Into Paris...

The flight from Treviso to Paris was more than amusing. There were all kinds of people, loud Italian people, oh-so-prim British people, the fashionable French folks, the eternal backpacking American with the Rei bags with the shoes and water bottle hanging on the sides and then us!! Since we spent several hours at the airport, spent a lot of time observing these people.

One thing was clear, we were again going into the land of the well-dressed people. I, at that time, was too tired and feverish to feel dawdy. :) On the flight, there were was a group of loud French people. They were laughing, drinking, standing up on their seats. In general creating a big comotion. We got to see the beautiful snow-covered peaks, however, everytime the plane changed altitude, my ear hurt so much. The landing was the worst I can remember. My ear hurt so much that I almost cried, much to Neeraj's chagrin.

After we landed, it was still not clear where we were with respect to the city. Also, since I was going from one Shengen country to another, there is no immigration. However, the rude guy at the airport refused to answer me because I spoke in English. Amazing isn't it? In India, people talk in English to impress others, here, they look down upon them.

Finally, I was like, its their problem if they dont check if I have a visa or not. Turns out that this airport was outside the city and we all needed to buy bus tickets to get to the city. We had no clue how far it was and it was about 9 pm. As we sat in the bus, we both feel asleep exhausted. When we woke up, it was almost 10:30 and we still were nowhere close to the city. Again, worried, because we had no maps!!

Finally, at about 11:20, we reached the city center. It was not really quiet, there were still people, but we did not know how to get around. Having been warned about people not responding to English, and with my previous experience, we considered checking into one of the 5 star hotels we were standing near. We saw people on the bus getting cabs and so we decided to try our luck.

The other issue was that we had only 50 euros and if the cab ride was anything more than that, we were in deeper trouble. Finally we hailed a cab and got in it with a very watchful eye on the meter. The guy spoke good English and were a bit relieved. Asked him how far was the hotel and he said it was about 15 minutes. He was even nice enough to offer some tissue since by then I sounded hoarse and was sniffling like crazy.

Luckily, it was about 10 Euros. We tipped him generously and checked into the hotel. As bad luck would have it, it was an attic room with half the ceiling sloping and at 3 feet from the floor. So only when you slept on the bed, you could go to that side of the room. We were paying good money for half a room. But at that time, we cared less. Slept fitfully till about noon the next day.

We asked for a change of room and were promised one the next day. By then, we were sick of trying different food and just wanted waran-bhat. We looked for a net cafe, hunt down a desi restaurant and ate chicken tikka masala, naan, papad and rice and feeling very very pleased with ourselves, set out to explore the city..