February 2nd Saturday

We all got up around 11:30am. We had plans to meet some of Karuna’s friends for lunch in the Indian Quarter. I had some yogurt and milk for breakfast and got dressed.

Adrienne decided to stay home since she wasn’t feeling well. Karuna, Amanda, and I took the RER C to the metro and ended up at Gare du Nord. We were soon joined by Chigba, Muhammed, Natalie, and Thibaud. We could either go North toward the Southern Indian food or South toward the Northern Indian food. We decided to go toward the Northern food. We ended up in this interesting shop area at a restaurant called Reine Kashmir. All seven of us settled in at a table on the second floor. We were disappointed to find out that the cheap lunch menus were not available on the weekends. The other menus were around €12 or €14. I ordered the €12 meal called something like Tashim Rani. It came in a large metal plate that had three smaller portions separated from a bigger portion. In the larger part I got rice and a cheese nan. Among the smaller parts of the plate I got a tandoori chicken drumstick, a meat sauce, 3 pieces of lamb in a sauce, and something like a beef dumpling. We also got 3 sauces on the side. One was the yogurt mint sauce. Another was spicy and red in color. The other was milder and made with mangoes. I ate all of the giant plate. The food was very good but the service turned out to be awful. Our waiter was very surly and seemed like he resented our existence. That was even before the ever so complicated order of trying to replace the dessert that came with a menu with chai. I had balls of cake with honey and coconut which turned out to taste like doughnut holes.

During the meal we had conversation in French at one end because Thibaud doesn’t speak English. Then they spoke English at the other because Muhammed doesn’t speak French. It was interesting to hear the stories get translated.

After the meal we all split up. The others went home while Karuna took me toward the Indian sweet shop. On the way we stopped in an Indian clothing store so that she could buy a purple linen shirt. There were three Indian women and one man in the store. I watched an interesting exchange between a French student that came in and the store workers. She wanted to take pictures of some of the women in the store. The woman at the counter looked flattered and said “Moi?” She seemed to like the idea until the man in the shop came over and said no. He was very forceful and against the idea of photos. Of course after that, the Indian woman didn’t have a say in the matter. It was amazing to me to watch this culture that is so different from the French and American culture.

We popped into some other stores along the way and I noticed a similar setup. There were usually a few women working up front and a man sitting on a chair in back watching you intently. We ended up buying a very pretty sari for about €15. We’ve been wanting to put a curtain over the window in front of our toilet room. The sari would work well as a slightly transparent cloth that could block the view but still let in light. It was mostly white with some red and gold details on it. It would be fun to learn how to wear it at some point.

We finally made it to the sweet shop. The sweets were €1 a piece. I ended up getting a round white one that was made with condensed milk and seasoned with cardamom. Karuna got a sweet that was shaped like a diamond and was red and white. I was expecting some kind of hard candy for some reason. These sweets looked like you baked them in a pan and then cut them out.

We took our sweets and tried to find a café where we could eat them with some chai. We found a place that sold chai for only €1.50. We went and had chai but couldn’t eat the sweets because other customers might ask for them too.

Karuna and I finished our drinks and headed toward home. We took the RER back home. Once back at the Musée d’Orsay stop, we looked at the times for the earliest train. Karuna was going to need to take it in order to get to the airport. We also need to know for our trip to Madrid to see Karuna.

We got home and were able to eat our sweets. For dinner we made a mixture of chicken, onion, tomato, and carrots. We also heated up some leftover couscous and added some garlic. It turned out pretty good. Karuna ended up leaving to go see a few more friends during her last night in Paris. Adrienne and I stayed in. I snacked on dried cranberries and talked to my parents on Skype. I also put some pictures online. I ended up staying up rather late for no reason at all. I was just on my computer, drinking tea and listening to the radio on my phone.

Eventually Karuna came back and we all went to bed after 3:00am.