French Diary: May 10,2009

May 10, 2009                                                                                                                      11:35 p.m

Huh! What a day! First the boarding pass problem and then I missed my connection flight from Paris to Nice( which was obvious since, there were only 40 mins in between the two flights), then the wireless problem..

Right now, I am in my room (single) with a great mountain view and with an Internet access (this is an important point as only few rooms in Basion( the building in which I am staying) have the internet available with them. The thing is all the rooms that are close to Agora building( which has the router in it)  are able to catch the wi fi).

I have already told you about the boarding pass thing..

Connection flight & Laptop Wi-Fi: I was to reach Paris at 6:15 and had to check in at 6:45 for a flight from there to Nice. There were so many immigration checks that I was bound to lose my next flight, which I did. Julian , one of the PhD student in our group, had already told me about these problems( He was the person who was supposed to pick me up from the Nice Airport) and had asked me to inform him if such a situation arises.

After you lose your connection your connection flight, you have to go to a specific counter (F25A) so that they can arrange another flight for you( Btw, the Paris CDG Airport is big !! infact it is huge). The next flight to Nice was at 10:25 and I had to check in at 9:45 so that meant I had nearly 3 hours to pass my time and I was also to inform Julian about the change of flight. The officials were nice, they gave me breakfast coupons (which is like customary if you miss a connection flight). The Airport was Wi-Fi but you had to buy a Login Id and Password to access it. I thought that there must be Café nearby where I could access the internet for like 10 mins and inform Julian about it, but to my dismay, there was no such café at the airport. So I had to buy the coupon( 6 euro for 30 mins!!! That’s like Rs420 for 30 mins internet, In Sangrur you can do it for 15 rupees…) but that was not the end of problems. Due to my reinstalling both the VISTA and UBUNTU, I didn’t have the drivers of Wireless and wi fi was not working on my laptop. (The things couldn’t have been more bad, I never expected this could happen)I started looking around so that I can find a person having Laptop( now the only and perhaps the biggest problem in France is that people do not speak English here, Even if they know the language, they are reluctant to speak it). I asked a guy who was working on a laptop but he plainly refused it   saying that he fears there are lots of Viruses in the network!! I asked another guy ( who seemed to be quite decent) and he agreed to lend his laptop to me for some time. The problems do not end here…He had a French keyboard and due to lots of special characters in my gmail password, I had a really hard time figuring out the keys( there are even 4 characters on one key). I was somehow able to do all this, had my free breakfast, didn’t miss the new flight and was able to reach Nice by 12:15 where Julian was waiting ..( Btw, you can take the trolley  at the Nice Airport only if you pay 1 Euro !!)

Julian left me at CIV with Ronan( a guy from Brazil who is also doing an intern in the same group).( Julian told me a number of things about Nice, Antibes, our group during the car journey from Nice to CIV) and through Ronan’s laptop, I was able to get my wi fi working ..

CIV: co -ed.. co-ed.. co-ed.. After staying 4 years in boys hostel ( 2 for JEE preparation and two in IIT), I finally got a chance to live in a co-ed hostel. There is no distinction and even the bathrooms are common( In IIT, the girls hostel is 1.3 Kms away from my hostel and now there is a girl’s room at less than 10 feet from my room J ) CIV seems to be a great place to live in, the rooms are clean, furnished and weather is awesome. I have not yet talked to my “niegbour” but would do that in next few days. Met Nisarag and other IITB guys ..

It is 1724 words till now !!( last 26 hours) and I cannot blog anymore. Plus I have to wake up early, do not want to be late on Day 1(and no idea  whether I would be able to continue blogging like this..)

Bon nuit!!

French Diary: May 9,2009

May 9, 2009                                                                                                                                                        10:21 p.m

Sitting comfortably in the airport lounge, I finally got a chance to do what I always wanted to do ..start my 76 days French diary. It had a beginning which I did not expect, had a fight with dad(which I do not know always happens over small issues), last minute packing hassles and then finally a good and happy farewell from the dear ones…

A foreign summer intern was always a dream, a dream which came true on 27^th February,2009 through the mail of Jean Bermonte Claude, the head of Mascotte project. Behind this dream mail were several hours of boring efforts, the apping.  I remember how Abhinav, Ankit, Priyanka , Abhishek ,Shikhar and I used to app religiously for hours in winters, reading the infinite webpages of various professors, manipulating our cover letters according to those pages and then finally send them the final draft.( Many drafts had a resume mentioned as attachment, but they didn’t even have a trace of that long PDF document.. ). So after getting those “see you in MS studies, we have no place for you” replies, I gave up once the semester started. In the process, I had send about 150 applications and got about 25 to 30 of those replies.  So, if you do not get a summer intern outside India, the next option is SURA in IIT. So i along with Katyal and Ashish met Prof. Sandeep Sen for a SURA in Cache Oblivious Algorithms and on one bright day, Feb 27,2009( the last date for submitting the proposal was Feb 28,2009 ..:)) when we were busy making the proposal, my inbox notified me  of one mail. A reply to one of the application I had send on Jan3,2009( !! ). I opened  the mail quite reluctantly( did not want to see another  “dude , no place for you”) but to my greatest surprise, the first positive reply… and I was happy( the word “happy” should have a scale associated along with it..) I had finally got an intern in France at a place called INRIA in Sophia Antipolis( INRIA is a computer research institute in Europe and an intern over there is like “Wow”)

(Btw, right now I am 9144 m above you displaced by a distance that would take you to Afghanistan and moving at a speed of 527 miles per hour after a horrible fiasco with my boarding pass and now after a good meal and it is May 10, 2009, no idea about the time as not sure in which time zone I am right in…I had left the blogging at the lounge as it was time for check in and then I had a really bad time..carry on..)

So, going back on 27^th of February , I told Katyal and Ashish that I would not be joining them and went straight to Abhishek Prateek( a 4^th yearite computer science guy who had gone to the same place in his second year) and asked about the place and the institute. After a lot of exchange of mails  with Frederic ( I would be supervised by two mentors , Frederic Giroire and Stephanne Perennes during my stay in INRIA) and Patricia( the HR person who was handed the responsibility of completing the administrative formalities for me( or rather with me)), I finally got the VISA on March 16,2009.(Yepiee!!)

(Right now, I am with Gunjan, an IITG girl who is going to INRIA in rennes and Mayank, from IITD only going to the same place as Gunjan)

The Boarding Pass Fiasco

Guard Sahib(who incidentally  was a bhaji J) :Boarding Pass??

Me: Yeah, just a minute.

And I started looking in my file, I found everything except the boarding pass.(Goddamn it, it was nearly 12:10, only 30 mins left..Look!Look..)I searched every corner of my bag but could not find it

Lady1: Sir, are you sure you put in the bag?

Me: Yeah, 100 percent. Let me check again, it should be here.

Guard Sahib: Do not worry Sir, mil jayega..

Lady1(to Lady2): What to do if he has lost the pass?

Lady2: Well, I think we need to redo the whole procedure, let me ask the Sir.

(Shit !! 25 mins..)

Guard Sahib(to the Air France official): He has got the immigration check cleared on his passport, I take his guarantee ..

Thanks!!

Air France Offical: No, we have to do the whole process again..

In this whole time , I was frantically searching my bag perspiring badly in temperatures of 15 degree Celsius.

Lady 1: Sir, you must have forget it at the final security check. I will go and check it out.( to Lady 2 now) those guys(Security personnels) usually stack the forgotten things..(Who is as dumb as me??)

At this stage, I was really worried now as only 20 mins were left and I had no idea what was going to happen.

Guard Sahib: Do not worry Sir ji…(What….)

I had left searching my bag and was looking forward to do all those shit things again in real quick time when

Lady 1:  I got your pass,(huh!!!!!!) you forget it at the last security check, just as I predicted…

During the whole time above, I was worried beyond I can describe it in words.

(Btw, AIR FRANCE is awesome!!)

I think it is 3:14 now according to the Indian Standard Time, which means a good 6 hours are still left before the flight lands, I am going to have a good nap and play a little with the new digicam, new mobile and of course these fantastic seat controls..;) )

Bon nuit!!