The emblem of France (http://ambafrance-us.org/spip.php?article604)
People selling their wares
Such a fancy coat
A local genius
The photographer being photographed
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Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière
As the story goes, the short version at least, there was a plague way back in the day here in Lyon and the citizens prayed to God asking Him to heal the population. The plague disappeared soon after and as a token of their gratitude the Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière was constructed with a gold plated statue of Mary adorning its tower.
Fourvière with the gold Mary from the distance
Guardians
Entrance to the Sanctuary
Angels
Path to the gardens
Solace
Winding Pathways
Walkway
Steps to the unknown
Tour Métallique de Fourvière- Lyon's Eiffel Tower
Direction Paris!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Ma' Alsalam Dubai, Bonjour Lyon
Three days ago I bid farewell to my family and friends in Dubai and left, neither overjoyous nor crestfallen. I was very happy to see my girlfriend Hannah, who is on exchange in Lyon as well, but sad to be leaving my friends and family after such a short visit. Both emotional highs negated each other, leaving me in a thoughtful, tranquil mood. This mood would soon be long but lost in the turbulent sea of tension that I rode all the way to Lyon.
Let's backtrack a little. So the idea was to explore as much of Dubai as I could on my month long vacation there. As was expected, a day after I landed there, life went back to being how it was 3 years ago; it was as if I never left the country. My friends, family and I settled into our old routine and soon my aims of trekking the United Arab Emirates and revealing its secrets were long forgotten. I'm not going to bore readers by telling them my daily schedule, which although was pretty much the same, will never get old since the little time I have with my childhood friends will always be cherished. Over the month that I was there, I managed to go to two new tourist attractions - The Palm Atlantis and Dubai Mall. I also saw the towering Burj Dubai and the ever present, iconic Burj Al Arab. The Palm Atlantis was as exquisite as the pictures portray it to be, and the area around it and leading up to it have a nice Arabian beauty to it. The interior of the Palm Atlantis is decked out in Dubai's usual splendor. My family and I enjoyed the sumptuous buffet at the Saffron restaurant, which even for Dubai's standards I thought was mildly over priced, but good nonetheless.
Dubai Mall, is unfortunately, just another mall. Its huge, I'll give it that, but for those who don't consider shopping as their life passion, there's not much to do. Sega Republic, an arcade gaming center (as far as I know) recently opened up, and that gives guys something to do at least, while their counterparts roam the 600+ stores in there. Not to say that there isnt stuff for guys to do; there's quite a few electronics and men's wear outlets that would keep us busy as well, its just that it's nothing more than just a mall. Although I will say, that the Dancing Fountain right outside by the Burj Dubai, is spectacular to watch.
Okay, so back to my original story. You know I have always been an Emirates Airlines fan, with good reason, and still remain so. Whenever I'm flying into or out of Dubai, I get on Emirates. This time, I decided to give Qatar Airways a chance, mainly because it was cheaper. I don't think what happened can be attributed as being the airline's fault, but when a couple passengers said "This is why we usually pay extra and fly on Emirates" I was starting to think that way as well.
Qatar Airways allows one check-in luggage weighing up to 20 kilos, and a carry on of a maximum of 7 kilos. My check in luggage was below 20 kilos but I knew that my carry on would be over weight. I thought I would try checking it in as a second bag and pay the extra amount since I pretty much needed everything that was there. We hit the road to get to the airport after a heartfelt goodbye and as usual, there was heavy traffic. My flight was around midnight and we left my house at 9:30 expecting to get there at 10:00 - 10:15 pm. Obviously it was a little after 10:30 when I got there. I rushed through the initial security checkpoint, worried that I wouldn't make it in time but the lines moved fairly quickly. When I got to the ticket counter I tried to hide my carry-on so that the woman behind the desk wouldn't ask to weigh it. Unfortunately she did see it and, after weighing it, said that I couldn't take it on board. Perplexed, I asked if I could check it in as a second bag and just pay the extra amount. She said that Qatar Airways had no such policy and that if I was only allowed a total of 20 kilos. If I checked in a second bag, which was 13 kilos, I would have to pay 1300 Dirhams, (100 Dirhams per kilo) or around $350. I was, as one of my friends says, "In the shit".
Even if I wanted to pay the ludicrous amount, I didn't have that much on me and so I called my parents that second. They were almost home and after I explained the situation to them, they turned around to come get some stuff from me. It was 11:00 pm by then. The gate closed at 11:30 and with traffic they were around 25 minutes away. The wait was nerve-wracking but they arrived just in the nick of time.
With my bag weighing a few kilos lesser I raced through security and back to the counter, got my boarding pass and sped straight through immigration and all the formalities to get the my gate. Turns out I shouldn't have been so worried about missing the flight - it was delayed; that too by an hour. Now the next problem: I had a one hour wait in Doha, Qatar to catch the next flight and so unless the plane flew at twice its speed, I would miss my connection. The flight that was supposed to depart at 12:35 am finally left Dubai at 1:30 am.
As expected, when I got to Doha, my flight to Paris had already taken off. The airline obviously wanted to put me in a hotel, since there were no flights to Paris till the next morning. However, with my Sri Lankan passport I couldn't just walk out of the airport without a visit visa and so the immigration people were refusing to let me go. After about an hour of arguing they finally let me through and I was put in a hotel room, 20 minutes from the airport.
It was pointless to sleep, since the flight was at 7 am, and a driver would be coming there at 5 am to pick me up. It was around 3:45 by the time I showered. So at 5 something, I was on my way to the airport again, and since my bags had been checked in and I had a boarding pass, I just went straight to the gate.
I finally got to France at 3 pm that day, but of course, my problems didn't stop there. The airline had lost my bags since it came about 8 hours before I did so it took some time to get hold of them. France is beautiful and I'm definitely looking forward to my stay here. This blog post is way too long. Look for more updates coming soon!!
Let's backtrack a little. So the idea was to explore as much of Dubai as I could on my month long vacation there. As was expected, a day after I landed there, life went back to being how it was 3 years ago; it was as if I never left the country. My friends, family and I settled into our old routine and soon my aims of trekking the United Arab Emirates and revealing its secrets were long forgotten. I'm not going to bore readers by telling them my daily schedule, which although was pretty much the same, will never get old since the little time I have with my childhood friends will always be cherished. Over the month that I was there, I managed to go to two new tourist attractions - The Palm Atlantis and Dubai Mall. I also saw the towering Burj Dubai and the ever present, iconic Burj Al Arab. The Palm Atlantis was as exquisite as the pictures portray it to be, and the area around it and leading up to it have a nice Arabian beauty to it. The interior of the Palm Atlantis is decked out in Dubai's usual splendor. My family and I enjoyed the sumptuous buffet at the Saffron restaurant, which even for Dubai's standards I thought was mildly over priced, but good nonetheless.
Dubai Mall, is unfortunately, just another mall. Its huge, I'll give it that, but for those who don't consider shopping as their life passion, there's not much to do. Sega Republic, an arcade gaming center (as far as I know) recently opened up, and that gives guys something to do at least, while their counterparts roam the 600+ stores in there. Not to say that there isnt stuff for guys to do; there's quite a few electronics and men's wear outlets that would keep us busy as well, its just that it's nothing more than just a mall. Although I will say, that the Dancing Fountain right outside by the Burj Dubai, is spectacular to watch.
Okay, so back to my original story. You know I have always been an Emirates Airlines fan, with good reason, and still remain so. Whenever I'm flying into or out of Dubai, I get on Emirates. This time, I decided to give Qatar Airways a chance, mainly because it was cheaper. I don't think what happened can be attributed as being the airline's fault, but when a couple passengers said "This is why we usually pay extra and fly on Emirates" I was starting to think that way as well.
Qatar Airways allows one check-in luggage weighing up to 20 kilos, and a carry on of a maximum of 7 kilos. My check in luggage was below 20 kilos but I knew that my carry on would be over weight. I thought I would try checking it in as a second bag and pay the extra amount since I pretty much needed everything that was there. We hit the road to get to the airport after a heartfelt goodbye and as usual, there was heavy traffic. My flight was around midnight and we left my house at 9:30 expecting to get there at 10:00 - 10:15 pm. Obviously it was a little after 10:30 when I got there. I rushed through the initial security checkpoint, worried that I wouldn't make it in time but the lines moved fairly quickly. When I got to the ticket counter I tried to hide my carry-on so that the woman behind the desk wouldn't ask to weigh it. Unfortunately she did see it and, after weighing it, said that I couldn't take it on board. Perplexed, I asked if I could check it in as a second bag and just pay the extra amount. She said that Qatar Airways had no such policy and that if I was only allowed a total of 20 kilos. If I checked in a second bag, which was 13 kilos, I would have to pay 1300 Dirhams, (100 Dirhams per kilo) or around $350. I was, as one of my friends says, "In the shit".
Even if I wanted to pay the ludicrous amount, I didn't have that much on me and so I called my parents that second. They were almost home and after I explained the situation to them, they turned around to come get some stuff from me. It was 11:00 pm by then. The gate closed at 11:30 and with traffic they were around 25 minutes away. The wait was nerve-wracking but they arrived just in the nick of time.
With my bag weighing a few kilos lesser I raced through security and back to the counter, got my boarding pass and sped straight through immigration and all the formalities to get the my gate. Turns out I shouldn't have been so worried about missing the flight - it was delayed; that too by an hour. Now the next problem: I had a one hour wait in Doha, Qatar to catch the next flight and so unless the plane flew at twice its speed, I would miss my connection. The flight that was supposed to depart at 12:35 am finally left Dubai at 1:30 am.
As expected, when I got to Doha, my flight to Paris had already taken off. The airline obviously wanted to put me in a hotel, since there were no flights to Paris till the next morning. However, with my Sri Lankan passport I couldn't just walk out of the airport without a visit visa and so the immigration people were refusing to let me go. After about an hour of arguing they finally let me through and I was put in a hotel room, 20 minutes from the airport.
It was pointless to sleep, since the flight was at 7 am, and a driver would be coming there at 5 am to pick me up. It was around 3:45 by the time I showered. So at 5 something, I was on my way to the airport again, and since my bags had been checked in and I had a boarding pass, I just went straight to the gate.
I finally got to France at 3 pm that day, but of course, my problems didn't stop there. The airline had lost my bags since it came about 8 hours before I did so it took some time to get hold of them. France is beautiful and I'm definitely looking forward to my stay here. This blog post is way too long. Look for more updates coming soon!!
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