French Trip

To end the French month, here it is.

It had been a long wait for all of us, especially the ones who had been waiting since 15^th February, which would include me too. We had been practicing hard for our show everyday. And the day finally arrived. 12^th may, the day we were supposed to leave for the airport. Everybody met up outside the airport at around 9:00 PM. I was pretty OK with the whole leaving-my-family thing, taking into consideration the fact that this was the first time I was away from them. For some (read Ridhi Kapur), it was as if she was getting married and being sent away (she was hugging and hugging and hugging her mom), but I don’t blame her. Anyways, we boarded the plane and stuff. We took off at 0035 hrs on 13^th May.

After a 9 hour long flight, we finally reached Paris at about 6:30-7:00 in the morning. There we met the not so rose looking Ms. Rose. I have talked about her in a previous entry and I would not like to waste webspace on people like her. Anyways, then we boarded the TGV for Angoulême, which was a task. 8 boys had to put the entire luggage on the train in less than 3 minutes. Fatima, not a boy, helped us with it and Tanya was one of the few women who was carrying her own luggage and my jacket, Sank you.

Our day began after we reached Angoulême

Day 1 13/05/05 Friday

We reached Angouleme around Noon. Taking the luggage off was also a task because now we had to do it in less than 2 minutes. We were taking to Lycee Marguerite de Valois (the school) by cars, small cars. All of us assembled in a certain place in the school and then had Lunch. The food there, in the school, was beyond edible. I wonder how Adarsh could have it. So, most of us used to have Milk, Yogurt, Dessert and other stuff except for Nangia who practically ate all the Non-Veg. stuff there. After Lunch, we went to the Supermarket, E. Leclerc (which we later renamed Electric), to buy stuff to eat. After a good electric session, we met the Principal M. Andre LOT. He spoke in rapid fire French, which as a matter of fact I was able to understand for quite a long time till I lost track and then had no intentions to get back on track coz I was very sleepy. Madam Squirrel got computers arranged for us. I was sleeping before that and then Mme Marlene came in and told us that we have computers. I got up like a mouse that just smelt cheese or like an animated dog that just saw a fire hydrant.

At around 530 we met our hosts and had drinks and stuff to eat. Soon we went to our respective hosts’ places.

Observation: The sun refuses to go down in France. It set at about 930 everyday.

We had dinner. I loved the food at my hosts place. I had Pate, which was excellent. That’s the end of day 1.

Day 2 14/05/05 Saturday

I got up early around 8:00, that’s early because Simon used to get up at 11:00 11:30. Since, the dude was asleep I went with his dad to the open market to get stuff to eat. We came back and “a pretty girl from India” had called me, which turned out to be Ridhi. Simon got up, did not take a bath and started smoking straightaway

Observation 2: These people smoke too much.

Simon took me for an on-foot trip of Angoulême. I saw all the little places that there were to see and we returned home in about an hour or so. Then we had lunch.

Highlight of the lunch: Radish with butter with bread with special salt and of course Pate. Awesome.

Then we went Bowling, where we met Siddarth Nangia and Marion.

After the Bowling session, Simon, Marion, Nangia and I went to the Town Hall where we met other people as well and had drinks and food in nearby places.

At Quick Burger, French equivalent of McDo (they have it too but they hate anything american), there was this person who was handing some stuff to eat and so we asked him if it was vegetarian or not. The person says

“No-No, No-No… I am French, I am French” said that twice

then he says, “ I got married last week”.

By the way he was the one dressed up as Jesus.

Observation: All French people were amazed with my long hair and always asked me to show them my hair. Delphine was one of them.

We had a good time loitering away in Angouleme, especially because it’s a very small place. During this period, a time had come when I was about to kill Siddarth Nangia because he had done something to my camera which made it show the E61:00:00 error, which basically meant that something had gone wrong with my camera and it was irrepairable. But after an agonizing half an hour and almost shitting in my pants, my camera was ok again and so was everything else.

At night, we went for a concert of some band. I sat outside the place because there was too much smoke inside, so did everyone else except for Abhinaya (hereby referred to as Smelly Crap, the reason shall be explained later).

Everything was over by 12 at night and we went back home.

Day 3 15/05/05 Sunday

By day 3 I had something wrong with my throat because I had inhaled so much smoke.

For this day, Simon had plans for Football. The football place was about a half an hour drive from Angouleme. There we met Aayush Kumar and Utsav Sarkar aka Fatuti. We thought it was going to be some general football thing and nothing more, but as it turned out, those guys signed all of us up for a tournament and well we lost. It started raining and since I can’t play in the rain we moved out of the place.

After Football, we went Karting.

Highlight: They couldn’t find a helmet that would fit my head, but after searching for a long time they finally found one.

I drove well and in 10 minutes I had 9 laps with my fastest lap being 1’04”210. It was a very good Karting place, very professional and it was a very long track. That my friend was the best Karting I ever did and better than any place in India you will ever find.

While going back home, Simon’s mother took us for a ride along Angouleme and I took a few pictures before reaching home. At home, I saw 8 mile… again.

The day got over with nothing in particular happening

Day 4 16/05/05 Monday

It was the end of the weekend and so we were dropped off to school by our hosts. After having breakfast and stuff, we walked down to this place called Creche de Kirikou. Being a crèche one expected it to have little babies, but the babies weren’t there. They had toddlers but no babies. Maybe the babies were on strike because the schoolkids were on strike too. We didn’t do much in the crèche. We walked back to school and then we had lunch and attended a few classes.

At 6:45 PM we had dinner, which was too early by any standards. We loitered around school and we had our dance practice.

At about I don’t remember what time we entered the Internat (hostel). They had 2 rooms which were connected by one bathroom. 3 students were accommodated in one bathroom. That basically spells that 6 people had to use one bathroom.

At night, we used to play Bluff. We were too loud and the hostel people came 11 times to our room to tell us to be quiet. Their favourite word: “Doucement!”

Day 5 17/05/05 Tuesday

Akshay, Suri and I did not have breakfast for reasons very obvious. By now, I had a very bad throat and was having trouble sleeping.

The people took us out to the Open market for “shopping”. This Open Market highly resembles the market of Sarojini Nagar. When people were done shopping we moved to the Town Hall for a guided tour of the castle which was turned into this building now.

We walked around Angouleme and went back to school.

In school we followed the same routine of Dinner, some time in the foyer des eleves, practice and back to sleep.

The hostel dude came to our room and played bluff with us.

Day 6 18/05/05 Wednesday

On day 6, we again did not have breakfast and went to Futuroscope. Futuroscope, a few hours away from Angouleme, is sort of like an amusement park with simulators and similar things. In Futuroscope, I saved the lives of 2 people

1. Ridhi Kapur- who very conveniently left Tanya’s scarf at some place and forgot to pick it up. Had I not picked it up, she would’ve been killed by Tanya Puri

2. Radhika Malik- who very conveniently left her waist pouch containing her camera on the ground outside one of the simulator places. She remembered of it only after we entered the thing and then went wild searching while I had it safely placed in my bag. She came back almost in tears after she could not find it. I gave it to her after that.

That very day, Fatima Husain, for the person she is, screwed up my camera. That is all I will say about her.

There was this very awesome water show where they had water shooting up with fire in sync with music.

Our hosts had also gone with us and we had a nice time in the bus.

I learned this French phrase “kirakakou”… you say it in a very squeaky voice, I couldn’t say it coz I had throat troubles.

That was our day.

We followed the same routine after reaching the school

Day 7 19/05/05 Thursday

On day 7 we went to this place called Rochefort/ La Rochelle. It was a beach place but it was too cold out there on the beach too.

First of all, we split up into 2 groups and the first group went to La Cordarie Royale, the rope factory, whereas the second group went to Maison Pierre Loti, the house of Pierre Loti, some French writer in the 19^th and 20^th Century.

At the rope factory we were explained how they made ropes and stuff, and I also made a rope. After the guided tour of the rope factory we went walking to Maison Pierre Loti. One isn’t allowed to take photos in there so sadly enough no photos of the place. His house was good, very good. The dude traveled a lot in his times. The guide, who was showing us around, was totally gay. We know this by his actions. He described Pierre Loti as

“Naughty Loti”

“King of the nights”

This dude’s house was quite a distance from the rope factory. On our way back, Nangia and Akshay bought roasted chicken.

At the beach, we had lunch and that was about it. We did not have much time at the Beach.

After walking around the place we went to an Aquarium which was a good place.

And then we headed back to the Lycee for that evening we had our show.

The show was a great success, everything went of very well and the people clapped hard.

That night when we went to the hostel, we finally made friends with the other people. We had been fighting with them since the beginning and we had exchange of ideas and stuff. That was a good night.

Day 8 20/05/05 Friday

We had to “check-out” of the hostel.

On day 8 we went to this place called Dordogne, which had these caves. Lascaux, as the caves were called, are about 17000-20000 year old caves. Due to the large amount of people visiting the caves, they were deteriorating. So, the Frenchmen, smart as they are, decided to build an exact replica of those caves. They called it the Lascaux II. Lascaux II, only has the Bulls Chamber replicated but it was a great place.

For lunch, we went near the river Charente and listened to some sad jokes by our teachers. We sat around the place for about an hour and then headed out to this Prehistoric Museum which did not interest us, we were more interested in food. We went to this café nearby and had stuff to eat and drink.

After all that was over we headed back. We went to the Mayors place, where we did basically nothing because the Mayor wasn’t there.

Highlight of the event: Akshay got married to Ridhi Kapur… it was a total normal marriage with all the I dos and stuff. Sadly enough I forgot my camera in the bus.

After the marriage we met our hosts again. 6-7 of us kids met up again and went out for dinner. I blasted akshay and ridhi with my MJs(marriage jokes). After dinner, we went to this place to see Lola’s sister’s dance performance, which, by the way, was good.

Everybody went home and that was it for the day.

Day 9 21/05/05 Saturday

Simon’s family took me to this place called Ile d’Oleron, where Simon would be heading for his future studies. This place also has a beach. We did not do much at this place.

After coming back, we had pizza at home and then went to Lola’s place where we had lots of fun. It was like a nightclub. Our last night out in Angoulême. It was total fun. We danced and all that.

Day 10 22/05/05 Sunday

On Sunday, everybody met at the station. It was goodbyes filled with tears and happy memories. We said byebye to Angoulême and all the people. I shall never forget that place and visit it atleast once more. We all miss it.

We reached Paris by TGV and went to our hotel Campanile. It was an air- conditioned hotel.

Our tour guide was very boring; she refused to shut up and had to describe every little thing that was there. We went to Versailles in the afternoon and spent 2 hours there. We had dinner at this place called Chez Hunza. Then we went to the hotel and went off to sleep late at night.

Day 11 23/05/05 Monday

We went to visit the Eiffel tower. We went up to the 3^rd level by elevator and then descended by stairs. I won the stair race. We then went by boat to Notre Dame, I had totally forgotten what it looked like and I must say it is totally beautiful. We all wished for good marks at the Point Zero.

From Notre Dame, we walked down to the Quartier Latin where we had lunch at this Italian Restaurant. Then we walked through Luxembourg garden and then went to Louvre museum by bus. We saw "La Nouvelle Salle de La Jaconde", the new room of Mona Lisa. It was a very short visit to the Louvre.

Had dinner at night.
After dinner, utsav comes and asks us what would be the best direction to pass gas in since it was very windy that day. Funny guy.

Now comes the part of Abhinaya being named Smelly Crap.

You see, Abhinaya is this very thin vegetarian. She was feeling Shitty inside so Siddarth Nangia decided to let her in into our bathroom. That was it. She relieved herself and our whole room was stinking for a whole 3 hours till someone else went into to undo what she had done. PHEW!

A song for abhinaya

Smelly crap smelly crap

What have they been feeding you

Smelly crap Smelly Crap

What did you eat

Day 12 24/05/05 Tuesday

On Tuesday we went to Disneyland. That was a totally awesomically fun day.

The biggest attraction of the place was space mountain. We guys went on it thrice, and it was awesome fun all three times. It began with the train thing moving with quite good speed to a place a few metres away and then it stopped at an angle of 60 degrees with the ground. It stopped there for a few seconds and there was a countdown.

Trois, deux, Un… LAUNCH..

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH……..EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…MMMMMMMMOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYY..

That’s what came throughout the ride. It was awesome. Going through one loop and one barrel roll at speeds twice that of the shatabdi. Weeeheee... was fun.. And the disco music in the background was good.

We found a good way to survive in Disneyland

Life in the Fast Pass. Fast pass was a very good idea.

We went to other rides such as big thunder mountain and Indiana jones but Space Mountain Mission 2 stole the show.

The Disney Parade was also a good thing.

Basically, Disneyland is a great place. Id never grow old for Disneyland.

At dinner time.. Utsav said the English Alphabet twice in burpy mode.. which was just too hilarious. There was this one time when he was about to burp but it didnt come out and then he said, "That went out normally". We all know what that means.

Day 13 25/05/05 Wednesday

This was our last day in Paris.

First of all we went to this parfum factory called Fragonard. My parents had already visited the Nice factory so I knew what to buy from there. There was this asian-french lady over there and she had these high pitched YAs at the end of her sentences.

We then went to Montmartre where people got their portraits made. I shudve gone to Dali Museum with Nangia but he disappeared.

We had lunch in Quartier Latin again at the same Italian restaurant. The dude over there was very happy to see us.

Then everybody went shopping. I did not buy anything that day.

When everybody had finished shopping we went for the Bateau Mouches. It was a fun ride.

We had dinner and that was it. That was the end of our trip

I forgot to mention we had a very good bus driver named Armando.

Day 14 26/05/05 Thursday

On Thursday we all came back home. Now, there was this very smart woman who decided to take home 6 bottles of wine and 2 big bottles of cheap French shampoo home. We were getting delayed because of her coz I had to shop at the airport. I did my total shopping in about 45 mins and then we boarded the plane. I bought parfums and chocolates. All 10thies who had given their boards were very freaked out on the plane because our results were going to come at 6 that evening.

That’s it my friends. That was our trip. We had fun.

Im gonna miss all the people. Im gonna miss Angoulême. Im gonna miss the bus rides. Im gonna miss blaming Adarsh for all sad jokes. Im gonna miss Ridhis slaps. Im gonna miss everything.