"Oh, La Tour Eiffel?"

After being granted my visa, I proceeded to clear immigration and collected my vouchers for a free night at the hotel and a couple of free meals.
All I have with me at this point are a backpack with a spare tshirt, a scarf and a camera. I walked over to the spot where I was supposed to catch my shuttle to the airport and waited for about 20 minutes. It was snowing and absolutely frigid. I was cold enough to throw on a spare T under my current tshirt and jacket. The scarf did a good job of hiding the fact that I was wearing two collared tshirts, one under the other...
There was a security guard taking a smoke break at the shuttle stop so I walked over to him and tried to ask one of the stupidest questions he's probably ever heard "Hey, how do I get to the Eiffel Tower form here?". In my defence, this being an unplanned trip and all that, I had no idea what else to do when presented with an opportunity to spend ~10 hours in Paris.
The guard had no idea what I was talking about however, so I tried to invoke some of my broken French, translating the question as "Où est L'Eiffel Tower?" (Where is the Eiffel Tower). That seemed to mean something to him and he responded with "Oh, La Tour Eiffel?". Yup, that's exactly what I meant, and yes the French order their words a bit differently. He proceeded to explain to me (in French), with much hand waving, that I needed to go down two levels and there I would find the trains that connect to Paris. I was not technically in Paris yet, as CDG Airport is located in Roissy.
Made a decision to skip the free hotel/meal completely and proceeded to go two levels down to the station to catch the blue line into Paris! It just dawned on me at this point that I will have to spend most of my night roaming the streets quite under-dressed for the sub-zero temperatures in Paris, but hey, La Tour Eiffel beckons. Below is the map I picked up with POI's circled, courtesy the nice lady who sold me the tickets!

Air France works its magic

I headed to the next desk that I was directed to and it looked like it was going to be another couple-hour wait. Things weren't looking so good, looked like there was another flight to Manchester at ~8am the next morning. It was 7 or 8pm by now and I was already scoping out places to sleep in the area. When I was next in line, I saw them handing out hotel coupons out to a lady who was stranded, just like me. She was holding a Mexican passport. This meant that she either had a Schengen visa already, or they gave her one for the overnight stay. The thought that I might be able to get out of the airport and see a bit of Paris that night did a lot to boost my morale.
So I walked up to the counter, and, as suspected, she offered me a free hotel stay for the night and a meal. Then she asked if I had a visa (uh-oh). I shook my head, hopes semi-dashed. She proceeded to explain to me that she could try and get me a one day visa but it would be the French Police's decision at the end.
After a half hour wait (during which I fell asleep at my chair), Air France staff woke me up and handed me my passport, letting me know that my visa had been granted. I hurriedly walked over to the counter, half listening to the nice lady's monologue about my meal options and location of my hotel. All I could think about was how I had about 11 hours left in Paris and how much sight-seeing I could fit into that time frame. Considering that I was under-dressed for the cold in Paris and clueless about public transport in that illustrious city, I assumed that it was going to be a long night. (In hindsight, it was a lot longer than I could have imagined at the time.....)

Stranded in CDG

Philly to Manchester!
So I was going to be on vacation for a couple of weeks, headed to England for Christmas and New Year's with family. Paris was just supposed to be a two hour layover..

Things started off pretty quiet. Was going to be flying out on the evening of the 22nd from Philadelphia.

This is what my itinerary looked like PHL-CDG-MAN, powered by a combination of Skyteam carriers. Awesome..

After a wait at the Delta line for a bit I find out that my ~6pm flight has been moved to ~10pm. That meant I wouldn't make my connection from CDG to MAN. I wasn't too worried, they offered to rebook me on a later flight from CDG to MAN, meaning I got a bit more time in CDG to enjoy the environs of a French airport. First time transiting through France so I wasn't too disappointed.

Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport

Got to Paris unscathed. 12pm local. Flight to Manchester at 6pm. Plenty of time to wander around aimlessly and absorb the overwhelming 'Frenchness' around me. Not the nicest airport I had been to but definitely had a very 'designer' vibe to it.

On account of my original flight having been delayed, Air France was nice enough to offer me a meal ticket. Here's me, with what it got me the remains of what it got me at the cafeteria. (A chicken salad sandwich used to reside in the empty casing you see to my right).

Feeling nourished and excited about my short flight to Manchester, I proceeded to the gate indicated on my boarding card. Couple of hours to kill, walked around, read my book.

I realize at 5pm that my 6pm flight is no longer showing up at my gate. Weird. Walked to the larger monitors, same thing, no mention of my flight. But it was here a few minutes ago, surely I can't be unlucky enough to have two delayed/cancelled flights on the same trip?!

After an hour long wait at an Air France information desk I am told that my flight was indeed cancelled (no surprises there) and that I would have to go to another desk to find out about if there is another flight I could be put on. A quick survey of the flights out of France that night told me that I was going to be sleeping in the airport this 23rd of December 2010.

Leaving Philadelphia

So I left Philly this morning, was kinda overcast and misty. Flight was delayed by almost an hour. Have a layover at Orlando,FL which is where I'm at right now. 80 degrees here. Looked amazing from the sky, lakes et al. Should be leaving for Austin soon. For some reason my phone is not letting me rotate pictures.

Internet issues

Because of issues with getting a decent internet conenction where I am at currently, I'm suspending this blog till i get to Bangalore on the 26th of July :)
Will update after that

Basketball - Leeds

Decided to go play some basketball with a couple of people today. The weather was pretty 'Londonlike'. It was overcast, kept drizzling once in a while and all that, but we decided to brave the elements and go out to play. It was just 4 of us so we figured we would manage somehow. The park that we were headed to was in a nice-looking area. Quite green, was fun.

One thing I did not mention before, cars are pretty small in the UK

Some graffiti vandalism

Goodlooking places

Had an interesting hoop, the net was positioned such that a rimless shot would just bounce back out 
Needless to say, it got pretty wet during the course of the game, and by the time we were done, we were pretty drenched

Out and about in Leeds

We decided later on to take a walk around the city (which I was told isn't much). It is pretty small, and looks pretty much like any other modern city, only quieter I guess.





We decided to stop at the institute where my buddy studies for a bit and I noticed some interesting things..
Firstly, accountants are geeks..

Yes, Grand Theft 'Audit'. I kid you not, actual front page of an accounting magazine.
An intriguing (pool?) table. Can someone tell me why it looks so different? Yellow and red only?

Leeds

After my short stay in London, I took a (4.5 hour) bus to Leeds, which is to the north-east. Arun, my friend from way back in the day (HKG or so in the old Asian School) is doing his ACCA here (some accounting stuff :/). He lives in an interesting little house in Leeds. The owner is a Bangladeshi guy, its a 3BR place, and each room is sublet to different people. Since a couple of his roommates were away, we had plenty of room.
Arun's friend from Oman, Fahad, was also staying with us. Leeds is a nice city, pretty small and quiet. There is a very large Pakistani population here, they seem to own most of the local stores and businesses. We had food from Pakistani places for the most part, pretty good food.
Yesterday we decided to eat at a Subway. Pretty much the same as in the US.
with Arun
with Fahad