Bonjour!

Bonjour Madame de Monsieur!

Sorry, ever since we came back from France, I am in the habit of speaking French. After a long hiatus, I am back. We went on a vacation to Interlaken Switzerland, Belfort and Paris France. Pappa was losing vacation days (new policy in his office use it or lose it.. dumb ha?) and Murali Maama (my favorite) is moving to India for about 3 years. So Murali maama and Vandana Maami wanted us to visit them. Everything happened in a Jiffy. Appa and amma got the visa in the last minute (see somethings are better for me. I don't need a visa for a lot of countries....) and off we went on Apr 29th.

We flew to Zurich and took the "Thomas Chu Chu Train" to Bern. I met a new friend Nina on the train and played with her toys for a little bit. Murali maama picked us up in Bern station and we drove to Interlaken. it is a beautiful and picturesque place. After a brief shower, off we went to the lake side. We walked, played on the swings and the slide. So much fun.

Day 2: To the top of Europe. Jungfraujoch. We changed so many "Thomas Chu Chu" trains to reach that place. It was cold and cloudy. But we got some break from clouds and saw the entire valley shine in sunlight. Amma learnt a lot of neat tricks to make sandwiches from Vandana Maami. After we came down the mountain and hiked through the city, it was time for me to hit the bed

Day 3: Grindenwald - A small but lively city in the valley. Appa got few great shots of the valley and me looking at the cow and being amused. We had our picnic lunch and started driving to Belfort France. Since I woke up early in the morning and did a lot of running, I was sleeping almost all through the ride

Day 4 & 5 : Belfort France. Murli Maama's place. We took another Thomas Chu Chu train and went into the fort and saw how ingeniously the entire fort was constructed. Amma bought a lot of stamps and started chasing the Euro coins. Did you know that every country in the Euro zone minted their own coins? Amma had to buy special holders for all those countries coins and her sole motto in life for the rest of the trip became to collect all of those coins. No coin reached my hand in spite of me begging, pleading, threatening, crying, crying, crying and crying...

Day 6: Off to Paris. After goodbyes to Murali maama and Vandana Maami, we took a non stop train from Belfort to Paris. France has a very good train system. We landed at Gar de lest station at Paris and our hotel was right outside the train station. We checked in, did some shopping and hopped on a mini bus for the Paris illuminated tour. I slept for most of the time but Appa kept on clicking. Great shots of Paris in the night.

Day 7 Paris: We saw the Eiffel Tower, Musse de Orsay (museum), walked by the Senne river, to the Concorde square. Then started the long walk through the Champs Elysses (Shan Zeleze) to the craziest circle in the world by the Arc De Triumph. Guards were giving their honor when we reached the Arc. It was really cool. Walked down a little bit, had our dinner and went up the Arc to see Paris from the Arc. It was really beautiful. I saw lightning few miles away and suddenly at 10PM, Eiffel tower lit up in those amazing sparkling lights. It was really cool.

Day 8 More Paris: Louvre museum, Galleria LaFayette, we bade goodbye to Paris and hopped on a TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse - literally translated as High Speed Train) to Zurich. One thing I liked (not sure if Appa and Amma liked it) was the Paris Metro. At every station, Appa and amma had to lift the stroller and I had to sing "Ganapathi Bappa Morya..." It kind of became funny sometimes...

Day 9: Flight to Newark, NJ. It was hard to come back. As you can see from pictures, I was ready to live in Paris. But vacations are meant to be just energizers and so it was to all of us. We all had a very good time..

Check out the photos here.

Au Revoir..