A quite weekend

Paris with Mum - Day 2

Day 2 - Day trip out of Paris - to visit Chateau de Versailles

Golden Gates

Mum was very good about indulging my photography antics

The Hall of Mirrors - Grande Galerie or Galerie des Glaces

Amazing paintings in every corner

Tourist Heaven

The Palace is surrounded by some amazing parks

We ended the day with a visit to the Arc de Triomphe followed by dinner on Champs-Elysees

Paris with Mum - Day 1

Day 1 actually started after lunch at a local cafe/bar near our hotel in the Marais

We took the metro to nearest station to the Eiffel Tower

We noticed the south piller had the shortest line, we later realised the reason was that you have to walk/climb to the second stage before taking the lift to the top, whereas the other three had lifts all the way to the top....

And, so we began our walk/climb to the second stage. I don't think Mum will ever forget this experience...

You can see the Sacre Coeur in the distance from the first stage

Parisian rooftops

The only way is up...

Postcard moment

Champ de Mars

Trocadero

Sunset over Paris

Let the show begin

Cafe de Trocadero - ready for a well deserved dinner

You can't beat a good tarte au citron to end the day..

Finally in concert...

After years of listening to his music and seeing them picturised on the big screen, a small group of us went to see A R Rahman in concert at the Wembley Arena in London; and what an amazing experience. The production was very well organised and catered to old and new fans. I was particularly excited to hear songs from Roja, Humse hai muqbala and Rangeela. A surprisingly exciting evening with equally enthusiastic fans like myself. It's great to be able to tick this off my list of performers to see live....

The man himself - A R Rahman

Beautiful dream sequence

Singing Bharat Humko Jaan

Singing a duet with Lata Mangeshkar

A R Rahman singing Vande Mataram

Dancers and singers on stage performing the final song of the evening of the Jai Ho.....

Mum's first trip to Paris

Ever since I can remember, my mum has always wanted to go to Paris, see the Eiffel Tower and said that I should wait for 'the one' to take me there.... Well, I broke the last wish (as I was tired of waiting) and went last year for the first time. I knew instantly that I would have to return very soon and take mum with me. So, on one boring afternoon at work, I decided to book two Eurostar tickets for Mum and I. Below is a quick note of the things we did during our fabulous time in Paris (I took over 400 photos and have not yet had chance to sort them out, but will upload some shortly):-

Day 1

- train to Paris at 8.02am. Awake from 5am, left house at 6am.
- in coach with predominantly American and Canadian students - generally very loud
- delayed arriving into gard du nord due to fatality on the tracks...,
- checked into hotel. Nearest metro San Sebastian
- lunch at a local cafe
- rest back at hotel (changed rooms)
- We met a very friendly Bengali couple from Calcutta resting near the Eiffel Tower en route from visiting their son in the States
- Eiffel tower (a long walk to the top for mum)
- two hours from start to finish
- sunset view of Paris from the tower
- dinner at cafe de trocodero (with dessert - tarte au citron)
- metro back home
- taxi (as we got our metro station mixed up)

Day 2

- breakfast at local cafe
- train to Versailles
- tour of chateau de Versailles
- lunch in cafe near by to the chateau
- back to the hotel for a rest
- arc de triompe
- champs élysées
- dinner at fouquet's
- banoffe ice cream from haggen daz

Day 3

- French breakfast at local cafe
- arc Le defense
- musee de l'orangerie (water lilies by Monet)
- jardin des Tuileries
- lunch at Le forentine
- galleries Lafayette
- afternoon coffee at illy
- musee d'lourve
- hotel for some rest time
- walked from hotel to Bastille, dinner in Sully, walked through the marais to notre dame, crepe citron at cafe Paris
- metro back to the hotel

Day 4

- breakfast at the two windmills in monmarte (the cafe featured in the film Amelie)
- easy walk up to Sacre Coeur
- metro to musee d'Pompidou
- book shopping at Shakespeare and company
- lunch in the marais
- walked back to the hotel (bastille and marais) - Owen Wilson cycled past with his dog
- supermarket shopping
- taxi to gard du nord for our train back to London

Serpentine Gallery: Summer Pavilion

A group of us went see to the Serpentine Gallery's summer pavilion last weekend which is designed by world-renowned French architect Jean Nouvel. When you first stand next to the structure, you are initially struck by the sheer size and the intense red which contrasts really well with the greens and browns surounding it. If you are in London between now and October be sure to check it out.

Random music moments...

While having hundred and one things to do, I managed to drown out the noise of colleagues by listening to my new playlist of recent music from a couple of Indian soundtracks which included songs from Aisha, Delhi 6,
Dev.d, and Rock On.

Another thing, I have only just starting playing around with the Genius function in iTunes and love how it has created a number of mixes based on my eclectic collection of songs - small joys....