Well, it’s time to say good bye to the “City of Lights” and what most people term – the most romantic city in the world!
It’s been a good four weeks spent doing some significant fulfilling work which also involved a lot of learning. But more importantly, it has been time spent working at a relaxed pace… well atleast till the last week (that’s when my work from back home caught up with me!) . Paris has been all that was promised and more – with romance in the air and history along it’s every lane, it’s a tourist’s delight. I would say my month’s work-stay and 3 weekends thrown in didn’t allow me to do enough justice to the place as a tourist, but that’s precisely reason enough for me to want to visit it again.
Work-wise as I already mentioned it has been relaxed, but efficient work with colleagues who made us feel right at home – especially the guy we worked with being an absolute dear! 
The stay, the commute and the experience of working away from home were as comfortable as could be desired. The sight-seeing trips were very insightful and enjoyable, although I found that my stamina for weekend sight-seeing walkathons isn’t what it used to be 
Overall I think it was a wonderful stint, and the joy of meeting-up with a close friend all the way here – away from my and her place of stay – was the icing on the cake! Neither of us had imagined, even in our wildest dreams that we would meet here, of all places! Well, that’s life I suppose! 
Tomorrow I formally say goodbye to the city and take my flight back home. All said and done, the heart does yearn for home and the warmth of loved ones – well, this time the hubby has been missing me quite a bit too (now why does that make me grin with glee – my heart melts but the mind says – see, this is what I feel everytime you leave me alone and go off on your official trips! ) But, the city has tempted and tantalised me enough to hope for a second visit and that time with the hubby in tow. So hopefully our paths will cross again and may be I should say – Au revoir à bientôt!
I was kinda racking my brains about what best to buy for my little nephew, niece and cousin (yeah when you have the (mis)fortune of being the first-born in the family on the paternal and maternal sides, you end up having cousins who’re as old (young) as your nephews/ nieces!) . Yeah, so I wanted to buy something nice for the li’l ones, at the same time I didn’t want to splurge on something which they would soon outgrow and would thus get wasted. So I thought I’d buy some stuff which could be really useful (atleast for a year or two) and which we wouldn’t normally spend on, back home. Well, this was at the back of mind all the time I went into any shop here.
So my eyes scoured for this something when I was at one of the touristy places last weekend and was taking a walk around the neighbourhood - there were a lot of small shops with ‘SALE’ written across them and that made me happy! I found one shop which seemed to have some stuff for the infants and kids, I went in to take a look. It was a sale alright – there were heaps of all kinds of clothes, jackets and other wearables and people were pulling at it, obviously wanting what someone else had in hand. I spotted these cute little winter jackets – complete with a hood, mittens for hands and feet and I thought – this is perfect! I’ll buy three of these and my gift’s ready! Little did I realize, it wasn’t going to be as simple as that.
Firstly, it really was a heap and there was no separate heap for the jackets. And since it was for kids, I had to check the sizes before choosing them – the tiny little tag which says – 6 months, 9 months, 12 months etc. and which is not very easy to spot. Now two of these kids are nearly a year old and the girlie is 6 months. Apart from the different sizes, I had to be careful about the colours I chose – I couldn’t end up with pretty pinks for the boys and dull browns for the girl! So my task became all the more complicated. Well, let’s say, after 45 minutes of non-stop scouring and pulling out tiny hands and legs (of clothes, of course!), I ended up with 3 jackets – I partly lost patience after that and partly decided – a gift is a gift, what they do with it later is surely left to the parents!
So then, with my arms loaded with these three heavy jackets, I walked deeper into the store between aisles filled with clothes of all kinds - for women mainly. That’s when I realized how big the shop actually was and how many people it held! I picked my way amongst them and finally managed to reach the billing counter. A woman of African origin, said ‘Oui‘ with a question-mark writ all over her face. I pointed to my armload and pointed to her machine and said bill. She again said ‘Oui‘ and pointed towards something behind my back. I turned my head and saw – a serpentine queue whose end seemed to be lost somewhere in the other corner of the store – all women waiting with basket-loads of clothes they’d bought to be billed on that Saturday afternoon! They were snaking up to the counter in a round-about fashion, which I’d failed to notice. I caught my jaw from hitting the ground and quickly went past atleast thirty ladies to stand in the queue.
And then started the ordeal of waiting. It being a ladies queue there were a few cat-fights here and there, about people forming invalid sub-queues in the wrong directions – but nothing which wasn’t settled amicably in a few minutes. As I stood between that throng of French women who were chattering away in a language which I couldn’t remotely understand, I felt lost! I did contemplate leaving behind the jackets and coming away, but then thought the better of it - having invested nearly an hour of my time, I wanted to buy it that day. Standing in that queue I realized why men tend to get annoyed when they shop with us. Those ladies, even as they stood waiting, wouldn’t let a piece of cloth alone – they checked each and every piece of clothing in every counter of every aisle – irrespective of the colour or size or pattern or anything. They wanted to take it in their hands and see it for themselves! There were times when I wanted to scream – aunty! please move on! I want to get these 3 damn things billed and get away, can you please let me go?! But I did nothing of the sort, you don’t go to a foreign country and voice your strong opinion amongst a group of people whose language you don’t understand! I grit my teeth and counted sheep as the line woefully slowly moved on. It was a good half hour before my turn came, I paid the cash and rushed out.
Phew! It really had been years since I’d shopped for anything like this by standing in such a long queue! For all the trouble I took, those babies better coo and be nice about their jackets! 
