Europe was good. Frankfurt was nice. I fell in love with Grenoble. Paris floored me. And Brussels was just fantastic.

Paris was good. Did a lot of Parisian things there. Mostly cliched. But didn't care. I walked by the Seine, ate cake, browsed bookshops, sat in a roadside cafe, read a book and smiled to people walking by, played with strange dogs, took lots of pictures, lost myself in a song, felt loved, cried, felt hated, spoke in French and giggled, walked through obscure and unknown Paris streets, looked at ordinary buildings with awe, walked through the rain in beautiful narrow lanes, ambled pointlessly in a violent hailstorm with couples all around clinging to each other running for shelter, stopped at the corner and listened to a lovely song that the street musician was playing...

Europe really was good. Did a lot of strange things, especially after dark. Drank ridiculous amounts of strange and brilliant alcohol every evening, and beer all day, like there was no tomorrow, got hopelessly drunk and cut loose, tried to make up for lost time, sang horrible karaoke in front of strangers who were sweetly amused, tried my hand at dancing to reggae music with a hot teenager, almost got talked into a getting a body piercing done, woke up at 12 and went out at 1 everyday, watched French movies late into the night, with an adorable girl by my side who painfully explained each scene to me...

And now the suns gone down...but the shadows will linger.

Hair, fair or unfair?

Perspective! Got it! Like always. Probably fickle again!

So I was very happy with the way people were helping me out in Europe, right from the time I landed. Strangers asking me where I was from, how my trip had been so far, how India is...and so on. But then something changed gradually. I had come to Europe with the perfect length of hair, clean shaven and what have you. Slowly, the perfect length of hair overgrew. A stubble appeared. And the warm and friendly people too disappeared. More people were now mistaking me for being Turkish and Pakistani than for Spanish or Portuguese. The moment I said, "Excuse moi, madame..." women sped away. People didn't smile to me as much in the streets and looked at me strangely when I smiled at them. One gentleman asked me upfront, 'Are you a Hindu'. I was just too amused to care about how random that question was and what its purpose could have been. Another very sweet elderly gentleman, walked up to me and started talking in Francais. When I spoke all the French I knew to tell him that I didn't speak French, he reluctantly ran his hand over his smooth cheeks and kept saying, 'Espangole? Espangole?' He then said something very fast and when I looked clueless, he reluctantly produced a zero machine from his bag and began giggling. I think I was about 83% amused and 17% confused. Or maybe I was 100% confused.

To add to my plight of being misjudged for another hapless illegal immigrant...a Muslim immigrant too, the cold weather cracked my lips with blood oozing out from them. I don't speak the language here, nor do I have much money left. About 85% match with 'All-time Classic Illegal Immigrant Traits', I think. But the incident from today morning just beat everything hands down. That will be another post. So...

There are two things possible here. One, I am totally crazy and paranoid. Two, people judge me now because I have shaggy hair and a stubble. But that throws up another sub-dilemma: I have seen scores of white guys here with all kinds of dubious hairdos and stubbles. Some of them couldn't have attracted so much attention from people, if they went up to them asked for it. Yet, my 10 day stubble stands out so much. Is it because it is a 10 day stubble on a brown face, instead of a white one?

I will have an internal discussion over this later in my head. For now, I am not going to let a few (or a lot of) stinky apples spoil my dessert. The Pain au Chocolat beckons in the background...

She hangs her head and, cries on my shirt
She must be hurt very badly
Tell me what's making you sadly?
Open your door, don't hide in the dark
You're lost in the dark, you can trust me.
'Cause you know that's how it must be

Lisa Lisa, sad Lisa Lisa

Her eyes like windows, tricklin' rain
Upon her pain getting deeper
Though my love wants to relieve her
She walks alone from wall to wall
Lost in a hall, she can't hear me!
Though I know she likes to be near me

Lisa Lisa, sad Lisa Lisa

She sits in a corner, by the door
There must be more I can tell her
If she really wants me to help her
I'll do what I can to show her the way
And maybe one day I will free her
Though I know no one can see her

Lisa Lisa, sad Lisa Lisa...