Paris- Where Good Wine is Cheaper than Good Coffee!!!

Paris...I am in love with Paris!!! Its the best city I have been to- better than New Yok, San Frans, DC, Boston, Chicago, or any one of the Indian Metropolitans...its simple amazing. A bit too chic for me to live there, but def. worth many more visits!!

I got to Paris on the night of the 4th and met up with my second couchsurfing host- the guy with the boat. He turned out to be a really cool guy, works in an America based HFund and does cool healthcare projects on the side!! And he has an awesome boat on the Seine that overlooks the island Sarkozy used to live on before he became the President!! Anyways, he took me on this amazing 'Paris at Night' tour of the city. I dont have words to describe it. When I upload pictures, you will see it for yourself. Stunning. The next day, I woke up to a 'Snowy Paris'. It was mesmerizing. I spent ~ 15 hours just walking aorund the city, getting in and out of museums and monuments, eating as little as possible :) and trying to take in as much of the ambience as I possibly could.

Last night, when I went to bed, I remember thinking that I had never seen so many women wearing designer coats (all black, mind you!) and high heeled boots and carry Coach (or D &G or something like that) anywhere else in my life!! And here I was, a tourist from the US, in my sneakers (yeah- I gave in...:)) and carrying my huge backpack and trudging along this fancy city :P Anyways, I did a little more of that today...and finally took the train into Brussels and got my computer back!!

I will head out to the airport in a few hours and start the second leg of my journey- Freetown, Sierra Leone!! Stay tuned! :)

Lille- Where I learnt What Makes a Sunday!

Yay!! Back to my keyboard! The last three days were amazing!! Not sure if I can remember all the things I wante dto blog about...but I'll try :)

So, I headed out to Lille after spending the day in Brugge to have my first couch surfing experience! I was staying with Cecile, a computer scientist and her boyfriend Arnaub who is Computer Science PhD student. There was another couch surfing guy staying at their place too- an Indian dude from Germany. I spent the night of the 3rd hanging out with the three of them and a couple of their friends- we 'made' Indian food for dinner and hung out at a Latin bar...in France! Talk about being multicultural :) It was fun, with us being the only ones actually danicng salsa and entertaining everyone else :P

The next day, I headed out to old town Lille where I realised all too quickly what it means to be living in Europe (or anywhere but the US) on a sunday! Everything was closed. That is everything but very expensive cafes!! Oh did I mention how expensive Europe is??!! Wait till I get to my stories about Paris.. :) But the tiny streets of Lille and the cute shops (I saw stuff from the windows :P) made a 4.00 euro coffee worth it. And it was freezing cold. Its amazing how people over there are immune to the cold- even kids walk around in skirts and gloveless (I know...I hate gloves but I was wearing two of them-in layers...it was that cold!!).

Anyways...walking around Lille was fun and so were the couple of museums I went too...I ate my first French crepe (I even have a picture of it! :)) and got my first 'authentic' French lesson...not that I remember anything! :)