Dear diary ! !
It all started a week ago ( last weekend )when monsieur pathak said this .... we were planning a trip to south of France...the occasion ...akshay was coming .
This was the week when i refused to work ...the week commencing my second month in paris ....the week when i did endless hours of planning ...the week which should have been perfect ...the week when most of the things went wrong . ...the week with THE weekend.....the week ...which i lll never forget ! !
As always ....i was the forerunner in making plans . plans which look good on paper .....plans which look like a hollywood movie.But never in my dream did i thought that we ll do wat we did (planned).
It took us 3 full working days ...approximately 50 mails( at one time 15 mails in an hour )...1 hour talk time on mobs ...2 sms and wat not ! !.....to jot our plan ...ammend it ..reammend it and to finalise ( and u people ask me where i was last week ! ! ) .We did plan to go to south of France ..to grenoble .. to hire a car ! !....and to have a remake of dil chahta hai ! ! .
For your knowledge ..there are three people in india who know every nonsense of hiring a car .....And when they did ...they hired a car on a credit card ( valid only in india .. expired may 2002 ..( ofcourse mine )..and a debit card ( which had Rs.27 in balance .... ofcourse mine ! ! ) and 200 euros cash ! !.yes it was a car for 200 euros cash. We did planned not to return it ..and as i said ....we did what we planned !!!
We cdnt voilate copyrite of Mr akhtar ( dil chahta hai fame )...so we included rahul kapoor .3rd yr chem IIT D Shivalik ! !..who has driven to Nice last week .This was the first time when i compromised on somebody in our company ...the reason being that we needed an extra driver and a guide ...which he proved to be beyond our expectations .When we boarded our car ( obviuosly a RENAULT....twingo ! !)...we were five hours behind our schedule and had no intensions to alter our plans .
we wanted to mark on our route ... Grenoble- Valence- Montelimar- Avignon- salon- Marseille- Aix.en.provence- Cassis- Toulon- Nice- Cannes...and every other things which wd come our way .....WE DID ! !
We were intelligent enough to stack our car with 54 euros worth of eatables and drinkable ( those who realise will see that its half a months food cost for a person)..for four people for two days.And we had planned sufficiently to keep 3 guide books for the region ...all kinda road maps ...addresses of youth hostels in every city on our route ...city maps of all the cities and ..We had Bryan adams to accompany us and occasionally Shakira ...The rest was europe at its best .......
It was drizzling and it was raining .. we didnt mind ....we were too satisfied with our investments and the pay off. ! !(Dont expect to tell me how beautiful every thing in every city we passed was ...i dont have words ! !... ask akshay rather )
When we reached Marseillie it was 10 and it was raining heavily ..we had a hard time finding the youth hostel and when we finally did ...i had no intension to miss a nap in the car ( i and pathak thus slept in car ....akshay and rahul had beds in YH).
Next day i was made to sit up in traditional ara style ..u know wat ! !...Rubbing my eyes ..i hardly had an idea if wat is to come ...
I dont intend to write mails as big as this ....but we did everything we planned to, and what we didn't ....i think you should wait for the rest ...
So long .......keep reading between the lines .
Ashish
( this is the firt of my diary mail s reaching pathak ...id like his comments and advise on writing the second part !! )
