September is almost up and I think I had not written anything the entire month. The therapy I get from just typing my thoughts helps me maintain sanity in my hectic schedule.
Well I was lucky to get onto that Airbus A380 from Dubai to Paris for another week in the city of romance (or so they say), and at least this time round I also got to walk around the unspoken of part of the city that you never see in those travel brochures or hear about. But I like reality and i enjoyed my visit to the other side of Paris. (Thanks to an old friend....)
So after a grueling week of torturous training from dawn (the sun rises at 8.30am or thereabouts..so 6am and 7am is dark!) to dusk (then the sun stays up until about 9.30am..honestly I could go mad in this day-night pattern!), I hooked up with my pal at Charles de Gaul something something station where the tours start. i was being educated on the Parisian transport system. You have the TGV - aka bullet train for long distance travel, the RER - medium distance (ok am exaggerating) travel to the suburbs of Paris and the Metro which runs around the Parisian city. My tour would entail multiple use of the Metro of which I had no ticket..that's a story for another day.
Anyway. I started off at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart (Basilique du Sacré-Cœur). We climbed up a steep street to the highest point on Paris (I think) and the view was the greatest!...On the way up however, we went past the hasslers of Paris with their pata potea games going on in earnest..and they played for 50 Euros (saw some dumb kid getting swindled and almost crying). On our way down, they even pulled the kanjo in a d area stunts hawkers pull in Nai where they kick there cardboard box tables and scatter as the cops arrive.
We also met up with some "deaf and dumb" kids. The buggers created those forms for sponsor that we used to be swung in Primo to collect cash for walks etc, and then the first two names would be for some anonymous fellas who had "donated" 10Euros or 20Euros (very cheeky) The forms had two headings in French explaining what the collections were for (some Deaf and Dumb society for kids in Paris). As the kid approached me, he gestured at his ears trying to indicate how deaf he was. I spoke to him in English telling him I could not read French, and he quickly pointed to the section printed in English....Ni vizuri nilienda skuli bana. Scammers are everywhere! On my way down from the Basilica, the colleagues approached me again, and the "deaf" kid who had approached me in the first place told them to back off because i did not speak any French (He actually spoke to them in the most fluent English I had heard in Paris that week...he should even have been better off teaching English to some French brats)...then he cheekily stuck out his tongue at me!
Maybe al reserve my other French tales for another day.
