How the West was won
I finally took the giant leap across to the Continent. I took a flight out of one of the greatest cities in the world to one of the prettiest. Wasn’t easy. Left Chennai for Mumbai by flight, and as smart as I am I left a gap of over five hours between the flight to Mumbai and my international departure. The result – the numb nuts at the Mumbai international airport left me outside the airport to wait for a good three hours.
While I was waiting I made the most of my time. I met another couple of interesting people who met with the same fate as I. One was the principal of a biz school from the US, with whom I shared a very enlightening conversation about life, the universe, and everything. The other fellow was a rather young Belgian fella who was in India on a pharma related project.
After hours of waiting I managed to get into the airport, only to have to wait for another hour before checking in. The check-in was another annoyingly funny experience, with our check-in line moving sideways rather than forward. Will save that story for another day. So I checked in, and then I was in for a treat. I entered paradise – the duty free section of the airport. Some of the finest single malts stared at me begging me to pick them up. Proud to report that I resisted the temptation. Had something to eat, and like a smart guy for yet another time in the day I went on to the Lufthansa boarding section to get into the plane bringing me to Paris via Munich.
More fun awaited me. There were twenty odd minutes left to the flight takeoff time printed on my ticket and the airline crew, captain and all, was standing out there along with me. The problem – the buses that were to take them, and than all the passengers to the plane had not arrived. After some time the captain had to threaten the ground staff that him and his crew would return to the hotel if the bus did not arrive in ten minutes. Luckily for us all it arrived.
Then there was an hours delay to takeoff coz of all ten delays the plane’s and the buses’ late arrival. The captain made a sarcastic comment about it during his message to the passengers. Then we took off at around 1:40 AM instead of 12:20 AM. Yay! I was finally going Paris. I would have one of the greatest experiences of my life so far. As I thinking about that the usual suspect brought me back to earth. My neighbour in the plane, an oversized gentleman took over the “shared” elbow support. I sill never ever ever understand why airplane seat makers can not throw in two of those. When I’m paying an arm and a leg for a light I like to rest both my arms and legs with equal comfort levels. Anyway, I can quite possibly write a book on this topic, so I’ll let it pass for now.
Aside from this the flight experience was quite good. Of course, things rarely seem bad after downing three or four glasses of scotch. It was a night flight so there was little to see outside. I did watch Invictus, which is a great movie about Nelson Mandela and I highly recommend it to all. Our flight landed in Munich at around seven in the morning, Germany time. I began the long trek through the humongous and amazing munich airport. There was a stark difference between what I saw here and the Chennai and Mumbai airports. Extremely large, but very well organised and managed. I had to walk and “escalate” for about four or five kilometres and then I reached my next flight which would take me from Munich to paradise.
As my flight to Munich had been delayed by at least half an hour and owing to the long walk through the airport I just about reached my next flight on time. As I reached the boarding lounge the guy at the checkin informed me that the plane was ready to go half and hour ago and that they were only waiting for me to take off. I apologised and told him that my flight was late and that I pretty much ran through the airport to get there as fast as possible. He said he knew that and smiled.
So I get into the plane. It was as if I walked into a bank. The plane was packed with Germans. All of then were silent, dressed in suit, reading the paper. I had just gotten out of a ten hour flight packed with Indians. There was poking and prodding and babies crying and luggage wars and all that jazz. And here I was dressed in jeans and tees, tired, possibly a bit hung over, sitting in plane packed with suits, and the silence was eerie.
Then I landed in Paris and all was forgotten. I took a bus out of the airport after collecting by large backpack. I headed out to the Opera de Paris. The bus ride was great. I fell in love with Paris right then and there. I saw the ugly tower, which didn’t seem so ugly at the time, and I saw pretty girls, nice cars, beautiful houses and buildings. The weather was great – bright and sunny with a dash of cool breeze.
I walked around the Opera area, until the weight of my bags started really bothering me. I was looking for a Virgin mobile simcard for for cellphone. And you what? Don’t go by it’s name. Virgin is fucked up. I could not find a single store that had them. A lot of stores were willing to recharge just about every company’s simcard but no one seemed to have a card to sell me. Even the Orange store was out of stock. After giving up I took a bus to my next destination – the Montparnasse gare. I bought me a ticket for Bordeaux and got out of the station to grab some lunch with a Parisenne friend. We had lunch at a lovely little cafe called Trait d’Union Brasserie. Some vin blanc to wash the sandwich down. Then we parted ways and I headed back to the station to take my TGV to Bordeaux.
That brings me to the present. Here I am sitting in the TGV. Have great view of the French countryside. I also made some friends on the way. A couple of very pretty American girls sitting next to me and I ended up being their translator. Gosh what a treat this long day has been to the eyes what with four hour of watching the French countryside. But now I just want to check into my room in Bordeaux and be on firm ground for a bit. I have been in a bus, airplane or train for much of the past thirty or so hours. However, if what I have seen so far is to go by I’m in for one he’ll of an adventure.
