Frankfurt: 5th Mar: Last Day in Germany

Last day in Germany. Settled all the expenses. The office administrator, Renate showed us an album with with photos from India. She is 53 now, and her boyfriend went to India last year on a month long trip. He went to famous cities in North India, like Delhi, Agra, Pushkar, Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Kolkata etc. Apart from the famous monuments forts etc, the main subjects of his photos were mostly cows on the streets, destitute children, the colourful clothes of women, and the garbage dumps :). Renate was explaining each photo with awe and was asking us whether we see such garbage dumps from our homes in India as well. One photo was of a board besides Ganga, and said 'Keep our Ghats clean'. Renate was specially amused at this and she said that although the ghats were very dirty, people were taking a bath in it. She told me that in Germany they have a certain standard for the amount of germs/bacteria a water body can contain. I explained that the Ganga being a holy river, people specially like to add all sorts of offerings to its water, so it is very tough to maintain it clean.

So with all these lovely memories in mind, I prepared to take my long flight back to my wonderful country... India.

Paris!!! 4th Mar

We headed out straight to the Louvre in the morning. It was the 1st Sunday of the Month and entry was free, but the line was long. We got inside, got ourselves a map of the museum, and it was huge. 4 floors within the museum, each of them so big! We decided to cover them in order. We soon realised that if we wanted to cover everything the same day, given the the museum closes at 6 PM, we just had time to skim through everything. So we did. But even with that, we felt we were falling short of time. There were so many things forcing us to keep looking at them, but we had limited time. We saw French and Greek sculptures, Egyptian artefacts, Mesopotamium relics, Moats of castles etc. Then we reached the paintings section and after covering a long gallery of paintings, we finally reached the Mona Lisa. It stands alone on a tall wide wall, surrounded in the room by a lot of other amazing paintings. Some of them, huge, very big, as big as walls, and the walls were tall and wide. My favourites among all the paintings I saw was 'The consecration of Napoloen III'.
After this, and skimming through other things, we searched for the inverted pyramid, we found it after asking a few people, some of whom didn't know what we were talking about.

After this, we headed on to the Notre Dame. It had started drizzling again by this time. We thought even today our visit to Eiffel would be worthless due to all the clouds that surround it when it rains. Notre Dame is a very big cathedral, and I attended my first Mass, at 6PM. I was expecting it to be revelationary, but it was all in French, and I couldn't understand a word. Moreover, it was similar to the Hindu artis, with diyas and a lot of smoke.

Found an Indian restaurant again , and ate there. It had started raining very hard by now. By the time we finished dinner, it at least stopped raining, but it got really cold, with strong winds, probably the worst weather to visit Eiffel. But nevertheless, we decided to go. To our surprise we didn't find any queue there, could be because it was a Sunday and local people weren't there, could be because of the weather, but we got a direct entry into Eiffel. A lift took us to the top of the tower. There are 3 floors to the tower, the 1st, 2nd and the top. The 1st and the 2nd are aproachable by stairs. We stopped at the 2nd floor 1st. It was very windy and very cold, but the view was awesome.

Then we took the lift and went on to the top floor. The  top floor is further very higher than the 2nd floor, and so much more windier. But there is an enclosed space where you can stand and look at the view 360 degrees. It was very cold, and very windy though. There is also an upper part of the top floor which is not enclosed withing glasses, so it was rustling with the sound of the strong winds. There is also a small room which was the apartment of Mr Eiffel.

Paris!!! 3rd Mar

PARIS!!!
So we decided yesterday that we would go to Paris for the weekend. The train tickets had become expensive, but nevertheless, we took an early morning train. The subways in Paris are the oldest in the world, thus they are not as clean as the ones in Frankfurt or Delhi, and also look really old. But everything is very well connected. The metros and subways in Paris are not govt. owned. They are run and maintained by different companies. So if you wish to change metro routes, you might have to take long walks.

What Dad told me was very true. People in Paris are cold. On the other hand, Germans are very friendly. Wishing everyone on their way, in the lift, or in a restaurant. Paris is not like that. Being a cosmopolitan, it has people from all over the world living there. A major chunk of the population comes from Africa and some from Asia. Germany on the other hand has very few people.

On this first day, we visited Sacre coure, sacred heart (of jesus). This is the highest point in Paris. Beautiful church, got a hat and scarves from the street shopping places. Another thing noteworthy here was a square filled with local artists and their paintings. These were local artists selling their art for a charge over there. They were making portraits of people etc.

Had lunch in an Indian restaurant: Sarvaana bhavan. Trust me, the dosa and gulab jamun made me feel like in heaven. I gorged on them like anything. It was getting tough to walk after that.

We saw the Arc De Triumph, the India gate of Paris. We saw a Mercedez showroom with awesome mercedez cars, mercedez merchandise like caps, t-shirts, vanity cases, pens, folders, all for exhorbitant prices. This was on the most expensive street in Paris, the most expensive street in the world I suppose, the one overlooking the Arc de Triumph.

The weather was not the best to visit Paris, it had been cloudy and it had started drizzling by now. So we decided to see two of the most known places of Paris by night. We went to the Louvre museum and it looks beautiful at night. We headed on to the Eiffel to see it under the night sky. Forunately, by that time the clouds had dispersed a little. The tower looks amazing, standing with dignity amidst Paris. there is also a sparkling lights show (thats what I have been calling it) held every hour. If you were a watching the Eiffel from a distance as to be able to see its full length, it would seem like the tower, dazzling with yellow light all over, is now sparkling with stars, twinkling all over the tower's body. It looks just amazing. We didnt go on top of the tower, in the hope that tomorrow the weather would be better. There was a long, long, line anyways.
We ate at a French restaurant, where I ordered Crepes, thinking i would like them as much as i liked them in Bangalore. But as expected, the ones I ate earlier were Indianised, with Mango syrup fillings, chocolate fillings etc. Here there was just one veg Crepe, with plain cheese fillings. and it was not even sweet :(.

Frankfurt: 2-March

We are going to paris tomorrow!! Lena and Steffi helped us book the e-tickets. We are going to stay at Ankit's friend's place there in Paris. And I am not going to visit Insead. i should feel guilty perhaps thinking of the longer term, but i don't want to feel guilty.

Had lunch at Flammebelle again.

Frankfurt: 1st March

Nothing special, lunch at Vapiano again and no dinner, slept off early.

Frankfurt: The leap year day

Lunch at Vapiano! I have fallen in love with the Pastas at this place

We had a person, Alex, from the Zurich office with us today. With him, some of us went to a nice dinner place called The Urban Kitchen, whose branches can also be found in India but in a totally different avatar. I am not sure if it is the same chain, but the font style of the name was definitely the same.

We talked a lot about weddings and customs in our countries. Teased Ankit a little on him being engaged. Alex put forth a true point, which all of us know but unknowingly deny to accept. All customs in weddings tend to signify the fact that the bride's ownership is being handed over from her father to the groom. In Christians, walking down the aisle with the father is an example. In Germany, traditionally, the groom has to formally ask for the bride's hand from her father. Not that he would say no or something in today's generation, it's more of a formality now-a days, but still exists. In India, the concept of Kanyadan... same. I got to know another interesting fact as to why sea food is considered vegetarian in some countries. In Christianity, people are forbidden to to eat meat on Fridays, so they manage with sea food. Anyways, I ate veg pasta.

We experienced a 'German After Work party'. Huge dance floor, some people with glasses in their hands, and moving in the name of dancing. Had grown very stuffy inside there due to the number of ppl. It was fun dancing with Carol and Steffi and Milly. The party happens every Wednesday at a place called the Living, starts at 6PM and lasts upto midnight.

Frankfurt: 28th Feb-Tuesday

lunch with the team, ate French  Flammeküche. This is sort of a very thin crust pizza, can be classified as a 'papad' with delicious toppings. dinner mexican. Mexican tomato soup is amazing.