When money is no object

We spent Day 8 of the Europe trip visiting the palace of Versailles. The previous post on this series is here..

It was a half day package tour with the driver of a minivan picking us up right outside our Air B&B and driving to Versailles. But the tour did not start till 10:30 in the monring. So we had to eat a heavy breakfast and go. We were to leave Versailles at 5PM and it would be close to 6:30 PM before we would make it back. 

Boo had mentioned that Saravana Bhavan was close to the train station. We checked on google maps and found that it was a 12 minute walk from our place. So off we went and were not disappointed. 

The Saravana Bhavan in Paris is really good. Way better than any of the other ones we have eaten at. By the time we walked back to our hotel, it was time to start. The van for our tour was ready. It was just the four of us and another family of 3 from Riverside. An guy who was much older than me who had a kid same age as Jr. Apparently he had money in Semiconductor hardware and had retired. He was giving me advice on how to follow in his footsteps and I was hoping for some nugget of wisdom and eventually realized that lady luck has to be on your side. 

Anyways, lets get back to Versailles. We went past the Louis Vutton building, Neiully s/ Siene (which appears repeatedly in the Jason Bourne movies) and went along the river and after an hour or more were at Versailles. The approach to the Palace said it all. It was a very hot day in that area and based on the crowds it was going to be a crazy day! and it was...

The driver told us that he will introduce us to our guide and be gone. He would leave exactly at 5 from the same place. We asked him if we would recommend any place to eat and he told us about this crepe place outside the palace. We made a mental note and went with a larger group of 34 people..

The palace is the worst when it comes to front entrace security and crowd control. There were at least a dozen tourguides with their groups all fighting to get in. They had time slots to enter and apparently the entire thing was off by one hour because of delays. Someone fainted because of dehydration in the heat. A Chinese tourguide picked a fight with the security and our tourguide was advising us to stay calm or we would never get in..There was no respite from the sun and we were out there for an hour almost. Finally we got in. 

The entrance to this place is grand as were all the art works and the corridors. Looks like the young king had all the money to dispose of and spared no effort to make this a grand palace. We saw a repeat of a lot of statutes we had already seen at the various museums in Italy and turns out he tired to import the same artists to build him the palace and was not so successful because of his temper tantrums. Our tour guide was annoying and our headsets had so much static that it made our head hurt. So we pretty much started wandering around with the group and just observing. We could get the history later..

We finished through the castle and went into a grand courtyard. This was beautiful as was the garden. 

This garden is huge with some amazing fountains and sculptures. We walked to the garden when we realized there was no water and there were no water fountains inside the Palace. There was water to be bought and ice cream to be had on the other side of the garden if we walked a mile. We walked as fast as we could and had some amazing ice cream and got water bottles. Now that we were ready to walk again, we wandered around the gardens with smiles on our faces.

They should have drinking water in a place like this. Even if they are trying to make money for water, they could at least make it available! we saw so many older people and kids suffering. It was a mixed bag, this Palace trip. A few umbrellas, some occasional shade and some water would have made all the difference. Here are three slide shows of photos from the Palace and gardens. 

After we made it out of the palace, we hit the crepe place. The road outside was much cooler thanks to all the trees that lined the road.

We took pictures while the crepes were being made..

and then had some crepes!

Then we headed back to Paris.

The kids wanted to eat something in the room. So San and me went back to Saravana Bhavan, had our fill and got some stuff for the kids to eat. 

It was an early to bed day because the next day was a tour from 7 to 7 with a hectic schedule.

Paris by night was interesting. We learned that the apartment building we were in was built in 1869! There was a lot of noise within and outside the building.

Good thing we were exhausted and were able to sleep right away!

The palace had great panoramic views.. 

and a video that captures our day in Versailles!

on to Day 9...

Just indifferent to Paris

Yesterday there was a lot of watercooler talk at work. Given I don't have any social apps on my phone since the "Vrath" and I stopped listening to the radio while driving to and from work, was living in my own world. A few of my coworkers broke the news to me that 50 plus people were dead in Paris and there were multiple co-ordinated terror attacks and a hostage situation. 

When I came home Jr. asked me "Appa, do you know that there is a terror attack in Paris?" and I responded "yes". The little one chimed in with "Good thing your friend is back in the USA!" 

Somehow, I did not feel like reacting to this last night, with the usual :

- change my profile picture with a superimposed French flag

- write a one line status update to say how I feel for the French

- go like those new profile pictures 

etc. etc.

Those things don't do diddly squat towards a root cause fix.

My friends who are living in a parallel universe with exclusive news from Fox are quick to point out how "all muslims are terrorists" yet again. 

I am no saint. I have my share of bigotry, when looking up to my gun owning friends for an answer, everytime some idiot or deranged person goes on a rampage killing a few dozen people at some college or school or movie theater. Why should every gun owner apologize for the doings of some "deranged person"? It is not fair, because not all gun owners are mass shooters,  much the same way every muslim doesn't need to apologize for what happened in Paris because all muslims or not terrorists. 

We live in a world which is very well connected but we are also numb and immune to a lot of things because they are "out of sight and out of mind". We as a people need to understand that what goes around comes around. 

Have not seen many friends change their profile pictures to make a statement that said, what was happening in Syria to hundreds of thousands of innocent people was wrong, even when that four year old floated onto the european coast. When we are expected to feel so strongly for a 120 Parisians compared to 120,000 Syrians, there is something wrong with this world. 

The potential of human beings is not ratio'ed out based on their nationality or religion. 

Some of my friends have actually come out and said  "terrorism has a religion, it is called Islam"!

Well, show me a religion and I will show you a terrorist who claims he belongs to that religion and he is doing whatever he is doing, because of his religion. There are even buddhist terrorists in today's world! Religion is a means to an end. When the means become the end, we have a problem.

Also, nut job is a nut job in any part of the world, irrespective of religion. If folks are willing to blow themselves up or willing to be blown to bits in the name of defending god and country, it is time to rethink the solution to the problem. It is unlikely that we will eliminate religion. We can eliminate socio economic and political divides that are created by religious differences.

We need to see everyone the way we expect others to see us. If we are indifferent to the world, sooner or later the world will be indifferent to us. 

Can see that happen to me already. I have closed my window to the world. There was a time when I used to meet friends for lunch on a regular basis, meet old collegues, have tea with friends at home, call my family in India, on a more regular basis and stay in touch. Those things have dwindled down in favor of bowing down to my new god, the almighty USD!  In my attempt to reach his potus feet as fast as possible (it is an American god, pretty sure, it is a very male chauvinistic HIM.. because if it was a HER, the god will be worth only 65 cents..), I have changed a lot of priorities. 

Also given that every 15 -20 days there is a terror attack, drone strike, mass shooting and the occasional natural calamity in the form of earthquakes, tsunamis and heavy rain or floods, one feels the need to automate the obligatory condolence and solidarity messages on social media to say "I am with the crowd". 

What really gets me more than the terror attacks, is the quick response of the media in the US, to justify their phobias and their previous propaganda. This is specially true of Fox news clips that folks are sharing with me on Facebook.

Going forward, you will not see me post solidarity messages for anything. Yours truly will be happy to be one with himself and be able to not flinch, the next time someone says "terror attacks in abc or xyz". 

It is time for us to show that the USA, IS the greatest country in the world, not because it can proclaim itself so, based on the value of the USD and the number of weapons it has, but because it is able to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. 

If you can proclaim "non-violence" you don't even have to enforce "non-violence". If you proclaim violence, you will only be enforcing more violence in a vicsious never ending cycle. 

When I wrote that the US should not go to war in Iraq after 9/11 a lot of folks were upset with me. That vendetta war and the destabilization of the middle east has left us scars that will last a long time. Now there is a call for war with the middle east without knowing who we are fighting.

All the rhetoric that pits people against people in increasing numbers, is not going to help. 

Both Obama and Hollande are saying "Unity" will help us get through this. 

I agree.

It is time to Unite with the folks in the middle east and share their pain. It will help us get through this, not tomorrow or the day after, but maybe in this lifetime! It will get us to resolve all that is wrong with the world, much faster than another dozen drone strikes or by sitting in the comfort of our living room changing profile pictures.

It is time to spread some peace people! 

ps. See myself right now as part of the problem, not part of a solution. The solution is peace, not war. So if I don't speak up for peace now, I am just fueling the fire. You cannot fight fire with fire. You fight violence with peace, not with more violence.