from paris with love...

an email from my bro...
cc-ed to my family...
yes, even though we are a bunch of technologically challenged people...
I'm glad to say, we do emails!



Salut...

The start of 2008 hasn't been great for me. I'm beginning to hate the entire continent. Yes, even bloody Paris. It's so bad that I've actually wondered why I've chosen this god damn place to do my exchange.

So, you've heard about my experience with the customs officer in Frankfurt. Had to pay €300 in taxes and fines. That's almost S$650. Both my French bank accounts are in overdraft and I don't have any access to funds. Borrowing money from my friend to tide me through my Europe trip. Seriously, I really really seriously hate Frankfurt. While the ruling is pan-European, I don't remember the French being so anal about it. I actually told them "Why are you trying to rip off a student." I can't believe I had to contribute to the coffers of Frankfurt. €300 is no small amount man. But of course, bad things don't just end in Frankfurt

We arrived in Paris after taking the train from Frankfurt at 2300 hrs on 30 dec 2007. I was pissed the whole ride. But at least the 30th was almost over and New Year's Eve in Paris along Avenue des Champs Elysées was going awesome. I was so very very very wrong.

We (2 of my friends and me) spent the first half of the day doing laundry. What I realised was that we should have done laundry all day and night. So, at 2000hrs, we changed into our "welcome 2008"clothes and had dinner at a Japanese restaurant opposite my apartment.I thought that my fortune had to be changing for the better because dinner was pretty good. Mais, it was not to be...

Initially, the group of us 6 had brought 6 bottles of Heineken to ringin the New Year. And I happily put them all in the nice Apple rectangular paper bag that I got from Apple's 5th Ave store in NYC. As we were entering into the metro station "Place de Clichy" at my place, the bag gave way and 3 bottles came crashing down the ground. We should have taken that as a sign, but noooooo. We held on and headed towards Champs Elysées.

Ok, initially, our plans was to head to Champs de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower. It's a sort of rectangular field in front of the Eiffel Tower where one can sit and admire the damn thing. But my friend and I googled NYE in Paris and we found out that everyone would be on the Champs Elysées. So we headed there instead.

We managed to arrive at Champs Elysées at 2345hrs. And it was crazy.It was packed to the brim. People were pushing and shoving and we had no idea where the best place would be to ring in the New Year. So we picked a spot on the Champs Elysées with a good view of the Arc de Triomphe, and dug in our heels.

And guess what, when midnight came, there was no countdown. None at all. So we counted down ourselves. You know, the typical "5, 4, 3, 2,1, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!" No fireworks, nothing...

That was when things started to go horribly wrong. At 10 minutes past midnight, my friend felt someone reach into his jacket pocket where his wallet was. Because there were so many people pushing and shoving,he thought that it was part of the process of hands going everywhere. Immediately after that happened, he checked his pocket and yup, it was gone. He had about €680 in it, largely because of a €500 bill he couldn't break. Initially, he thought that it had fallen out when someone bumped his hand out of his jacket pocket, so we kinda opened up a circle to find it. But because there were so many god damn people, one of us (a girl studying in Warsaw) got separated. We were now searching for 2 things.It took us a better part of 20 minutes to search for her.

By the time that happened, we found her crying. Someone had snatched her camera from her hands while she was trying to get back to the group. As if that wasn't enough, the crowd at Champs Elysées started to get rowdy.People were throwing stuff and setting off mini fireworks at close proximity. This led to the crowd surging and people were running away from the area. So of course, the smart thing to do was to get out of that place asap. We went on foot away from the Champs Elysées and headed in the general direction back home. Along the way, we tried to find a police station where we could report the crime so my friends could try to claim insurance. But they were closed. So we finally walked back to my area where we found the police station of my area. And guess what, because most of the police officers were dispatched to the Champs Elysées, the officers at the police station told us that they were not open for business due to a shortage of manpower. We had to head back to the police station near the Champs Elysées to file the report. By then it was almost 2 in the morn and we had a flight to catch at 0940hrs to Vienna.

So we headed down to the police station via the metro and something horrible happened. At the station Concorde, the train driver said that the train has to halt at the station momentarily. At our door (we were standing at the opposite door, away from the opened doors at the platform), stood a French police officer with the craziest eyes I've ever seen. He was clearly extremely pissed. In French, he demanded,"Who broke the bottle!" He repeated himself again and stared into the crowd in the train. We deduced that someone had either broken a bottle on the police officer or one of his colleagues. Then he started smacking the heads of some of the passengers in front of the door and pulling them out of the train and throwing them to the floor. It was really really scary. You have to know that we weren't on some obscure metro line. We were on Line 1, the tourist line which connects many main attractions. For the officer to do such a thing in front of members of public, including tons of tourists, was really shocking. He was beating them in front of everyone. This kind of unprofessionalism would never have happened back home. Not at all.

So, we made it to the police station and guess what, the officers were reluctant to file a report for us. They refused to put camera and cash in the report, and merely wanted to file a report for stolen driver's license and national ID card. It took much persuasion from my friend and I in our horrible French to get them to file a report with the items included in it. They were giving us bullshit about how we need to provide the receipts for the camera and all. Idiots I tell you.By the time we finished with the report, it was almost 6 in the morn.We hadn't packed for our trip to Vienna, Prague and Budapest yet and by the time we reached home, we only had an hour. So we threw everything we needed into our luggage and ran out of the house. At the metro station, we saw another ugly side of Paris. On the opposite side of the platform, we saw a guy beating a girl. And I'm talking smacking her head hard. A group of guys pulled him away and ordered him to leave the station. And he started walking away. But some group of immigrant shitheads on our side of the platform started calling him a coward and egged him on. I was seriously shocked. That was like a low point in my stay in Paris. The lowest. The guy then started to walk back to the girl and the group of guys. Then our train came and we left for the airport.

And now we're in Vienna. Where it's freezing and I'm having a throat inflammation. And somehow I cracked the display of my French phone. So this isn't going well at all. We're leaving for Prague tomorrow, and I don't think it's gonna get any better.

There is no Internet connection in the hostel, but I can capture a signal if I were to place my computer near the window.

Seriously, wish me luck. Cause this is really starting to turn out really really bad.

Love,Quan

P.S. Pa, how's Saudi Arabia? And are you going to use skype soon? Do you have a fixed land line that i can call? Hopefully my telephone operator allows me to call Saudi Arabia for free. And how is everything back home? I miss the weather back home man... Luckily you all didn't come to eastern Europe. It is freezing. It is below zero here. Email soon k.




you know my mom's speed dialing the singapore embassy in paris to airlift her first born out...
this is why she is never ever going to let me travel ever again...
would love to see my mom hyperventilate...
i'm telling you...





priceless...