Paris~

Despite all the hype about Paris being the most romantic city in the world, I don’t find it particularly romantic. With all masses of tourists, swindlers, touters, and pee smelling like subways, I wonder after what the definition of being romantic is. If being romantic is defined as kissing under the Eiffel Tower, or walking into the Louis Vuitton boutique store with your boyfriend and coming out making him a poorer man, or burying oneself in all the art by Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Monet, and Rubin just to mention a few, then I have no argument here. However if being romantic is defined as enjoying quality time, whispering sweet nothings with your significant other in a place and environment that encourages the pair to do so, then Paris is probably NOT the most romantic city in the world. Do not jump to conclusions, what I’m going to say next did not conjure up this negative opinion about Paris, but it is a true and clear headed opinion on the romanticism of Paris.

Our Paris trip was a disaster right from the start. We booked only a room for 4 when we had 6 persons. Apparently I remembered we booked 2 room for 6 but everyone else thought otherwise. So, we managed to check in and everyone’s bags found their way to the room. We watched Moulin Rouge at night and surprisingly, all the guys couldn’t appreciate the cabaret show despite hot half naked ladies dancing in front of us. The show ended at 1am and despite efforts to catch the last train, we missed it by a whisker. Thus, we took the long road back from Pigalle, Paris’ red light district to Chinatown on foot. It was a 2 hour long walk in our best attire in the wee hours of the morning. When we got back at 4am, the hotel reception noticed we had 6 and didn’t allow 2 of us to go up to the hotel rooms. Kartik and Elvin ended up spending the rest of the morning outside. The following day, we went to Versailles, only to realize it was closed on all Mondays. No credit to us for not checking, but we only managed to walk around the gardens and not in the castle which in Yok Hian’s words was the example of Rococo architecture. So after roaming around Versailles, we wanted to go to the catacombs which was also closed. Luckily we checked beforehand due to our developed paranoia. On the same day, we also found out that Nadal and Ivanovic got knocked out in the 4th round of the Roland Garros. What’s the French open without Nadal? The next day at Roland Garros, we witnessed Soderling thrash Devydenko and Cubilkova thrash Sharapokva in two highly unexciting matches which summed up our Paris trip.