Paris and Barcelona 2009: Part Trois

The day before the trip, we decided to stay up all night so we can sleep on the flight. That way we'd be on Europe time right away - no jetlag. We watched the rest of 'Paris, je t'aime' and followed it up with 'Vicky, Cristina Barcelona'. I really don't see what people like about Woody Allen. The photography is beautiful but I've come away from two of his movies now wondering what all the fuss was about. Anyway, the plan worked: staying up let us sleep on the 10 hour flight to Amsterdam - so the journey to Europe was almost painless.

I hate Air France. They didn't make the effort to bring any connecting flight bags over to their plan. So when we got to baggage claim in Paris, all the international passengers had no bags. Only the people who boarded the flight directly in Amsterdam got their bags. Way to welcome you to a foreign country. As if that wasn't bad enough, they delivered our two bags on two separate days. And the delivery company they contracted with was snooty about speaking English. We had to spend our first two nights in Paris waiting for luggage. They gave us 8 to midnight time windows and would show up around 11:45. And it was the weekend too...bummer.

We learned from our friends after the trip that the airline would have to pay for your incidentals in such events. So what we should have done is gone and bought a bunch of clothes for ourselves and had Air France reimburse us for it.

(End Rant) Taking the cab into Paris, I immediately felt like I've seen this city before. It reminded me a lot of India: a cleaner version of India, but the density felt the same. Roads and sidewalks were not huge, and people seemed less paranoid. If I had to name a city I'd say it felt just like central Bangalore.

To our surprise on our way in, we saw an entire street full of Tamil stores. Not generally Indian: Tamil specifically. I'm guessing that they must be war refugees from Sri Lanka, since France takes a lot of refugees as part of the UN. I heard a few of them talking, and it definitely sounded like Tamil with a Sri Lankan accent.

Paris and Barcelona 2009: Part Deux

Its the weekend before the big trip! All the visa's were approved without a hitch. We just got back from our trip down to San Francisco for the Schengen. The trip was just a day, but man, what fun!

We hung out with a couple of Divya's friends in SF. They were great fun, and we had a wonderful time. It really felt like a whole weekend, not just a single day. The weather was perfect: a welcome change from Seattle's grey.

So here I am the Sunday before the trip. Seattle seems to not want me to leave: its thrown a beautiful October day in my way to tempt me. But we've been watching "Paris, je t'aime" for a few days now. The shorts have left us frothing at the mouth for the City of Lights. I can't wait to get there.

We've got a day trip planned to Mont. St. Michel and a couple of other cities in Brittany. We havent really planned anything else - we're gonna try to do what ever we feel like while we're there.