day. the primary destinations being the Louvre and a good restaurant. Expecting serpentine queues, we tried to reach it as fast as possible. but upon reaching Palais Royale, we were pleasantly surprised. Instaed of waiting for hours, we simply walked in!!
Louvre is awfully large. You might continuously visit it for a month and even then you might come across something that you have never seen before. I had heard that the Louvre contained the largest collection of Egyptian exhibits outside the Cairo Museum. Though the collection was large, it failed it failed to impress me in the way I had expected it to. On the other hand, the Mesopotamian section with Hammurabi's code of law and the Italian section with its large collection of sculptures, was very impressive. We had very little time, so instead of going through each section in detail, we headed for the Grand Gallery. I had heard about it but couldn't exactly gauge the meaning of the word Grand. The gallery is in the shape of H, with very long vertical segments and the horizontal section housing the "Monalisa". Of the known works, the first to meet my eyes was the "Madonna of the Rocks". After that it was like turning the pages of a painting book. The "Monalisa Room" housed some stunning works by Veronesse and Tinteretto. Veronesse's "The Wedding at Cana" was very impressive and lavishly colourful. It also happens to be the largest painting in the Louvre and portrayed 130 figures in a plethora of poses and emotion.. Upon entering the room, its surprising to see the rather small size of "Monalisa". As expected, she, with her enigmatic smile, draws the largest crowd. In the next hall, "The Raft of Medusa", with its powerful portrayel of the dead and the emotion of the living and Delacroix's "The Martyr" are worth noting. After this, we made a hurried exit and spend sometime at the souvenir shop. The library at the Louvre contains an awesome collection of books on all the painters I can recall. Its really a tough choice while buying with a limited budget and weight constraints.

Check-in at Stuttgart is finally over. Sitting at gate 162 lets resume the tale.
After Louvre, both Bishu and I were eager to embark on a culinary adventure. Before that we searched for a decent wineshop but owing to Sunday, all the shops were closed. We then returned to Rue de la Huechette and entered a decent restaurant - Jardin du Roy. We ordered wine and salad to start with. What arrived was rather intimidating. Apparently, the chef had got hold of a couple of stadiums, filled it cured lettuce, enough in quantity to solve world's deforestation problems, along with tomatoes, slices of ham, grilled duck (must have hunted the particular duck species to extinction), topped with a UFO sized slice of goat cheese. When this behemoth landed on our table, Bishu and I stared at each other for quite some time. We consumed it with some rose wine (which was so-so) and observed around. On the opposite table a white lady and her coloured daughter-in-law were enjoying a late lunch ... very antithesis of the "quintessential Indian saas-bahu". Sometime later, an American group came in. Bishu's observation : the group consisted of 3 fat ugly girls and a leader who showed of her tan and her figure and commanded remarkable authority over the other group members. While all this was going on, we were blissfully oblivious of the fact that, we had to check in at the bus station, an hour prior to departure. The bus was to leave at 9:45pm, but at 8:45 we had just ordered our dessert. Once again, the dessert turned out to be the inverted dome of the Taj Mahal, filled with ice-cream and the annual harvest of worth of fruits. I wonder how can the French eat so much. Our culinary adventure ended with a bill of 42Euro.
One adventure ended and another commenced. The latter adventure almost turned out to be a disaster, had it not been for some spectacularly good luck. To reach Galleini from Notre Dame, we had to make 2 changes. The last change would have been at 9:30pm but I suddenly realized the difficulty of navigating a large station like Republique, so decided to change lines at the previous smaller station. This decision turned out to be of immense importance and we barely managed to catch the train at 9:30. This difference made hell and heaven difference. We reached Gallieni at 9:42pm and managed to collect our boarding pass just before the counter was closed. We made a last minute entry into the bus, breathless and yet smiling at our luck. We looked back as the doors of the bus shut behind us and we rolled out of Paris.
This incident taught me the lesson that I should have learnt a year and a half back. As a result, I arrived at Stuttgart Flughafen at 11:20pm, 9 hrs prior to my departure. Hope everything goes on smoothly at Frankfurt and I don't miss my flight there. I'm feeling rather tired and sleepy after "camping out" at the airport. Hehe, LH1355 has just flashed over gate 162. I hope the cloudy skies don't delay the flight. It seems that Baden-Wurttemberg will give me a bleak farewell.

Thus ends my diary entry. Everything went on smoothly at Frankfurt. The clouds parted and amidst brilliant sunshine, I reunited with other IIT junta at the gate (I think it was A57) at Frankfurt. Finally after about an hour, reclining in a business class seat and sipping champagne, I took off from Frankfurt into the cloudless blue sky. Bidding farewell to Deutschland, I prepared for a comfortable journey home.