Our Last Week of Class at ESSEC

We have finally arrived at our last week of class at ESSEC! While we have loved our time in Paris, school here has definitely not been an attraction in France! That being said, we've made some incredible friends here during our three months with whom we have shared memories that we will never forget!

On Tuesday morning, we caught a train with our friend Elena and Sahil and Elena studied for their exam that morning while Mana took a nap on the train. Upon arriving at ESSEC, Mana went to her last Luxury Retail Management class while Sahil went to take his exam in Consumer Behavior. After the morning class, Mana and Elena went to take their French exam and an hour and a half later (the exam was scheduled for three hours), we were ready to go to the school bar and celebrate being done with our Tuesday exams!

Our friend Gary met Mana and Elena at the bar and one by one, all of our classmates came and joined us for drinks on Tuesday night. We took photos, laughed a lot, and eventually had to leave the bar to make it to a night out at the Opera Garnier!

Our Kellogg friends had been kind enough to wait in line and get tickets for us to see the Opera Faust at the Opera Garnier, so we were excited for the experience. While the Opera itself was beautiful, the actual show was a bit bizarre and the fact that the perfomance had French subtitles made it challenging to follow as well. Regardless, we had a great time seeing a performance at the famous Opera Garnier in Paris!

After a long Wednesday of classes and exams, we were finally done on Wednesday night and went to celebrate by going to Aux Trois Elephante, a fantastic Thai restaurant that was recommended by a classmate at ESSEC. After a great meal, we headed to the Republique area and our friend Peter guided us to a great Irish bar on the canal where we hung out and spent great time with our new friends on exchange. Eventually, we decided to go home since we were exhausted from our day and had busy agendas planned for our last 3 full days in Paris!

Friends From DC Visit Us In Paris March 19th Weekend

After finally settling back into our Paris home with no more travels within Europe, we anticipated the arrival of two friends! Aditya (better known as Deebo), Sahil's best friend from high school, would be arriving on Friday from London, while Shibani, Sahil's family friend from DC, would be arriving from The Hague, since they are both working in those respective cities for a few months. Before their arrival, we finished up some of our final projects since we had finals the following week. By the time Friday evening rolled around, we were ready to go!

When Deebo and Shibani arrived, we broke out a bottle of French wine, caught up with them, ate dinner, and headed off to Andy Wahloo, a Moroccan-themed bar about 5 minutes from our apartment. Upon arriving at the bar, we introduced them to our friends from Paris and all of us together partied the night away. We went to an after-party spot at a club called Ed and at around 5am we called it a night!

After a great Friday night out, we slept in on Saturday until about noon at which point Sahil, Deebo, and Shibani went to the Louvre and Angelina's for lunch while Mana finished up a project and met them at Angelina's. We indulged in a fantastic omeletee, incredible hot chocolate, and some tea after which we walked across the Champs Elysees, into a Louis Vuitton store, had a pitstop at La Duree where we indulged in macaroons, and then finally made our way to the Eiffel Tower. At this point, night had set and the Eiffel Tower was lit up. We took some photos of it and in the process got caught in a downpour of rain while we waited for the light show! After a minute of watching the Tower shimmer we ran for the metro to head home!

After returning home, we dried off from the rain and got ready for dinner at one of Mana's favorite restaurants on Rue Montorgueill: Le Marie Stuart. We ate a very French meal there, ran into our friend Elena at the restaurant (at which point we really felt like locals in Paris!) and then headed to a bar on 37 Rue Du Sentier which had incredible cocktails and horrific service! At around 2am we called it a night and headed home to have an early start on Sunday morning!

On Sunday, while Shibani and Sahil headed out to the Notre Dame early in the day, Deebo and Mana left to drop off Deebo's bags at a nearby hotel so that he could pick them up later without needing to return to the apartment. On their way to the hotel, Mana discovered a whole new area of Paris that she had not yet explored near her home! She couldn't believe how many amazing little neighborhoods there were in Paris!

After taking care of his bags, Mana and Deebo met Sahil, Shibani, and our friend Sandra at the Bastille market, a huge open market of all types of goodies: food that included fresh vegetables, cheese, wine, etc. and fur vests, scarfs, etc! It was a ton of fun and after spending some time there, we all headed to lunch at a cafe in St. Germain. From there, Deebo took off for the airport while Sahil, Mana, and Shibani moved onwards to Sacre Coeur. While Mana had been their 3 times during her time in Paris, this was by far the most beautiful given the bright clear skies and the beautiful sunny day!

We ended up spending a few hours in Montmarte at a cafe outside and eventually made our way down at which point we hit up a hookah bar. After an hour at the hookah bar in Montmarte, we decided it was time to return home so we ate some pizza at Pizza Bianco and headed to our apartment at which point we said our goodbyes to Shibani who was going to leave at the crack of dawn the next morning.

On Monday morning, plans changed and Shibani decided to push back her train until nighttime so she could shop! While we began preparing for our exams on Monday, we met our friend Sandra for lunch on the island of il. St. Louis for crepes followed by the best ice cream in Paris at Berthillon. We walked around with Sandra, said our farewell to our dear friend whom we met on exchange, and headed home to say goodbye to Shibani. In the evening, Shibani left and our friend Elena came over so she could study with each of us for our exams the next day.

Overall, this was probably the most laid back and enjoyable weekend before exams but we were ready to crank out the work on Tuesday and be done with bschool in France on Wednesday!

Returning to Mana's Old Stomping Grounds: London!

One of Mana's favorite weekends in Europe was London, her "home" in Europe where she spent one year of her undergraduate experience and a few months during her time at HSBC. This would be her first time showing Sahil where she made some of her favorite memories of all time!

We arrived on Thursday, March 11th and Mana took Sahil all around the London School of Economics campus, where she spent her junior year abroad. We grabbed lunch at Pizza Express because Sahil is very passionate about his pizza and its a cute restaurant chain that Mana and her London roommate Shauna would often eat at during their time there. After lunch, we walked down the Thames river, across Blackfriars Bridge, to Mana's dorm, Bankside, next to the Tate Modern. While so much construction had developed and the area had changed quite a bit, some things had definitely stayed the same. The same doorman who worked there when Mana studied at LSE was still there to greet us and he remembered Mana immediately. He let us in to take a tour around the building so that Mana could show Sahil the rooms which she and Shauna shared as well as the Belching Beaver (the pub downstairs where she and her friends spent many hours at during their time in London)!

After reminiscing quite a bit, we moved onwards to Mana's cousin, Radhikaben's place to spend the rest of the night with her and her husband, Suketubhai. After catching up with Radhikaben for a few hours, the three of us went to pick up Suketubhai and the four of us stayed up until 330am. We had a fantastic time with them and it was great to catch up after so long! Sahil was especially in heaven there because Radhikaben made him Daal Makhani, which quite possibly may be his favorite Indian dish. Plus, it had been ages since we'd had homemade Indian food - it was delightful! After sleeping in on Friday, we finally made it up to have tea and lunch with Radhikaben before heading to Mana's friend Sunny from LSE and his sister Nishi's place near Tower Bridge.

We arrived at Sunny and Nish's by evening and the original plan was to hit up Crush, the ghetto college bar at the LSE. This idea got quickly vetoed since we would be 8 years older than the college students there now! Instead the four of us headed to Busabha Thai (one of Mana's favorite restaurants during her time at LSE) for dinner and then met up with Asha, and Amit, who are Mana's other close friends LSE at Guanabara, a Brazilian night club. It was a TON of fun!! It had been AGES since all of us were hanging out together in London, like we did in our college days, and we ended up partying until the wee hours of the morning! After some last night Subway food action we headed back to Sunny's and crashed!

The next morning Nishi whipped up some amazing breakfast food and after saying our goodbyes to Nish and Sunny, we headed out to meet Asha and Josh. We climbed to the top of the monument and took a look at the latest developments and changes to the city of London after which they took us to Boroughs Market followed by the cutest Pub for lunch called Garrisons! Josh told us that the street was one of the oldest streets in London. After a few hours, we had dinner at Asha and Josh's place where Ash made us Caribbean food. It was delicious! After dinner, the four of us headed to London's version of a German Beer Hall where we laughed and celebrated the night away in honor of Josh's friend's birthday. We made it an earlier night than the night before, since early Sunday morning we were heading to Wembley for Mother's Day brunch with Sahil's family.

On Sunday, we met Sahil's parents, cousins, and aunt and uncle at a restaurant for Dosa. Soon after, the boys went to drop Sahil's dad off at the airport while the girls went shopping. We arrived back at Sahil's cousin, Mona Didi's, place where we all hung out and played cards for a while. We played our favorite card game, Judgement, where Mana beat Sahil's Mom in pretty much every round (a very rare event since his Mom usually dominates at the game)! Afterwards, we played soccer with little nephew Tanay. We ended our night by watching the film, The Three Idiots with the family. It was a very relaxing Sunday and we thorougly enjoyed our time in a homely environment with family! On Monday, we said bye to everyone and headed for the airport.

We thoroughly enjoyed our weekend in London and it was a perfect way to finish off our travels in Europe outside Paris!

Road Trippin' On Spring Break! Sixth Stop: Berlin

After an emotionally charged day at Auschwitz, we headed off to Berlin that Friday evening for a weekend of partying! After about a 5 hour drive (and our trusty GPS back with us, since it didn't work in Poland), we reached the city of Berlin. We quickly got settled into our hostel, and headed off to see the nightlife.

Gary, Mana and Sahil spent a little while trying to figure out how to buy train tickets, but after several failed attempts and a train approaching, just hopped onto the train, effectively bypassing Berlin's honor system. Oops. We headed to the center of the city, where we grabbed some dinner at Hackescher Markt (which we affectionately named Hacky-sack Market). After a heavy meal, and a couple of beers, there was no way we were ready to go out. Exhausted after an 18 hour day, which included almost 10 hours of driving by Sahil, we all went home and crashed, gearing up for a big day on Saturday.

On Saturday, we woke up fairly early and headed out to city center to do one of the much-revered free Berlin city walking tours. Our tour guide spent the better of the next six hours describing to us the history of Berlin and showing us all the amazing things the city has to offer. Mana and Sahil were both amazed at how much the city of Berlin has been through and how much history is present there. It was incredible to see the significant impact that both world wars and the cold war had on Berlin! We started the day by walking through Pariser Platz and the Brandenberg Gate. Our tour guide explained to us that the statue at the top of the gate is looking slightly to the left to keep an eye on the French (it was oddly situated in a way that the statue was staring directly at the French embassy!). We next headed off to see the Reichstag building, which is the Parliament building in Berlin. We were told stories about how Hitler came to power, and how he ransacked the Reichstag building to establish a dictatorship. After that, we were taken to the Holocaust Memorial, which is an abstract memorial that is open to interpretation. It was quite sentimental, and has been put in Berlin to remind the people of that horrendous period. Right after that (and in interesting order), we were taken to Hitler's bunker, which is now a parking lot! You can not see it since bombs were dropped into his bunker, but it was basically a sealed bunker 5 meters below the ground. We then took a break, and grabbed some lunch on the tour.

While the morning was dedicated to much of the history in World War I and II, the afternoon was mostly dedicated to the Cold War. We started by seeing the Berlin Wall, which, given it's amazing history, is quite underwhelming. While we were expecting to see a huge wall, the wall itself was only about 10 feet high. What we were told, however, is that there was barbed wire and two other walls, with tower posts full of soldiers ready to shoot, when the wall was actually in use. We really got a sense of how hard it must have been to be trapped in East Berlin, and all the challenges people faced in being separated from family on the other side of the wall. We also had a chance to see Checkpoint Charlie, one of the most famous posts where the Cold War almost turned into a full-scale war. Soviets on one side, and the US on the other, ready with tanks lining the streets.

We finished the tour with the university where Albert Einstein taught (a building which looked more like a castle than a university) and Museum Island, where many famous Berlin museums are located. After a long day of sightseeing, we were ready for some beers! With the advice of our tour guide, we found a nice beer hall and had some beers with friends that we had made on the tour. After a few beers, we all split up, with Gary, Sahil and Mana continuing to walk around the city. We attempted to go up the Reichstag, but unfortunately the line was very long line, even late at night. We ended up just hanging out, and then met up with our friends again for a Pub Crawl through Berlin! Many Jager shots and steins of beer later, we headed home, preparing for a long drive the next day.

And with that, we concluded our trip. After a 10 hour drive home (quite a stretch for Sahil) and a 2 hour trip from the airport to our house (French union strikes, as usual, on the rails), we finally made it home for another week of "school." Having driven 4,000 km through 9 countries in 9 days, we felt like we really took advantage of exploring Europe during our Spring Break!

Road Trippin' On Spring Break- Fifth Stop: Auschwitz Concentration Camp

This was by far the most emotionally intense part of our trip. We visited the Auschwitz concentration camp located near Krakow, Poland.

When we first arrived, we watched a video which had a much more emotionally pulling angle to it compared to the video shown at the Dachau concentration camp. After seeing video clips of the secret extermination camp that existed in a very isolated area of Poland, we were taken on a tour through the camp.

We began by walking through the main gates which had "Arbeit Macht Frei" translated to "Work Brings Freedom" which was Nazi propaganda used at all the concentration camps to deceive people into thinking prisoners would enter and truly work their way towards survival...the reality was very different.

While we felt it was important for us to make this trip to Auschwitz to understand the tragedy with our own eyes and pay respect and remembrance to those who suffered, it was extremely difficult emotionally.

Though the camp was originally founded for Polish political prisoners, by 1942 it became the center for the Nazi Extermination Plan for Jews. We walked through the barracks, hospital, punishment area, train tracks, and even the gas chambers that the prisoners were subjected to during their last moments of life. While the Nazis attempted to burn the gas chambers to hide the evidence of crime, the remnants of the gas chambers still remain.

The most traumatic part for us was walking through the barracks where they had displayed glass cases with 2 tons of hair from the heads of the prisoners. The Nazis deceived innocent people by convincing them that they were being sent to shower before beginning their work, when in fact they were being sent to gas chambers to die. They took this hair in order to increase production of the German textile business to maximize profitability. It was just horrible to see this sight and register in our minds that this actually happened to good, innocent people.

We will never forget our visit to Auschwitz. Although we have read a tremendous amount since childhood on the tragedy that is the Holocaust, seeing it with our own eyes left a mark in our hearts that will stay with us forever.

It's a sick and inhumane part of history, but it's one that must never be forgotten. We much honor and remember those who suffered. Though history has repeated itself in other parts of the world, this is all the more reason we must revisit the past to prevent another such tragedy.

Road Trippin' On Spring Break! Fourth Stop: Prague

On Wednesday, we were off to Prague! While we arrived with 5 people in our car, which we named Clotzy, we left Prague with only 3. This was Kate and Kent's last stop on the road trip while Gary, Sahil, and Mana would continue onwards.

When we arrived to Prague, it was already evening. The city was lit up and absolutely beautiful! We walked around the city across the Charles Bridge and took in the beauty of our surroundings. We stopped by at a gift shop, picked up a small bottle of Absinth, and drank the local drink of the Czech people! :)

Afterwards, we grabbed dinner at a local restaurant in the main square where we tried traditional Czech food and Pilsner Urquell, Czech beer, which they claim is the best you'll ever drink. While we had ambitious plans to party through the night, we were worn out and Kate and Kent had to leave at 4am the next morning to fly back to Paris, so we all decided to head to bed to start the next day early!

On Thursday morning, the three of us headed off to join the Ultimate Tour, a tour by foot and by boat. We spent the day with our tour guide Nina, a quirky Czech woman with a dry sense of humor, who took us around the city. We learned about the Czech history, took in the culture, and ate more traditional Czech food (which wasn't really that tasty, but it was a good experience nevertheless). We also visited the medieval castle at the top of the city after which the three of us grabbed dinner at this fantastic restaurant in the center of the main square overlooking the astronomical clock and beautiful cathedral through the glass windows and heated lamps of the restaurant. The menu had every possible dish we could ever ask for and the three of us were very content after our dinner!

After our meal, we went straight to the ghost tour, since apparently rumor has it that Prague is one of the most haunted cities of Europe. While the tour was really cheesy (it was part of the Ultimate Tour so we thought we'd go nevertheless), the urban legends the tour guide told were quite interesting. Who knows if they are true, but we enjoyed a night tour of Prague nevertheless!

That night the three of us discussed the rest of our trip and while the original plan was to drive straight to Berlin, Sahil suggested an extra stop. He suggested we go to Auschwitz, knowing that Mana has wanted to visit that site for many years. Though it was in the middle of nowhere in Poland, we realized it was only a 5 hour drive from Prague, and then 5 more hours to arrive in Berlin. We decided to go for it, which meant waking up at 5am the next morning. As a result, we called it an early night in Prague for an intense following day.

Road Trippin' On Spring Break! Second and Third Stop: Salzburg and Vienna

On Monday, we set off for Salzburg, home of the Sound of Music, one of Mana's FAVORITE musicals. On our beautiful drive in the mountains, we found a Burger King at which point Kent had to take a conference call for work. The four of us, in order to give him space in the car, headed into BK which had a view of the Austrian Alps from every window and we played cards for an hour. Never before had any of us been inside a Burger King with such a VIEW! As funny as the scene was to see us whipping out the cards inside an Austrian BK, it was a hilarious memory we won't forget.

When we arrived to Salzburg, Kent worked remotely in one of the Austrain cafes while the four of us went to see all of the Sound of Music sites as well as Mozart's birthplace. Mana was really excited when we saw the pavilion where "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" was filmed as well as witnessing the Von Trapp mansion with her own eyes (she's a huge fan, clearly)! We also went to the Abbey where several shots of Maria took place. Kate, Mana, and Sahil took full advantage of being in Salzburg and pranced around singing the songs and doing the dance of the musical at each site as we debriefed Gary on the story (since he hadn't seen it before)! In the evening, we met Kent at a quaint cafe with unbelievable desserts before we headed onwards to Vienna!

On our drive to Vienna we pumped up the music in the car and howled at Shakira's she-wolf song while eating Kinder Surprise chocolates and putting the little toys together. When we arrived in Vienna, we grabbed some dinner and went to bed for a busy next day.

On Tuesday we walked through the entire city and Sahil marvelled at the beauty of the architecture. We climbed 343 steps to get a view from the top of Stephansdom, a beautiful cathedral in the center of Vienna. After walking through the city for some time, we had lunch at an amazing cafe, Cafe Central. A traditional Viennese cafe with gorgeous architecture, fantastic food at decent prices, great service, and a busy local spot full of businessmen making deals. We finished off an incredible meal with a Viennese iced coffee which was to die for!! After lunch, we continued to explore the city and admiring the beauty of the museums, the city hall, etc etc etc! After a fantastic day, we went to our hotel to get ready for an evening enjoying classical music pieces by Mozart and Strauss and watched as local dancers waltzed to the music played by a Viennese orchestra. We saw the concert in one of the famous concert halls of the city and enjoyed a great performance. After a night of music, we headed off to dinner at Cafe Landtmann, which overlooked the city hall lit up beautifully at night. We spent a few hours there, closed out the restaurant, and then made our way back to our hotel to rest up for a drive to Prague the next day!