Paris Update

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Alright, so it's about 1 am here in Paris and I can't sleep. Probably because after my meeting today I accidentally crashed for three hours! I was tired, but didn't realize that I was that far gone! So now I'm totally wired. Not good...

Well, when I first got to Paris, I thought it was ghetto as heck. On the drive in to the city, everything seemed so old and run down. But that was before I got into the central part of Paris. It's very beautiful. Parts of it definitely remind me of Madrid with its architectural design and old, historic feel to it.

The first thing I did when I went out on Sunday was hit up the Eifel Tower as it was right down the street. For some reason, I always imagined the Eifel Tower to be smaller than it actually is, but it's quite grand. I never thought I would be in front of it -- at least not now. It's very nice. When you get there, you can either take an elevator to the top or simply walk up to about the middle of the Tower. For some reason, despite the numerous complaints my legs tried to communicate to me, I ended up taking the stairs. But I must say that the hike up there was well worth it. The view of Paris you have is picture perfect and very serene. At certain points, they have displays pointing out famous historic buildings like Notre Dame, the Pantheon, UNESCO, and many palaces built by kings of France's once mighty and glorious past. And I'm not being sarcastic when I say "might and glorious past." With its rich history, you're immediately drawn back to old world history classes (or at least movies) that described France as a super power back then. It's quite awesome to behold it in person. So much history here...

I actually can't wait until Wednesday when I will have time to myself to do some further exploration of the city. So far all it's really been is the Eifel Tower and Champs de something or another. Haha. It's basically a really big, open field in between Eifel Tower and yet another historic building that once served as a military training camp for "poor gentlemen." And I also got to hit up the Grand Mosque for some good ol' taraweeh action.

The masjid is fairly big and really nice. It has an open central courtyard with the arches you would expect to see in a masjid. Once inside, you feel as though you're in a compound of sorts. -- protected from the haramness of the duniya! The masjid is dominated by Arabs and then by Algerians. I saw a handful of desis representing, too. Prior to taraweeh, the local imam began with a speech of some sort (in Arabic). What I liked about it was that every few minutes or so, he'd quickly say, Salawat Rasool, which prompted everyone in the masjid to say "Salallahu Alaihi wa salam." Nothing wrong with hitting up some "baraqa points." While giving his talk, an elderly black man with a white beard started to walk up and down the isles, spraying each person with a light fragrance of sorts on their head. To my surprise, no one really did anything to stop him. If someone didn't want it, they'd put their hands up, but the brother would still spray their hands instead of the head. That really distracted me because I have never seen it before. But then I thought, Hey, there's nothing wrong with smelling good in front of Allah! We need to institute a similar custom in the US. Specifically against uncles who find it compulsory to belch in the middle of taraweeh! At least spraying that fragance will diffuse some of that obtrusive odor!! I mean, I really don't need to know what uncles had for iftari. And let's get some of these uncles to change their clothes! They smell like they take fricken curry showers!

But, I digress...

I left taraweeh unfortunately early because I had not eaten my iftari at that point and plus it was getting late and I was not sure if I could easily find a taxi to get back to the hotel (which was about a 10 min drive away).

And so that brings me to today. Nothing eventful. I woke up for sahoor and had room service hook me up with some fantastic croissants and French baguette. Then the meeting was business as usual. Then I slept. Prayed. Ate at a restaurant called Suffren. And now blogged.

Will keep you udpated...