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July 2005

Paris

Jeremy Koh
2005-11-05 12:16:49

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Ernest Hemingway, a struggling American writer, strangled and cooked pigeons in the park and "borrowed" books from here to survive. Fitzgerald, Joyce, and Pound also got their English fix here. Unfortunately for us, they were just preparing to open the bookstore at the time and we couldn't get in for at least another fifteen minutes. Due to time constraints, we decided not to wait. Meanwhile, I peered through the door and tried to breathe in the literary air there.

From here, we walked on to St. Séverin, a gothic church which gives us a close-up look at gargoyles. I remember walking into the church to have a look but I don't really recall what it looks like now. Then, Prema reminded me that we wanted to taste French onion soup and this proved to be our downfall. More on that later. Anyway, we started walking around the Latin Quarter searching for French onion soup. At the first restaurant we went into, we were thrown out when they realized that we only wanted French onion soup. Finally, we found a nice cafe that served French onion soup. There's some cheese melted on top and it's heavenly. However by then, we had only slightly more than two hours left to our flight. Thus, we started our mad dash back to hostel to collect our stuff and then to the Metro to board our train to Charles de Gaulle Airport. Gosh, we'll need an hour to get to the airport and we had to change to the RER network because the Metro doesn't reach there.

On the RER, we were really panicking as the time to our flight drew closer. At the RER station for Charles de Gaulle, we had to board a shuttle bus to our terminal and finally we reached the terminal, 30 minutes before takeoff. To our horror, the counter people told us that the desk is closed. We've missed our flight. We were asked to proceed to the Emirates counter. Initially, they told us to contact our travel agent for help. But after some cajoling, they finally agreed to help us and we were put on a later flight on the same day, some six hours later. But we were �50 poorer due to the 'administrative' fee. .

And then I was thinking, darn, I could have wandered around the Latin Quarter with all the additional time. Anyway, six hours is a little awkward. Traveling to Paris and back would take two hours, and to be safe, we wanted to check in two hours early this time. So if we had headed back to Paris, we'll only have two hours. Thus, we decided to hang out at the airport till our flight. The airport is undergoing some major renovation and there's nothing much to do or see. Well, all these because of the French onion soup though I must say that I don't really regret having it on hindsight. It's really nice.

Eventually we boarded our flight to Dubai. Upon arrival at Dubai, it seemed as though Dubai was caught in some sandstorm or something. It looked so foggy and the sunlight barely filtered through all that fog. Well, I wanted to feel the hot desert air, but I guess it's not the right time, though the weather is still quite warm. At the terminal building, I bought some souvenirs and then decided that I wanted to try some Arabic food. Alas, the airport has international cuisine, even McDonald's, but no Arabic food. The closest is Lebanese food. I got some fried dumplings with some vegetables, and all I can say is, it's not to my liking. Anyway soon after, we boarded the flight back and it's the end of my two week European vacation.