Well, now began our race against time to reach the Ritz by 10.00 We did not know the way from the station and of course did not have the directions wala map. As usual, Ashvini worked as a charm for us and somehow, in the rarest of scenarios, the map and the actual streets matched. We literally raced down the streets, not stopping even to confirm whether we were right. The "calculated" risk paid off and we reached the place vedome (pronounced as rhyming with plan) just in time. The much hyped da vinci walk just had 7 people (we 4 and an american family of 3). Sadie, our tour guide, was fabulous and the walk was superb (although the heat was killing). We walked through the places mentioned in the book. She told us about what was probable and what not - pretty interesting stuff. We clicked a lot of pics and uncharacteristicly for americans, they did not take even a single one!
The whole group with Sadie
The walk ended at Saint Suplice (spelling??) and then we retraced our steps. Took pastries from a pattiserie recommended by Sadie and they were fabulous (although we later found out that most went into Palash and Ketan's stomachs!) A and I picked up some mementos from the street and the whole transaction was conducted in sign language! Then we came to the 'Pont des Arts' bridge. It is a pedestrian bridge which overflows with people(painters, students, artists, lovers) in the evening. A posed for pics and her enthu was so contagious that all of us posed a lot. And then an artist appeared out of the blue and offered to click one of the group. We happily gave him the camera but he was 'sanki' like a true artist and started asking us to pose and taking pics with different effects. We literally had to flee from the place after that.
One of the creative poses
We arrived at the Louvre and thus one of the two conditions put by P was fulfilled - we took his pic in front of the pyramid. In fact, we took a lot of pics - itna young, handsome, good looking ladka roz kahan milta hai! A also posed. We went to starbucks after the photo session where P and I strategically captured the sofa! (Only Shivi can understand the importance of sofa in coffee shop!) We were spsd to wait for Ketan there. He had gone to check out the stuff in the Louvre. We had tried to convince him (unsuccessfully) of the futility of it. He was not even deterred by the fact that everything was in french. I gave up when I learned that he had already visited Van Gogh's museum and he wanted to visit Louvre in spite of that. When asked about Van Gogh's painting, we came to know that "it was full of stripes"!
In front of the Louvre
The pyramid story...
Well, he finally turned up and wanted to go to the Catacombs. Of all the places in the romantic, beautiful, fashionable city, he wants to go to the cemetry full of skulls! Well, each to his own taste. We set out and as luck has it, took a lot of time to locate the entrance although it was right in front of our eyes....French god (jo sabkuch dekhta hai, although French are lazy) played a cruel joke and we saw a Swift parked right in front of us. Mere dil ke dard ka bayaan nahi kiya ja sakta....Bichari meri swift, meenal ki parking mein khadi roz mera intezaar karti hogi.......(hopefully kisi aur ne uska intezaar khatam nahi kar diya ho)
Jalte hain jiske liye....
We finally reached there and the security told us that it was about to close. I spied a lawn at the entrance and immediately opted for the lawn instead of the gloomy catacombs. A and K joined me - but of course Palash had to accompany Ketan.....Lying out there in the lawn was the best part of the day (ok I agree that it is weird that we came all the way to Paris and spent a couple of hours sitting on the lawn!) but it was fun. In our (mine and A's) effort to make K talk, I ended up speaking so much that my mouth literally ached by the time we finished. But it was good- I had a glimpse of what I was once upon a time - when I could converse easily and chat away nine to dozen....But now, I have to remember to talk when in a group and invariably get lost in my own world....Proves what I always knew and ignored - it never works out to change yourself for somebody....but i dont have anything to say in my defence - I went into the whole thing with open eyes and any price I pay is what I truly deserve!
But I am digressing - Skipping the catacomb for the lawn turned out to be very fortunate for A also. While P and Ketan were waiting in the queue, they saw Andy Roddick walk by with friends....and in true spirit, came running to tell A (who is a big fan). Unfortunately, by the time she got up and called out to him, he was already gone. But, Kunal (the real K) has quicker reflexes and saved the day by managing to get a shot of him and we have the old faithful photoshop (Incidentally, I see that google returns 284000 results for a search on 'Andy Roddick girlfriend' - maybe we could ask one of them to confirm whether it was really him!)....
Is the girl on the left one of the 284000 results?
We had a fun time making arbit conversation and teaching K to talk while Ketan and Palash posed with skulls! .....Somehow, with all this excitement, A got pretty exhausted with our efforts and went off to sleep! Itne efforts ke baad woh sirf yeh kaha paya ki jo wahan ke sher pe baithega woh paris wapis ayega. Since he refused to get on the statue to pose but still wants to come back, I had to take separate pics and will have to rely on photoshop for the sher wala pic.
Photoshop -anyone?
Finally, their catacomb journey got over and we went to the Notre Dame church where Ketan promptly went into a photographic frenzy! His creative abilities were so heightened by the beautiful facade of the church that he began talking about 'stitching' images when he could not capture everything in one frame. Well, after that we had no worries after that - not able to capture the tip of the Eiffel? No problem, Ketan will stitch it for you! (I wonder who does the stitching professionally - tailors or photographers!) Well, after that, we left for Invalides to see the Alexander III bridge. It was a beautiful sight. This bridge was built as a mark of France Russia friendship and there are 4 beautiful statues -2 representing evil and 2 good. The posers posed and the photographer clicked. I dont know how a person can have so much capacity for taking pics. But apart from being a compulsive photographer, I must appreciate the way he posed too. Each expression given by him is priceless. Just looking at him in the pics sends A and I into uncontrollable fits.
Classic expression
From there, we went on to Trocedaro, where the view of Eiffel is simply superb. It was so mesmerizing that K, who has an aversion to pics, also conceeded to pose! After all the photos with all permutations and combinations were over, we planned to go for the Seine river cruise. The one A had taken last time did not cover the Statue of Liberty so we wanted to take the one K had taken (whose details he had conviniently forgotten!) After a lot of debates and phone calls to London, we finally made our way to the cruise. Separate researches done by A and K led us to take one cruise but we were not fated to see the Statue of L that day. I must remind everyone that all along, we diligently kept our promise of taking the 'GJ's' pic. How could we forego the opportunity of capturing such a 'young, handsome, good looking' guy on film!
Eiffel inspired the unfaithful to pose
The cruise was very good. We got to see a new view of Paris and some of the history behind it. The Eiffel shimmering at night was even better. The hourly dazzle reminded me of my last visit when we had been entranced by it! And of course the frenzy of photographing following it. (By the way, the night before our Eiffel trip we had the fateful party - and Eiffel generally leads me to memories of it!). An interesting thing happened as we came out after the cruise - just around the Eiffel, hawkers (generally desi log) sell Eiffel miniatures...most of them are illegal immigrants. It was a scene to see the police arrive and how they dispersed in an instant!
We went to a cafe near trocadero after the cruise. The pasta and wine both were pretty good (and terribly expensive!). But manager sahab ne cost par dhyaan dene se mana kiya tha and we dutifully followed. It was then that I fell in love with white wine. The dinner will always be memorable. It was the best thing we had in Paris. It was also the mistake we (at least, I , at my age) should not have made (no ideas and wild imagination pls!). Khair by the time we finished (Ketan had already left so as to be sure to get the metro - waise by the way he gulped his wine, we were not too sure that we would make it!), it was 12.45....It took another 10 min for the smokers to finish their smoke....we were discussing whether we would get the train or not.....Palash said that 'agar hum beech mein fans gaye to' and we made so much fun of him - ki aisa kaise ho sakta hai ki beech mein fans jayenge! As luck would have it, we did miss our connecting train and his statement did not seem funny anymore.
Anyway, luckily we were at Champs Elysses and we came out to take a taxi. The street was still very much alive and we walked down, led by the manager, in search of a cafe. We did not get one and finally ended up taking a taxi to our hotel. The manager's sharp eyes spotted a convinience store which all of us missed (is this why he is the manager?) and we picked up another bottle. What happened after that will not be mentioned here because "what happens in Paris stays in Paris". I will only say that I will never, ever in my life, play the game - 'truth and truth' even if my life depended on it! I believe in learning from my mistakes, and although I have repeatedly made some mistakes, I hope this will not be one of them. I do not think that others in the group would want a repeat either!! Khair woh trip hi kya jisme incidents na ho.....Needless to say, it was a memorable party (?) full of bottoms up and bakwaas and it was 4 by the time we slept off. Nobody wanted to think of tomorrow.......
The day ended with only one regret - that we had not been able to visit Moulin Rouge for reasons beyond our control. And we did not get to see any 'item' in compensation.....The only thing we got was the information that 'Pigalle' was the closest metro station.
P.S. - I hope everyone is still noticing the young, handsome, good looking guy in the group.
No comments:
Post a Comment