I love Paris

To quote the great Cole Porter:

Every time I look down on this timeless town
whether blue or gray be her skies.
Whether loud be her cheers or soft be her tears,
more and more do I realize:

I love Paris in the springtime.
I love Paris in the fall.
I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles,
I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles.

I love Paris every moment,
every moment of the year

There's just something about this city that resonates with me. It's hard to explain what, or justify the why. I look forward to walking around and assaulting the locals with my pathetic French, and am still in awe every time I walk on Voie Georges Pompidou or am walking past The Louvre. The buildings and churches and castles never change, but each time I walk past them, I discover something new. Whether it's a missed sculpture, or a particularly unique coffee shop, Paris awakens the dormant explorer in me, and makes me feel like a little kid in a candy store. I can walk around for miles and miles without a care in the world, and even though my feet cry for respite, my mind and heart yearn for more. It's always had a special place in my heart, and if this trip was any indication, it will continue to do so for some time to come.

On my way to Paris, I had decided to blog about this the "right way." I was going to make a note of names and places of all the restaurants where I had a meal, and list all the cafes and do some actual critiquing. The plan was foolproof, I had my ever handy IPod Touch and was making a note of everything both days. But my lifelong aversion to Steve Jobs and everything Apple reared it's ugly head yet again. On my way back form Paris, I realized that my entire notepad had been wiped out, as had all my music. I had a mini breakdown in the train. It was not pretty. There was no knight in shining armor to rescue me either. So details of the Paris trip will not be like I imagined it to be and I'm going to have to wing it. Please send a letter of complaint to Steve Jobs for me, will ya?

I took train out from Zurich to Paris on Friday evening. It was a five hour train ride, with stunning views of rolling green hills and pretty farms along the way. The train pulled into Gare Du Nord at around 9:30 in the evening, and my hunger levels had reached insurmountable heights. The brother met up with me at the station and we walked to the hotel, which was about a five minute walk from the station. My brother tried to make conversation with me, but all I could think and talk about was food. Since the brother has seen the monster that I turn into when denied food, we quickly dropped my bag off at the hotel and made our way to the nearest falafel joint. It was only after devouring an entire falafel and some halloumi and some fatayer did I feel human again. I was exhausted from a busy week at work, so we decided to call it an early night and made our way back to the hotel.

Next morning we woke up reasonably early, and made our way to a pretty decent Crepe place. I've always believed in the saying, "Why have one crepe when you can have two?" and I proceeded to do just that:



Some people double fist on alcohol; I double fist on crepes. That's how I roll. After crepes, we walked around on Rue Lafayette, home to many a stores and smaller cafes. We stopped at a cafe for some coffee and made our way to Place de la Concorde. This is one of the biggest squares in Paris, with sweeping views of The Eiffel Tower, Arc De Triomphe, Jardin des Tuileries, and the Louvre. The weather was perfect, with not a cloud in the sky, and we took at least a dozen pictures around the fountains and of the entire square:



From there, we walked on Champs-Elysees and made our way to Arc de Triomphe - a monument about the Napoleon wars.



The top of the arch lists names of all the soldiers who fought for Napoleon, while the inside lists the names of all the cities and towns Napoleon conquered.



I know all this because of the hired tour guide a.k.a my brother. He was willing to share his fountain of knowledge in exchange for good cafes and crepes. Everyone in my family will work for food. We're cheap that way.

Interesting fact: Did you know that Napoleon was only 5'2? Who says short people can't conquer the world? This gives me hope of one day turning my dreams of world dominion into reality.

The inner child in me that needs to be fed every two hours started to scream for food again, and we began our hunt to find a good place for lunch. Came across a wonderful Mediterranean place, whose name I'd give you, were it not for Steve Jobs. Instead, all I can offer you is a picture of what we ate:



This post is turning into an encyclopedia, so I'm going to continue the rest in a Part II of this post.

When tragedy strikes twice

If you remember, a few weeks ago, I talked about rediscovering religion here and here. I was a born-again believer. I believed the Almighty was all encompassing and powerful. Well I am here to tell you that unfortunately, this is not true. Before I begin telling you why, I'm going to digress and talk about my near death experience.

This Saturday I had grand plans to go shopping in Germany. Yes, I can go shopping in Germany if I want to. How very Mariah Carey of me. Anyway, the plan was to go there with a few friends, but as always, come Saturday morning, laziness set in, and ultimately won over, so I bailed out of going. Saturday was the first day in nearly eight days that we saw the sun, so I decided to sit outside in the backyard and just chill. After my first lunch, I started to feel guilty about my fatness and decided to go on a bike ride. I had ambitious plans to ride the bike for 25 miles and go to Rapperswil, which is apparently a cute little town right outside of Zurich. The ride itself is along the lake on a very quiet and a not-so-busy road.

Ten miles into the ride, I decided that I was a bike-expert and could do jumps through slopes and over sidewalks with my "kids" bike. I was feeling badass and decided to do a bike-jump on the sidewalk from the bike path that was on the road. Needless to day, this ended in tragedy. I ended up with bruising on various parts of my lower right leg and my palms. My leg is currently sporting various shades of red, and apparently I also hurt my right wrist. The worst part of it was that there was no knight-in-shining-armor to even pick me off the road! I had to haul my bike and my fatness off the sidewalk myself and make sure that said humiliation was not witnessed by any other living being. Thankfully, the road was deserted, so my shame was mine alone. The worst part was that I had to ride the bike all the way back to my place, with a bleeding knee. And one of the wounds on the leg was on the bone, which led to swelling, so now my one calf looks fatter than the other.

As if all this wasn't enough, I was faced with an existential crisis this morning. The final part of my migration over from New York to Zurich was supposed to get done on Friday, so the hope was that Monday morning I'd have everything the way God of Microsoft intended. Imagine my shock and horror when, upon going to work this morning, I discovered that my email, internet, intranet, chat - nothing worked. And all my documents and files disappeared! The curse of Microsoft had hit again, putting my computer in a catatonic state. I called my God, the one who defeated the Microsoft warlord the last time around, hoping that he'd work his magic again. Unfortunately, and to my immense disappointment, he didn't know what to do! He said he was helpless and powerless in this situation. I felt hope slowly leave me.

I frantically called five different groups and was always told to contact someone else. After SIX hours of chasing my own tail, I knew this had to end, and went "New York" on everyone. I called one group and told them that I'd keep calling them every ten minutes until my access was restored. And I did. Within thirty minutes, I finally had access to chat. The rest of the things were still being worked on, but at least I could communicate with other people! The rest, I'm being told, will be fixed tomorrow.

This whole ordeal got me so stressed that I even forgot to eat my second lunch, can you believe it? I promptly made up for it by eating two dinners with a couple of friends and a dear friend who is visiting from New York. I feel marginally better, emotionally speaking. I just got back and it's now time for me to go to bed and dream hot men dreams, so good night and please pray that my system is up and running as it should be tomorrow morning!

I met GOD today - The Sequel

As I mentioned yesterday, I met GOD. Many of you wondered what this GOD of mine looked like. Well, here's what he looks like:



Yes, I know this is Steven Spielberg. I only had two drinks this evening, so I still relatively know what I'm talking about. But I'm not kidding when I tell you that the resemblance between my God of Humanity and the maker of the Jones of Indiana is uncanny. I almost asked GOD for his autograph more than once.

Since today was the final leg of the war (or so I thought), I decided to wake up early and prepare for it. I practiced Yoga early in the morning and did all three of the Warrior poses for inspiration. But being at war is hard work, so by the time I got to this pose, I took a mini-nap and thus was scrambling to get to work on time.

However, I am happy to report that GOD officially has Superpowers! Currently, only one of my email accounts is active, and supposedly by tomorrow, the entire transition shall be completed. The Sequel has now become a Trilogy, but that's okay, because unlike most wars, this one has An End In Sight. It also helped me discover religion, much to the joy of my Mother. So the final chapter in this saga is set to air tomorrow at 9am Zurich time. If you hear a scream of joy all the way back in New York, then you'll know it worked. If you read reports of this having happened, then you'll know it didn't.

I had a few more things to talk about tonight, but Hugh Jackman dreams are calling out for me, so I'm off to get some sleep. I also have to wake up at 6am tomorrow to figure out and theorize on what happened here. So good night, and please continue sending your prayers and good wishes. Only with those can the God of Humanity defeat the Windows of Microsoft once and for all. Amen.

I met GOD today

This morning, which already seems like a lifetime ago, I had plans to blog about my weekend. Drinks and dinner on Saturday, brunch with some new friends on Sunday, thoughts on the Dalai Lama's lecture that I attended. But all that was B.A (Before Afternoon). Something happened in the afternoon. Something bigger than you and me. Something almost bigger than chocolate mousse cake. I met GOD.

Before we really discuss this divine meeting, lets travel back in time. Lets travel back to a time when trees were still covered with snow. A time when it was still dark at eight in the morning, when three layers of clothing were mandatory. A time we shall call March of 2010. The world was different back then. I was still in New York, even though I was already working on Zurich projects. Back then, I had one work email address: j.d@xyz.com. As I was about to move to Zurich, all my email and personal folders also had to be migrated over to the Zurich systems. Somewhere, somehow, I got a new email address: j.p.d@xyz.com.

Pay attention kids, because in the grand scheme of things, this is the most important piece of information: Since March 2010, I have had two email addresses. I, until now, had only used my existing j.d@xyz.com. The Zurich based j.p.d@xyz.com was something that was just there. Unfortunately, slowly but surely, more and more emails started being sent to j.p.d. I had no way of accessing the j.p.d email account, for reasons that I don't even want to get into, for fear of being inflicted with self-induced trauma again. Anyway, kind souls at work made me aware of j.p.d@xyz.com. To P or not to P became the question. I also liked the idea of actually getting all the emails that were intended for me, and not having them disappear in the vortex of Microsoft. So, I decided I didn't want the P.

Fastforward to April 5, 2010. I made a seemingly innocent request to the powers that be: please shut down j.p.d@xyz.com and make j.d@xyz.com my default and only email address. I was told that this would happen over the weekend, and come Monday morning, life would be the way it was always meant to be.

And today, kids, was that Monday. I went to work, beckoning in a new era in Microsoft Outlook, or so I thought. Imagine my shock and horror when I went to work and realized that nothing happened over the weekend! The world had not changed! There was still j.d and j.p.d! I frantically called over three different Helpdesks, and desperately tried to convey my trauma. But alas, no one knew what I was talking about. Desperate, I decided to close Outlook and relaunch it, hoping for a miracle. So close it I did. And when I relaunched it, this is what confronted me:



"Why didn't you just click OK?" you ask. "Why, thank you for that enlightening suggestion," I sarcastically say. I did click OK. The prompt wouldn't go away. I decided to try something radical and clicked "Cancel". The prompt still stayed. By this point, I had sent out an S.O.S to pretty much everyone in the organization, hoping to find a savior. But I was starting to lose hope. Depression had set in. And that's when it happened.

As I put my head down on my desk in despair, and angelic looking old gentleman with white hair and white beard came up to me and asked, "What bothers you, my child?" Ok he may have said something like, "I'm here to look into your email issues" but I know that's what he meant. As I looked up to him, I saw the halo on his head. Some people may call it floor lighting, but I know a halo when I see one. That's when I knew that I would be saved. And save me he did. This person made something magical happen. He gave me access to both email addresses! I could now respond to people on the P id, who probably thought I was extremely rude for never having replied to their emails. The white haired halo man who made all this possible, Ladies and Gentlemen, was God. That angelic figure who saved me from the Evil Forces of Outlook was the benevolent, all knowing GOD. At a time when hope had been abandoned, he arrived to restore faith. He arrived to defeat Evil.

But, his fight is not over. For tomorrow is another day. Night may have fallen, but the battle has not ended. Tomorrow, we take on the task of shutting down j.p.d and ensuring that only j.d remains. Tomorrow is the battle of Man of God versus the Windows of Microsoft. Will Good survive? Or will Evil rule? Come back for the sequel to find out how it all ends.

May the Force be with you. Amen.