Lingering memories

Having written verbiose descriptions of my experiences, I still feel like missing out on a few really strange incidents,nice people, weird thoughts..
I will devote no more than a few sentences for each, but each of them have created a lasting impression on me.

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The skydive :
The onward journey from Singapore to Paris took me right over Southern India, over Madurai and other towns. It was so difficult to control this crazy thought, to pick up a parachute and eject myelf outta the plane, to take a short holiday in India.
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Kavithai in CDG
The 5 hour transit time in Charles de Gaulle Airport,Paris saw me bring out the only tamil poetry book I managed to take along - Vairamuthu Kavithaigal. In addition to being captivated by the imaginative similes, I also briefly attempted describing the same in English to my colleague. I dont know how much of the meaning was lost in translation !
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Lonely planet
Solitude during weekends sometimes became unbearable, and made me prefer weekdays spent in office instead. This drove me out of the hotel, and I was travelling alone to nearby places by bus,train and even boats. This was possible due the companionship of such inanimate objects like my camera, the music player and of course a Lonely Planet guide.
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Notre Dame
After trudging uphill the mountain atop which is the Notre Dame Basilica of Marseilles, I paused to regain my breath. I was greeted by the toothless but warm smile of this frail old woman, who started to mutter what sounded like an essay to me in French. She understood very little English, but that did not prevent her from taking me along to the drinking water tap, and show me the utilities in the church. I observed that she seemed to suffer from a nervous problem, which made her extremely restless -moving and gesturing with strange swift movements. Her unexpected kindness made me stay a bit longer, and attend the Sunday evening mass, though I could'nt follow a word of the sermon--only the phrase "Anbae Sivam" ( Love is God) ringed thru my mind all the while..
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Happy Pizzas - happy to be eaten by you.
This is how I was welcomed to the shop of this amazing Goan gentleman- Fred Vaz. Hours were spent discussing every perceivable topic, in the aroma of pizzas in the making. Fred's shop in Aix, was possibly the only place to get a Tandoori chicken pizza in France. With such nice conversations, warm pizzas, and irresistable discounts for NRIs it was my most preferred hangout in the evenings. Eventually we became good friends and was even introduced to his lovely family,some of whom became fine critics of my blog and photos, receivers of 1hr crash courses on sambar-making and SLR photography.
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Sacre Coeur
On a visit to this church in a place called Montmarte in Paris, my friend Praveen decided to stay a bit longer than others, lost in a silent prayer. I just sat with him without exchanging many words. What made this event extraordinary was that, he had returned to church after 'years' of being a non-believer. There were no confessions to be made, but for me the moment was heavily inundated with thoughts on faith, prayer, and spirituality.
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Shuttle service
One big reason to goto office, was to be able to play badminton in the evening after work , with the perfectly matched team I ever played with - a group of interns Said, Eva and Eric. Each had his/her own style and everybody else knew their weakness too. Sports has its own way to bringing together people from diverse backgrounds, and forging some excellant friendships over a competitive match or a point conceded out of fairplay.
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Samba(r) beats
I was really starved of Indian food, either self-cooked or outside for nearly 3 months. I had no motivation to cook good traditional dishes just for myself. But right in the last week of my stay in France, I got to make and share sambar and other south-indian vegetarian dishes in 2 different occasions. Cooked with minimum oil, and less spice than normal, it became a lot more palatable to the French tongues. It gives such great pleasure to prepare and present ones native dishes and seeing being emptied in before you take the second helping..!
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Aliases
Whenever I had the courage to try out some new untried foodstuff, the ones which resembled in taste and appearance to typical Indian dishes were the most loved. For instance Spanish Payela - to Hyderabadi Biriyani, Moroccan Tagine to Kaarakuzhambu, Lebanese Felafel to Keerai Vadai , Algerian Cous Cous to Upma, or Bretagne's Crepes to the crispy Dosais..the list is endless.
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Persistence
Having typed all of the above online, and after clicking "Post", losing all of the text due to internet problem- thus relearning the lesson to use a text-editor to create posts for the umteenth time of my life. And reliving and retyping all of the above memories one more time..