My Pocket: Oui, c'est beau Paris

Paris started out just as rainy as Britain, oh bummer... We hid under umbrellas through the worst of it, just short of reaching the Eiffel tower (see it just beyond the trees). Wide rivulets were forming on the paths and we had some fun navigating across those, or exploring the Mekong delta which is how my dad experienced it. He can rarely take anything out of the ordinary seriously. Actually, not much of the ordinary either, now that I think of it. He's the one holding the umbrella in the picture by the way.

I love the French newspaper and magazine stands everywhere. Not just a great place for some gossip, but like an open-air bookshop too. That's my mum in the picture.

I'm fond of the fruit and veg displays outside the shops, I keep a lookout for them in Britain too. There's something so wonderfully old-fashioned or exotic about it. We managed to find a small market too which made my day. The berries were sold there. Along the little square where a line of shops - the greengrocer, the fishmonger, the butcher, the charcuterie, the boulangerie (bakery) and the winery, all in a row!

Mum and I found a pair of sandals each - her red with white dots, mine black.

Carl Fredrik (my brother) and I enjoyed ourselves in the evening with taking night-time shots out the window of the neon lights beyond the hotel. He is one budding photographer I think, he's got a great way with the camera and is so imaginative. We tried catching the headlights of the cars passing on the street below and had a lot of laughs in the process - quick, quick, now! Aaawww... Again - now, now!

We strolled along the Seine on my last day, after window shopping in Saint-Germain-de-Pres and I like that kind of holiday time the most. Just wandering along, seeing what you find and ending up wherever you do.

One of the things I like the most about travelling are the exotic smells. Doesn't really matter what, just whatever reminds me that I'm in a foreign country. I still suddenly find myself back in India whenever I smell anything resembling the smoke from smouldering burnt rubbish and it always makes me happy before I realise what I'm actually smelling. :) In France it was more from baking wafting out from the boulangeries, smell of lunch from the sidewalk restaurants, a wiff of incense from an open doorway, laundry somewhere or just summer sunshine warming the pavement.

In the end we ended up by Notre Dame and sat people-watching on the side for a while, resting our feet. Wish I could have spent some more days with them, strolling around breathing in the atmosphere, but there it is. It's back to work for me now. I'm so revitalised though, it did the trick those two days. I'm inspired too, French people have so much better taste in clothes than the British (sorry!) and I saw many people who had their own style going on. Perhaps that is a capital city phenomenon, but still. I love seeing different cultures.