Ah.. food... salvatioN!

2009-05-15T09:02:00.001-07:00

Heard that saying " The way to a man's heart is through his stomach". I always thought this needed some alteration (slightly more to the south :) ) until I met Ankur Gandhe@Brest.

There he was; poor guy. Tired, restless and famished. He was fighting a losing battle with the stomach. And that is when he decided to grab the cooker, stab the rice bag with a knife and
set out to conquer the damn wretched hunger! Although no prior experience in France, he had cooked several times at home. And let me tell you, he might have cursed his mother a million times for all the cooking she made him do, but that night, that night he thanked her a billion times; The cooking was just parfait.

The rice was delicious and so was the dal. Never had I felt the taste of pulses so ravishing! But who wont, after having boiled beans and fried potatoes for lunch! Add some pickle to this and a bar of choconut! I wish I had someone to flaunt my cooking skills to. It was weird sitting alone and praising my own cooking. :) Anyway, last night's dinner was even better. Went to a friend's place and had Rajma-chawal. Delicious!

Finally my food crisis are also to end. Now the only thing left is : EUROTRIP! Je viens baby!
:D :D :D

Four is company,- The Trip

2009-05-13T09:37:00.000-07:00

The four of us set out on a mission : Mission France. But only one survived till the very end(The west end of France - Brest).

Day 0

12 Noon: Relaxing at the airport, waiting for boarding. The international terminal looks nothing like the one in the movies. Overcrowded, Indians everywhere... oh where art thou firangies??

18:30 : Landed in Paris. Cameras out, flash! Flash!... until the authorities threatened to seize our passports. Customs - I wish our religious customs were that easy.

20:00 : After a wild goose chase for the metro station, finally settled down on the cosy red leather Paris metro seats. Cost : 8.4 euros. And please, don't convert to rupee :(

21:15 : Reached the destination Paris Monteparnee... Whatever its called! Shyam is still struggling with his baggage and Iyer is delighted after his first 'complete' french conversation.

Midnight : After buying my ticket again ( Yeah, had to, because of some problem) and waiting alone for 1 hr, found my place in the fastest train on earth, TGV.

Day 1

05:52 : Dot on time, the train reaches Brest. One thing common between Indians and French - everyone's in a hurry to get down. And yeah, Iyer was right. Everyone smokes here. Even the baby in the cradle was sucking cigarette, not his thumb. But then, its so cold out here. Understandable.

07:27 : Found the keys to my room. Nice, small, cosy. And oh, a girl lives next door. Heck, I am a sadhu :) .

8:00 : Met Arun Kumar aka Baby bhaiya. Hasn't changed a bit, only his girl friends have changed nationality. Some Hindi, some iitg lingo. Ah, what a relief.

13:30 : Got up from sleep, Met the professor. Here is a snippet of our conversation -
"Yes sir, I will start right away sir."
"Don't worry, work slow n steady. I am sure you have to mail back home. "
Shows what a diligent and obedient boy I am :)

18:00 : I went to the Beach, you bitches! Few more Indians had joined in. Helpful lot. And a lot crankier than I thought they would be.

22:00 : Slept....

FOOD : I haven't mentioned the food I had. Well, that is because I dint have much. Just Parle-G, some boiled beans, some Laddus from back home.

I guess my settling was pretty smooth. Lets see how the stay goes. ;)

Summer 09 (the search for a better name is on)

Ah.. food... salvatioN!

Four is company,- The Trip