French Connection

Remember the slam books we used to fill in school where we used to fill up stupid sections like favourite boy band, colour, food etc. One of the columns usually was dream destination. And I always filled Paris in that space. Under the influence of movies and hearsay, I thought this is a magical and romantic city. I needed to cut this off my really long bucket list so I knew I had to make a trip to this beautiful city. The only French word I could pronounce properly was Louis Vuitton. And with this basic knowledge of French, I reached Paris - the heart of France.

On the Seine River Cruise

When I stepped out of my overnight train from Barcelona to Paris (awesome train btw), I immediately liked the city. The air that greeted me in Paris was cold (literally) yet sophisticated. We checked into our modest hotel room and were excited to venture out again for our cruise on the famous River Seine. Truth be told, I was dying to see the Eiffel Tower. And boy when I saw it was I WOWED!!! It was such a tall imposing structure. Like a small kid I wanted to touch the structure but as soon I went close to it I was put off by the dusty iron bars. That's it - that's what the Eiffel Tower is all about, nothing but some iron bars painted in brown colour. I also went to the top of the Eiffel Tower and the sight from there was mind blasting. Its one thing that you can see entire Paris atop the tower, but its another feeling to be standing out there at a height of over 950 feet - the tallest I ever felt in my life!

In front of the Eiffel Tower

The next 2 days in Paris was dedicated at playing typical tourists and visiting all the must see places in the city. The city glows in the night (literally), making it look like it wears a yellow blanket over it by night. It is a good blend of old world charm architecture along with modern and fashionable locals. The sights and ambience of the city is truly romantic. Yet I must confess, I hardly saw any lovers in the most romantic city in the world!! (me thinks they all shifted base to Spain to avoid tourists like me and to understand this statement better - read my blog on Spain). Also, I was expecting a really snooty, racist and arrogant bunch of French people. But I was amazed to meet many helpful locals who assisted us with our heavy bags and directions to our destinations. But I did get shooed away by an old grumpy french man in a flea market coz I was bargaining too much (the mumbaikar in me had to come out).

We had another French destination to visit before we headed to the land of gondolas, pastas and pizzas (read: Italy) and that was Nice (pronouced: Niece). A very calm, clean and quiet destination, Nice is a charming beachy city. The first day itself we were tempted to hit the beach which was at a walking distance from our hotel. The Indian in me forced me to choose shorts and t-shirt to the beach instead of a swimsuit. Never before had I felt so overdressed in my life coz even in my shortest shorts and skimpiest top, I felt like I was wearing a burqa!! The sight I saw on the beach was of women clad in ONLY bikinis or were topless. Not that this was a jaw dropping sight (we have our Goa remember), but I felt highly embarrassed for covering too much skin. Nonetheless, it dint stop me from entering the crystal blue sea. We also travelled to Cannes (highly overrated), Monaco, Monte Carlo and St Paul Vence (gorgeous quaint town).

Things I learned/realized while touring in France:

- When pronouncing a french word, a lot of English alphabets are silent. eg - Temple is pronounced Tomp in French. So the correct way to pronounce any French word is to ignore atleast 2-3 alphabets in it, mostly the last 2 alphabets. And if you don't know French, don't even attempt to pronounce their words. My attempt was met with a lot of rude stares, occasional rolling of the eyes and my partner abandoning me out of embarrassment.

- The Paris metro trains need serious upgrading. The metro trains in Madrid and Barcelona were far more sophisticated. And they definitely need escalators or/and lifts in their stations.

- There is no such thing as pure French food (not even french fries, they originated in Belgium). Its a mix of a lot of cuisines.

- There is a dirty, poverty stricken side to even Paris. We visited it and it felt like dharavi (though minus the slums). Very different and downmarket compared to the classy and upmarket Champs Elysees (pronounced 'shanz ay-lee-zay' btw)

- 80% of the people who live in the French Riviera are above 50 years of age and the rest 20% are tourists. Places like Nice, Cannes, Monaco are like retirement cities for old and really rich people.

- The French like to sleep early!

Viva Espana!

The year 2010 had arrived and with it the number 25 was added as new age! It was high time I thought I travelled to a little destination called 'Europe'. Hence, having brainwashed a colleague of mine to be my travel partner on this completely self planned trip, I set out to cross the first big hurdle in front of me - the Budget. After detailed research and several painful looks at my bank statements, we set out a budget for a 22 days trip across 3 of the most popular countries for tourism in the world - Spain, France and Italy. Lonely planet being my bible for the next few weeks and hostelworld.com my homepage, we had finally fixed an itinerary and were all set to fly.

Madrid

We couldn't have chosen a more appropriate day to fly - 9/11. And our trip cudn't have begun on a more adventurous note. Our Turkish airlines flight with a stopover at Istanbul before it lands in Madrid was delayed by 4 hours. Which meant we missed our connecting flight, which also meant we dint reach Madrid at 3.45 in the afternoon like our original plan but instead at 11.55 in the nite! Of course this was not acceptable to us and being 2 young girls (i still like to think of 25 as being young) with no knowledge of Spanish and no proper directions to our hotel, landing in Madrid at midnite, didn't quite sound like the adventure we had hoped for in this trip. Having pity on us and our plight, Turkish guys got us tickets in Qatar airways. So now we were all set to fly Mumbai - Doha - Madrid. We reached Madrid after a long and sleepy 15 hours flight and after lots of wrong turns and language barriers, we finally found our hotel. I must admit that a few hours into our hotel room and I was feeling depressed. That’s because Madrid was nothing like I had expected it to be. We were greeted by empty streets, silence of a thousand souls, sunny weather, MAJOR communication barrier, people with no information or direction sense and more. But once I was out for dinner, I never for one moment after that ever felt depressed on the trip. Our dinner was as adventurous. We went into this quaint streetside café and again faced the now famous "communication gap". Not understanding what was written on the menu card we asked the waiter in whatever Spanish we had learned for this trip and ordered food. And he from whatever he understood of our mixture of Spanish and English brought us 2 glasses of white wine and a plate of tapas which constituted of 4 toasted bread slices with tomato toppings. Tapas is basically a starter in Spain served mostly with drinks. This “lavish” (sense the sarcasm) dinner was costing us 25 euros. We were exhausted and hungry, so we eat like two pigs not having fed for a week and finished off the last piece of food on that plate. A while later, the waiter (he was cute btw!) came with a huge plate of beef steak. In all our communication error (or not), we had managed to tell him that we were really hungry and that we wanted the best meat dish in the house. And the 25 euro dish also consisted of the beef steak. Unfortunately we wasted some bit of the steak (too full on the tapas), but it still was the BEST BEEF STEAK I have ever eaten!

Madrid

3 days in Madrid and i think i finally found the city that my soul, body and mind needs to be in...the city where i should have really been born - Madrid. The restaurants in the city are always packed especially in the evenings (I don't think they cook in Spain post lunch!), but they all serve lipsmacking food. I would say Spain is a treat for any foodie. I was however scandalized by the amount of PDA shown by the couples in Madrid (no wonder the spanish football captain kissed his gf on national TV after they won the world cup, Spaniards love PDA!). It took me a day to get used to watching couples go down each others throat in front of a church (wat are the odds of seeing such a sight in India!). But after sometime of being constantly exposed to such sights, i found it all very charming. You could feel (and in this case see) the love in the city. No one cared a damn of who you are, where your from, what you're wearing. Everyone was all about having fun. Lunch and dinner by roadside cafés, salsa in the park, puppet show on the streets for kids, overcrowded yet colourful flea market El Rastro, museums of art and history, bustling street of Gran Via, attending a Spanish mass in a gorgeous monastery, colourful graffiti on the walls...Madrid in a postcard for me.

Montserrat, Barcelona

Next stop - Barcelona Baby! One of the reasons for my excitement about going to the next destination was travelling in Euro Rail. It is definitely one of the underrated highlights of my Europe trip. The trains were of course highly sophisticated and we were travelling first class, so the experience was even more posh and special. I could feel my DDLJ moments on each of the Euro Rail journeys. If Madrid is the Delhi of Spain, then Barcelona is the Mumbai of Spain. The sophistication, class, designer wardrobe, shoes and bags were all missing in Barcelona. This city spelled simplicity yet very rich in liveliness. We stayed in one of the friendliest and colourful hostels in Barcelona called Buba House and had a very helpful guide in the form of Marcos our hostel keeper. We made some friends there who were not natives but living in the hostel and were travellers like us. We made a small detour from Barcelona to Montserrat one day and it was one of the most gratifying trips of my life. We had to travel in a cable car over a mountain above 4000 feet to reach a monastery which is famous for its Black Mother Mary. That night we traveled what felt like the length and breadth of Barcelona for good catalan food. If I had to compare this city to something, it would be to a young teenager who has fallen in love for the 1st time - happy, excited and oblivious to the surroundings. We even watched a Mexican dance being performed on the streets of Barcelona and the locals were all out in hundreds, cheering and enjoying themselves. It's also rather alarming to see the number of Bangladeshis residing in the city who are basically hawkers selling chinese products (China doesnt spare Europe also). Gaudi's unbelievable parks, La Sagrada Familia Church (though i thought this monument is highly overrated), Barceloneta beach, overcrowded and happening La Ramblas street, the famous local food - Paella and a lot more complete my travelogue for Barcelona.

Park Retiro, Madrid

The language barrier notwithstanding, I LOVED SPAIN! Of all the 3 languages I tried to learn in a few weeks before i ventured on this magnum opus trip, Spanish was the language I loved listening and learning. The people though not very friendly, be warned - the people mind their own business a little too much and may not entertain you. We walked around Madrid and Barcelona and found the cities unpretentious and a visual delight. The vibe of the cities were electrifying and youthful. The food - great, sights - classic, language -lovely! Definitely a country I would want to live in or atleast visit again - Viva Espana!