Snippets from my Trip to the South of France - (and Frankfurt airport, he he)

I was going to type the heading of this post in part French part German. But some ideas seem really hot only when you first think of them...

So I went to Cannes, last week, for a customer meeting, and also visited Nice and Monte Carlo in the free time. They, my company, had put me up in a swanky hotel right on the marine drive - boulevard de la croisette. Sumptuous breakfasts, lunches and dinners at the hotel, lazy walks in the sun, and sweet girls saying bon jour monsieur made me feel quite like Dr. Grimsdyke whooping it up on the French riviera at Lord Nutbeam's expense in Richard Gordon's 'Doctor in Clover'.

My room was, ofcourse, very good. But the best part was a framed photograph of Van Gough's 'Nature Morte aux oignons' which surely translates to 'Still life with Onions' - characterstic Van Gough yellow, still life with a book, a knife, a candle, a kettle and of course some onions. I get these nice surprises once in a while, that's when I feel 'ah! Nice move, God, you have won me over again.'

There was another painting, by Kandinsky, some improvisation or other. That was a nice painting too.

One of the highlights of the trip, for me, was a grand dinner at the hotel for everyone attending the review meeting - there were lots of people. Sunlight at seven in the evening, walking on to the terrace with a view to the sea and a chappie (as Dr Grimsdyke might say) saying 'Champagne, monsieur?' 'Yes please, thank you', should have said, Oui! Merci!'. One or two nice dress to take the occasional peep at/into... Two glasses of champagne and you are ready to sit at a table and they serve white wine with the first course: scallops with mango chutney. The white wine was'nt such a hit, the mango chutney was good, the scallops were indiffernt (I have yet to develop refined tastes). Next course, beef steak and spinach and onion cake of some sort with red wine - the beef well done please. Excellent red wine, good spinach cake, good beef but I am not a great fan. Desserts - totally don't remember what was for dessert. Coffee? No thank you. And then surprise of surprise they bring another drink. It is smoky like whisky but tastes sweet like brandy. Cognac, someone says helpfully. Ah, cognac. So this is cognac. It is fruity and sweet, almost like dessert. In the meantime I have been discussing languages in India - English the lingua Franca - and European economy, why England is not switching and how did the prices behave when France changed to the Euro; I really enjoy discussing such topics when I am drunk, can hardly stand them when I am sober. I am still sipping my cognac when the fireworks start over the Mediterranean - they spend quite some money on these customer meetings. One kind of firecracker after another in a seemingly un-ending sequence. Hmm...good life.

I will keep the Nice and the Monte Carlo for some other time. Let me write about the flight back. I had decided not to get drunk in the afternoon. But you know how it is with free booze. But I had only red wine and ofcourse some cognac in the end. Again, I am having my last sips of Cognac, hoping they play the English movie first - the Pink Panther, and not the Hindi movie - don't remember the name of but it had Kareena and Shahid Kapoor with Himesh Reshmia singing all the songs, that's when out of the blue (?) they start playing Mickey Mouse. Oh, thank you God. Donald duck with his bum stuck in a gold fish bowl and his nose in something else, making all those hilarious noises. Just could not stop laughing. And then they brought on the Pink Panther. That was another laugh riot. Don't know if it was the alcohol, but I was laughing blisfully, continuously, uncontrollably and quite quite gratefully. A nice ending to a nice trip.