Chapter One: à Paris, finally!

The flight from Colombo to Paris passed of without any significant happenings, except for the periodical beggings for non-green food stuffs, which were thankfully answered by the kind stewards and air-hostesses assisting on board the flight. I must say the fish with the meat sauce tastes way lot better once the efforts that went into procuring the item onto my tray table are factored in.

Paris was eventually reached at roughly 1600 hours and we were greeted by some very welcoming anorexic ladies, in cohorts with the multiple business houses that are strewn around Paris. We realized we were in Paris when full length advertisements of fashion houses ranging from Gucci, Yves Saint-Laurent and Pierre Cardin were thrown at our face.

A couple of immediate Parisian know-hows..

1] All incoming passengers are warned that piracy and counterfeits [of any sort] is a punishable crime in Paris with terms upto rigorous imprisonment. A case in point for all travellers alighting with Aeroboks and Adibas' (and any other phonetic or visual substitutes). Try to sport something more covert or else Paris might not look too beautiful from a small rectangular window

2] English is literally non existent. All boards and signs are in French. Thank God for sign language and intuitive UI!

3] One thumbs up for backpacker and travellers alike: luggage trolleys are free unlike in the US where one must part with a quarter.

Immigration hassles were non-existent and we were soon out facing French (both the language and otherwise). Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG), which is one of the airports that serves Paris and which is the one we landed at, is an important hub for travellers who want branch off from CDG to other parts of Europe and the world. As a result, the terminals boast of a direct link to the TGV (which when translated to English-speak mean Train of Great Speed) and the metro which is a direct link to the heart of the city. For that matter, all airports servicing the European capital cities boast of direct train links with the city heart since they are usually situated miles out of the city.

All that is fine on paper. When you actually get to putting the knowledge to practice, you are welcomed with a language that only you seem not to speak and with people who would not speak the language that you do. Subsequently, we went around the terminal, prompting "Parlez-vous Anglais?" [Do you speak English? Pronounced as "paar-lay vooze aang-lai"] till some kind souls relented and pointed us to the terminal station where we could avail of the metro link to Paris.

The Parisian metro is called Le Metropolitan. It is a complex marriage of SNCF, RATP and RER which are individual rail services servicing different routes with different tariffs. To make life a living heaven, the services can be availed of using a single ticket. Again, that sounds good on paper but put it into practice and things are not so rosy. Le Metropolitan is divided zone-wise and as a result, the tariffs are, also, zone-wise. Hence, procuring a ticket requires you to know the zone-wise architecture, at least of your destination, which is severely handicapped by the language barrier between you and the helpful assistant at the window-counter.

We knew we were in for some fun just getting our way to the hostel.