27.5.95 (Sat)

It is 7:45 am and I am in my hotel room having a huge breakfast with croissants, baguette and tea, portion for two. The room can accommodate up to three persons as there are a double and a single beds here.

I left Geneve at around 10 am yesterday and took the TGV to Paris. I have not seen much in Geneve, or before that in Bern. It seems to me that 25.5.95 was just a day for me to move from one place to another and to check into yet another hotel.

I arrived in Paris in the afternoon. While looking for a telephone, I was stopped by a black man who asked me to sign on something for a campaign for Rwanda. Only after I had signed it did I realize that I had to donate some money too. I could not get away with it so I gave him 50 FF (should have given him 20 FF instead). He asked for a hundred but I refused. I hope the money really goes to Rwanda as he claimed. Another unpleasant experience.

I called a total of four hotels introduced by "Let's Go Europe" but all were full. No joking. I turned to the Tourist Office and its staff made no fewer than five or six calls but all of those hotels were full. Just as she was about to give up, this hotel "Suez" had a room for me at 435 FF. I took it without hesitation. I was really grateful to the Tourist Office. Looking back, I was very lucky to have found a room right away on the first day the I had arrived in Paris. Maybe it was because I had arrived very early that day.

I then went to see l'Opera de la Bastille. It was just a common modern building. Then I went to Bd. Haussman and walked a little in the giant department stores. I busied myself with buying a T-shirt and my dinner. Around 7 pm, the street was filled with crowds. People rushed into shops for last-minute shopping. I think the early closing time makes life considerably less easy here. But then the shops here open as early as at 8:30 am, a time too early for shopping.

I treated myself to a three-course dinner last night. The appetizer was a prawn salad from Marks & Spencer (15 FF). The main course was a baguette sandwich with ham/tomato/lettuce (22 FF). The dessert was a yoghurt with fruit. On the side were sparkling mineral water and CNN news. This was what abundance meant. Actually, I swallowed the yoghurt not without difficulty.

This is the last day of my vacation. I am going to take a flight to London tonight and from there fly back home.

Though the days so far have been somewhat boring (but with moments of happiness and excitement), having a vacation is something to be happy about.

I will just walk around Paris again today. Then I will take a train from Gare du Nord to the CDG Airport. The flying has already begun to frighten me. I hope there will be good movies on the flight.

* * *

I am now in the waiting area of Heathrow Airport Terminal 4, waiting to board the flight back to Hong Kong. What could be better than actually flying in the sky on a weekend? This is what I am going to do. The only difference is that I will be locked in a steel big bird for about 13 hours. I will be busy to see four movies and sleep occasionally. I will be back home for a real dinner on Sunday night and back to work on Monday. Simply thinking about working makes me sort of sick. One is bound to grow to hate working after a vacation.

* * *

I am now on the plane and feeling very very hungry. I get hungry very easily these days. I have just eaten on the previous flight.

I have been given a window seat which I at first did not like. But it turned out that the other two seats on the same row were free. So I have three seats to myself and can now lie down. Seems great.

I spent the last day of my vacation in Paris. I checked out of the hotel after 9 am in order to avoid the morning traffic, not realizing that it was a Saturday. First I locked my luggage at the Gare du Nord. Then I went to see le Grand Arc de la Defence. The building looked huge and grand in a blue-sky-white-cloud background. But I did not quite feel like going up there. That area was filled with new and tall buildings, a commercial centre like Hong Kong. I liked that place instantly because it was clean and modern.

The day was hot. After the Grand Arc, I strolled a little at Champs-Elysees and had a milk shake at Haagen Daz again. Then I had a little walk in the complex of the Louvre, the Tuilleries, pretty much like the first day. And I walked to Bd Haussman again to sort of continue last evening's shopping. But the place was impossibly crowded and all department stores swarmed with shoppers because it was Saturday. More terrible was that there did not seem to be enough ventilation so it was warm like hell inside. The heat robbed me of my appetite for shopping. I found it so hard to breathe in the crowd that I lifted my head for some more air. That is how I discovered the dome of the Galaries of Lafayette and it was beautiful. Otherwise, it was no different from other department stores to me.

At about 4:30 pm I was starving and so I had a fast-food lunch (late this time) at the "Quick" near the Gare St Lazare. Then I started off for the Gare du Nord where my luggage was. I was so exhausted by that time that I took a wrong metro line. I had spent minutes waiting on the wrong platform yet I had not realized it. I was that exhausted.

There must be something wrong with my Eurail Pass as it kept failing me with rides connected with the RER. The SNCF has trains, operated jointly with the RER, to Roissy Airport. But the SNCF staff told me that I could not take those trains free with my Eurail Pass after checking it, though another staff told me the previous day that I certainly could. So I had to pay 39.5 FF for the RER train fair. Having paid that fare, I found myself almost franc-less. So I rushed to Thomas Cook to exchange a Traveller Cheque as I just remembered that I had to pay the airport tax. The exchange rate was not good and I was charged a service charge of 10 FF, i.e. over 10 % of the total amount exchanged. Alas, it turned out that I did not need to pay the tax because it was already included in the air ticket.