This poor girl is really need a good rest. I have had only a couple of hours of sleep in the past two days, and would love nothing more than just to collapse and catch some shut eyes. But the adrenaline is keeping me going, and I found myself still charged up and not in the least settled. My brain is racing and that’s when I told myself, I need to go somewhere.

Cue – Gare de l’Est. I’ve decided I’m going to visit my friends (pictorial clue to where I’ll be travelling to) and in a couple of weeks, I’ll be at this very same station, catching the train out of town. It is pretty exciting and this marks my first French excursion this year. But of course, Efi has also asked me if I would do a 10K run with her. Hmmm… Can I pull off a 2-weeks training for the run?

I met Anirudh last week at Obscura Day. At some point, our topic of conversation turned to food (my favourite topic, yay!) and he was a tad surprised that I haven’t yet explored the Indian quarter of Paris near Gare du Nord. This has got to be remedied and today, we headed over to the neighbourhood for some Tamil food chez Saravanaa Bhavan. In case you wondered, the food was delicious and reminded me of Indian food in Malaysia. I will be back here before long!

Walking around, there are also a large number of shops selling all things Indian-related, from Indian sweets (I bought some to go) to Bollywood DVDs to colourful bangles to traditional costumes. Then we spotted these updated look to sari. Very stylish, not to mention, errrm, sheer and skimpy. Not quite the sari I know and worn before. If my previous experience with sari was anything to go by – I was worried the entire evening about people stepping on the hem and unravelled the entire 6 metres of turquoise cloth that I’ve ineptly wrapped around me – the likelihood of me ever trying this modern look would be slim to none…

It has been a week since I left my apartment with a coat. Instead, tucked in my bag, is a small cardigan, which I haven’t been using either. Really, Paris has become the new California. It also makes it very hard for me – quite torn actually – to either stay in and work (I have a lot on my plate right now with looming deadlines) or to go out and profite-bien le soleil.

In the end, the good old adage of balancing work and fun makes more sense. Instead of just gazing longingly out my window, I steal a couple of hours to be out, walk about, and to soak up some Vitamin D. At Canal St Martin, hundreds of sun lovers obviously have less qualm about spending their time outdoors. They lounged canal-side, with picnic spread and chilled drinks, chatting and laughing. Worry not, I will have my share of fun this evening – piña colada party, here I come!