Paris: A moveable feast

When I went to Paris, I had a clear expectation in my mind that I didn’t want to just see Paris, I wanted to experience it. I did some research and shortlisted on only 6 places I wanted to go in Paris. Of course, Eiffel tower and Mona Lisa (Louvre) was on top of the priority. But thanks to Karthik, and his enthusiasm in showing me all the monuments and museums in Paris, I ended up going to lot more places than that.

Unaware of the excellent metro system in Paris, I thought of dropping Versailles palace as it was a little far from the city.  I am glad I went there, for Versailles is the most beautiful palace I've ever seen. Versailles is where Napoleon ruled from. Versailles has many more historical relevance to it. This is where the Treaty of Versailles was signed that recognized absolute independence of America (current USA). Also, Versailles is home to many scientific inventions such as invention of static electricity. There is an excellent display of the working models and it was a sheer pleasure in exploring them.

Eiffel tower is a beauty. I ended up being there thrice in two days. Although in pictures, Eiffel tower looks beautiful in the night, in reality the beauty, I feel, is in the day light. It takes a while for the entire steel structure and its magnanimity to sink in. And the view from the top is spectacular. One of my achievements in Paris was that from the top of Eiffel tower I tracked down the route from Louvre museum to Karthik’s place.

Mona Lisa requires no introduction, but when we really see that painting, on the first look it isn’t all that beautiful. Neither is her smile that great. I feel Karthik and I can smile a lot better! But the way that painting is placed, the image looks directly into your eyes and there is a faint smile on her face, kind of a notorious one. You feel as if she is just about to explode, about to reveal some secret and you just stand there waiting for her to start. Some historians have even gone out saying that she was unhappy about her marriage etc. But that something mysterious is what I think is the beauty of that painting because the mystery can never be revealed and it always amuses and creates anxiety among the viewers. Apart from that I also wanted to explore some other masterpieces and renaissance paintings at Louvre museum. Having read a lot in history about the influence of art during the renaissance period, I always wanted to know how art could bring in such changes. I think I have a few answers now. 

Regarding food, French cuisine has never disappointed me. Its always rich and very tasty. We tried a lot of authentic food, the ones I mentioned in my last posts. Unlike in Spain, I didn’t have to specify meat well done. I have always been a fan of french breakfasts. But what I liked the most during our trip are the street food like the croissant, crepe etc. while Crepe was dosa with chocolate, the croissant had some similarities to the Tie biscuits that we get in Irani cafés in Hyderabad. One of the things I liked a lot was that many restaurants had its tables on the street and it was a lot fun eating outside.

Contrary to popular opinion that French do not speak English even when they know English, I have a different take on that. Most of the people whom we met asking for directions etc. were kind and tried to help us. They tried to speak in English as much as they could. English and French, having a lot of Latin words in Common, people could understand what we were trying to tell them, unlike in Spain. Except that I found it difficult with numbers especially when exchanging money, for example, three is tetra, four is Quadra etc. Sounds geeky ain’t it? Apart from numbers, I found it difficult to explain some simple words like “Wait” and tried to explain by saying “later” or something like that. It was until the next day I understood that for ‘wait’, its ‘patientz’ in French. Sweet! What I felt even more sweet was the way the greet each other. It starts with ‘bon jour’ which doesn’t have a literal english translation, I guess, but is same as ‘Namaskar’ in Hindi. And they promptly respond to that. Its pronunciation is interesting: Bon is just ‘Bo’ and jour is similar to ‘zha’ sound in malayalam except that it starts with ‘j’. So its like ‘bo j(z)ha’! And thank you is Mercy!

If I had mentioned Madrid as fashionable, then Paris is even more fashionable than Madrid. In fact, Paris is the fashion hub of the world not because fashion TV is broadcasted from Paris, but I think it’s the people, who can appreciate that. They say it takes two years for the fashion retail to reach USA from Paris and by the time it goes to rest of the world, two other lines are already introduced in Paris. I explored two major streets for shopping, Champs Elysees and St. Germain, but ended up purchasing not much as anything that I touch was over 100 euros.

I’m very keen on exploring night life in places I go for 2 reasons. One any city looks beautiful in lights and two, Night presents the other side of the city and its people. And in the little over 60 hours I spent in Paris I slept for just about 8-10 hours. We went around exploring restaurants in Paris that serve till morning and on one night we walked for almost 3 hours straight. Paris looks spectacular in the night as I had mentioned in one of the earlier posts. We find people on the streets even until 6 am. In fact at 6 am, we find two kinds of people in Paris, one who are drunk and going to get some sleep and two, who are going to office.

Although Karthik feels I haven’t seen enough of Paris, I ‘m satisfied as I feel like having lived in Paris and experienced it. I really miss eating on the streets. It's been over a week since I left Paris and I've already started missing Paris that I can't stop myself from re-quoting Ernest Hemmingway who said "If you were lucky enough to live in Paris as a young man, then where ever you go, it will always remain with you, for Paris is a moveable feast".

Spain: Living in past glory

When I first landed in Madrid, Barajas airport, it reminded me of the airports in India without those automatic sorters and luggage manually thrown into the conveyer belts. But, I had to go to another terminal to take a flight to Paris and that terminal by all standards was very modern. Then after coming back to Madrid, I took the subway to my hotel and had to hop between two trains only to find out that Madrid has an excellent metro system and the trains were much better than the ones in Paris or Chicago. Also all the buses are the low floor ones, air conditioned and not once I had to wait for more than 5 minutes to take the bus to our school that is in the outskirts of Madrid. In summary, Madrid city has an excellent infrastructure (transit system to be specific), kind of Utopian.

A little on Spain’s history. Spain was very prosperous until the late 19th century with many colonies in Latin America, Africa etc. However, the negligence of common public’s need led to a civil war and general Franco ended up being the president of Spain. He was a dictator who supported the Nazis during the world war. There wasn’t any great development in his rule and people were once again unhappy. But, he only gave up power on his death. Upon his death, the Royal family took power and allowed democracy to prevail. Today most Spaniards don’t like speaking about Franco and are happy or thankful to the King for allowing democracy. Sooner, the new government brought in reforms mostly populist reforms that made the people very happy. In mid eighties, Spain joined the European Union. In EU, the funds were allocated based on the basis of lower per capita income. And Spain, then, had the least per capita income. So, they got a lot of funds from EU to develop airport, metros or bus systems, remember these funds were from the tax payers of other EU members.

Today, we speak to anyone in Spain, people talk about crisis. Spain is one of the top three countries were the economic crisis hit the worst. Spanish economy is based on consumption model and is heavily dependent on service industry, specifically, tourism. The interest rates were lowered quite a lot and people started buying real estate. Now there are over 3 million houses in Spain that cannot be sold to fellow country men. Secondly, Spain’s policies were populist in nature and sometimes ignored its consequences. For instance, Public heath care system, were the government is taking care of the health care. And like in US there is social security. Because the government took care of almost every need of the people here, people didn’t have any incentive to work. Neither people found any incentive to conceive children. Today, like many countries, Spain is facing the problem of aging population. The problem is aggravated in Spain because the government has overpromised and now the tax payers are less and the beneficiaries are more. The government is trying to increase the retirement age from 65 to 67 to address the problem. Everybody is aware of the crisis but seems like they are all waiting for the government to do something.

Moving away from political and economic matters, Spain has, may be, the most good looking people on earth and on top of that people are extremely fashion conscious. It almost seems like a crime to be not fashionable in Madrid and to me it has been a wake up call. Most of them, if not, all of them are in very good shape, I mean, I hardly saw obese people, despite heavy drinking and unusual eating habits. I only learned in Madrid that Spaniards eat their lunch only after 2:30 pm and eat their dinner only after 9:30 pm. In fact, the restaurants in Madrid only open at 2:30 pm and the dinner is only served from 9pm in the restaurants. And no meal is served without meat or hot chocolate. They are healthy, I think, because of the kind on food they have. One it is cooked in olive oil, two there is not very high intake of carbohydrates, mostly consists of proteins and also they eat lettuce a lot and three, may be (because its my theory), because they eat rare meat, it might consume a lot of metabolic activity. One of problems I had in Madrid restaurants is that the meat would by default be ‘rare’. Every time I had to specifically mention that ‘I want the meat well done’. Its funny because many waiters here didn’t speak English and I had to show them all sorts of signs to explain what that meant. Then I had a translation written for that and I always showed that piece of paper to the waiter. Anyways, I must say that meat ‘well done’ is still ‘rare’ when compared to our Indian standards.

One other thing in Madrid is that people don’t speak English at all. Only few, may be, youngsters can speak some English. The thing is that many words are similar to English but the pronunciations are totally different. In this country its very difficult to survive with just English. In fact, I would say that foreigners could survive in India much easily than in Spain. It was again a government policy that didn’t encourage people to learn English. Anywhere we go we asked ‘Heblula Ingles’ (speak English) and anytime someone comes to us with a brochure or trying to sell anything to us, we would simply say ‘Manyana’ meaning tomorrow. We found English speaking crowd only in Irish bars. On St. Patrick’s day, most of the people, ex-pats from England and Ireland, I talked to, were telling me that they were teaching English. But in Spanish, I really liked the way they address men as ‘senior’ and women as ‘senorita’. Our conversations starts with Hola (Hello) pronounced as ‘ola’ (‘h’ silent) and ends with gracious (gra as in grand not as in grape, ci as letter ‘C’ and ous as ‘us’), meaning thank you.

And drinking habits, oh my god, these people drink till 6 am in the morning almost every day. I mean the bars are full and are open till 6 am on Mondays, Tuesdays or any day, not necessarily on a Friday night and Saturday night alone. But, on a serious note, drinking is pretty much part of their culture. One of our lecturers told us that if we order good meat and not order wine, people will think that we are crazy. If we order meat and coke, may be the waitress may not say anything to us but will definitely talk about us in the Kitchen. I didn’t find a single restaurant that didn’t serve alcohol. In fact a chain of restaurants known as café’ and te’ also served alcohol. In fact Spain has the highest per capita bars in the world. Because people cannot accept any restaurants without alcohol, makes Spain, may be, the only country were Mc Donald’s sells beer.

Lastly, its incomplete if  I don’t mention sports. Spaniards unanimously love Rafael Nadal. Grand Prix is also popular here, thanks to Alonso, but they don’t love Alonso as much as Nadal. I don’t know much about the bull fighting or teasing, whatever it is called, although I tried to understand it watching it on TV. But it was very cruel the way they Kill that Bull. The country is divided into various football fans. It again has links to history. During the civil war era, when survival was difficult, people found a lot of relief or pleasure in discussing football. In fact historically they say, those who belonged to left wing supported Barcelona and the right wing supported Real Madrid. Real Madrid and Barcelona are clubs that have highest revenues in football clubs and yet high expenses. Many times their debts were written off by the government because the country cannot survive if any of these two clubs close down due to bankruptcy. Our instructor, who showed us the Real Madrid club told us that the club had to sell off prime real estate to pay Zidane, Ronaldo, Beckham etc.

Going back to where I started, Spain with a huge real estate bubble bust, raising unemployment and a negative GDP growth coupled with the consequences of populist polices of the government that brought in cultural changes such as lack of benefactors for the government, poor English speaking abilities, lack of innovations etc. seems to me like quite a lot of challenge for Spain to bounce back. Spain has had a prosperous past and a dream like last 25 years, reaping the benefits of joining EU, but now, the road ahead is not very bright. In fact, most of the people I met itself aren’t any optimistic.

Madrid: Day 4 and day 5 in pictures

Day 4 was the busiest day in our schedule with 6 hours of lecture and followed by a farewell dinner in the evening. We did have some time in the evening when we hopped onto the subways and went walking on the streets of Madrid, well the modern part of Madrid.

Those leaning towers are the symbol of modern Madrid!

But my favorite part was walking on the streets near by the place were we lived, the historical Madrid. The evening was kind of musical with a lot of street shows. It was fun listening to them especially with them playing quality music. Like this group that was playing Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’. I never expected a street show would produce such nice music.

 

And this group, I didn’t know what they were singing but the crowd pretty much enjoyed it.

Then that night we had a farewell dinner, hosted by our coordinators. It was a typical Spanish dinner which starts with wine and starters like Tapas. Then for main course we had authentic Spanish dish called Paella. It is like a Spanish version of Biryani, with rice and lots of sea food (Prawns, squid, crab, octopus etc.) in it. It is served with the ‘kadai’ in which it is cooked and while eating we are supposed to start eating with those parts that are like stuck to the ‘kadai’, that is at the bottom.

It seems like without serving hot chocolate, it is never a Spanish dinner. Our desert was fruits with hot chocolate. We have to dip the fruits in chocolate and eat them.

And yesterday was St. Patrick's day, an Irish festival known as drinking holiday. The story goes that, on this day St. Patrick (father of Jesus) drove away all the snakes from Ireland. So, we went to Irish bar again.

On day 5, we went to the old capital of Spain, a town called Toledo. It was a beautiful place to visit and one can cover this place in like a day by walk. Although this town is like a museum of museums, our trip was more of a discovery. Alex and I, walked our way through the old city and discovered some Jewish connection, Arabic or Islamic connection and the Christianity’s influence on this town. The best thing about this town is that the government did not allow this town to be destroyed or any new constructions in this town. It seems like walking in a different era when we stroll through the streets.

It was very scenic as well.

Lastly, we travelled to this place by high speed train.

I think that picture with the train that is popular across Europe with lush green grass on one side captures pretty much of being in Europe! And with this I’m concluding my trip.

Madrid: Day 3 in pictures

Our day started with a visit to Prado museum. It is one of the largest and has the most impressive collection of Art. We weren’t allowed to take our cameras inside, so couldn’t get any pictures from inside. It has the finest collection of Greco, Velasques and goya, the three Spanish painters and the paintings are very well sorted. Sorting is done based on the era, style of painting or the mood of the painter.

Then we went to another museum that displays contemporary art. There we were allowed to take pictures. We explored some of Picasso's work, of course I didn’t understand modern art. Take this work of Picasso for instance.

No wonder Picasso once said “The chief enemy of creativity is good sense”!

But in the same museum I discovered some socialist connection of Spain

Then we had a case analysis on Telefonica (a telecommunication service provider), which is the third largest recognized brand from Spain, the first two being Real Madrid and Barcelona.

If one asks me about the best thing that can happen in Madrid, I would say “A do or die match for Real Madrid”. Today was one such match: Real Madrid Vs. Lyonnias. Real Madrid was knocked out before quarterfinals for last 6 years despite winning the highest number of champions league titles. And todays match was like a knock out. Here is a tip about being in Madrid. When you can’t get the tickets for the stadium seats at anything less than 100 euros, you got to visit a bar with TVs in it. Its easy to identify because those bars would be jam packed. Sooner, you would realize that the commentary is all in Spanish, and then, you go to an Irish bar, drink Irish beer and listen to commentary in English. The game was an interesting one with Real Madrid winning 3-0 and making it to the quarterfinals.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching the match in the Irish bar with a lot of Real Madrid fans around cheering and celebrating their victory.

Lastly, it was time for us to try some Choras, a kind of fry made out of corn flour and served with hot chocolate. we have to dip these sticks in chocolate and eat.

Madrid day 2 in pictures

We started our day with a tour of the Spanish stock exchange…

this was followed by a lecture on Spanish economy and EU. Followed by a case study on Real Madrid and Barcelona. After that we went to a wine tasting session. We had some good wine and learned about the wine making process. I also learned about find out the age and alcohol content of the wine by looking into the glass. Some pictures from there..

What I have in my hand is Wine and cured Cheese!

And about food, I’ve been eating potatoes and meat, which is like a staple food in Europe. However, the staple food in Madrid seems to be Bread and Ham. There is ham and more ham in every restaurant we go. Another thing here is that people here cook with Olive oil. No wonder the life expectancy is 81 years in Spain despite heavy drinking.

Hola Madrid: Day 1 in pictures

The title reads hello Madrid. Last evening I reached Madrid and joined our team from Purdue. Here is our group picture with the noteworthy emblem of the town hall of Madrid:

Soon after coming I discovered that we were living in the historical town of Madrid, where buildings date to 16th century. One of the things I liked is that the streets are named after the kind of shops/ residents’ profession. This is only in the old city of Madrid like this one for example, where arenal means ground and bordadore means embroidery. Well, it helps if you know spanish:

We toured around some historical locations like the market place (Plaza de mayor):

Also the Royal Palace:

But the moment of my day was our visit to Real Madrid stadium. Of course, we couldn’t spend quite a lot of time as much as I would like to as they were preparing for tomorrow’s champions league game, but we did go to the important places, Here are some pictures:

At the pitch.

The tunnel were the players stand before the game begins and the benches where legends like Zidane, Beckham, Ronaldo, Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo sat:

About food, Last night I had some Tapas, which is kind of a traditional dish in here. It is roasted bread crumps served with some toppings on them. When you go to traditional restaurants, you see meat hanging inside. Those are part of the curing process of the meat. So, this meat is marinated with salt and is left in a room with certain temperature and they are left for aging. And these restaurants kind of smell meat.

When one of our coordinators, who explained to me about the process of curing meat, offered me a Tapas to try, I didn’t know that it was uncooked. However cured they are, it is still ‘raw’ beef. I still don’t know how I finished eating one of those tapas with cured meat on it. Here are some Tapas…

I liked one of the deserts I had. Its called Tortella de Fruites.

Lastly, tonight we went to eat at the oldest restaurant in the world (According to Guinness book of Records), that is existing since 1725 on the same location. They served wine a little differently (though not their specialty), with ice and Orange in the porcelain Mug:

Paris: Day 2 in Pictures

As karthik and I felt we didn’t do enough justice to Eiffel tower, we thought of going for some early morning photography:

Then we also came here in the night

then we went to Versailles Palace…

The we explored some market

And Saint Germain, the fashion hub of the world. This street is where the who is who of the fashion industry is decided… We could only do widow shopping in here

Then went on for a boating in seine river for a night tour of Paris.

Then we went on to explore night life at Paris. walked through half the city.

Some food that we tried today

Bread Toast, Egg and Ham, served with hot chocolate and Orange juice.

Le petit déjeuner meaning French breakfast.

pasta with smoked salmon

well cooked lamb with potatoes beans and pepper, served with Bread crumps.

PS: Too tired to write. Will write more about experience in Paris.