French misadventures - Part 2

Time : 12 AM

Place : The Streets, La Rochelle

Now, we find team 1 leading the other team to the centre of the city with exclamations of awe, excitement, exhilaration, stunned admiration etc describing their destination as "Heaven"(while trying to explain their late-arrival - it is not easy to make up your mind to leave heaven, is it?), while their followers are looking at each other with disbelief and anxiety. As they walk and ponder and go to the extent of prophesizing about the beauty of this "Heaven" they are to stumble onto, let us look at the plan they have chosen.

10pm to the time they are tired - Roaming around (Team 1 stumbled on a festival going on in the city)

From when they are tired to 5am - At the bar

5am to 7am - At the Gare

So, 10 minutes later, they arrive in "Heaven" and seemingly feel that the end was anti-climactic (a feeling that was about to change pretty soon).

Some street-shows, Eurotrip-inspired-human-robots, cancelled spectacles and a long walk later, they arrive at THE BEACH of THE ROCHELLE.

Time : 1 AM

Place : The Beach, La Rochelle

So, why, you ask, would someone want to go at a beach at 1 in the night? Divine intervention maybe the right answer. Now, the beer having been bought, had to be finished. In wake of not much competition, TSG happily volunteered to do the dirty work and to drink the beer.

While the beer bottles are being emptied, the 6 people talk some sense and some nonsense, but that's where the fun was about to begin.

So, at the beach, they find a cellphone - and leave it. Why? Best explained in TSG's words

If anyone comes here and searches for it, they should find it like TPG found her jacket

(words, which he might come to regret now, having lost his phone at a beach)

That favour being repaid, they continue-see people playing with fire juggling burning objects-and it makes no difference to them. Atleast one of Team 2 members expected "Heaven" to be better, though the beauty of the beach seems to be having an effect. All this time, the alcohol has started to control and dominate TSG (Presumably and via various observations, the time gap between alcohol consumption and its exhibition in actions is infinitely miniscule for him) and the six people tend to start hearing abuses with increasing frequencies. Realising this, TSG tries to compensate by adding a sorry after each abuse, and in effect his sentences in majority made up of B***n**** and sorry, and this makes TPG start living up to her name (The author reminds and counsels you to keep in mind the names of the characters because they have been chosen with utmost care.)

High and dry (out of alcohol), TSG proposes that everyone sit in a circle and try to sort out the problems inside the group - a wonderful idea. This leads to a nearly hour and a half long session which can be completely skipped, because the author wants the narrative to be well-paced and because, from an external perspective (which the author wants to maintain here), it was all just some mumblings interfused with b***n****s and sorries. But, during the long discussion, 2 things happen and they are both worthy of being taken notice of

1) The people in the group start gelling better, and

2) Alcohol takes control of TSG

with, obviously, the second one leading to more action.

Time : 2:30 AM

Place : The Beach, La Rochelle (still)

In some time, nature's forces start prevailing over the members of the group, and, unbelievably non-surprisingly, the first to want to head off to the toilet is TSG. The two funny incidents mentioned below have their origins in the expensiveness of public toilets in France.

The first one takes place when TSG wants to go relieve himself and doesnt want to go as far as the public toilet and starts roaming around here and there till he stumbles onto some French people playing Bole Chudiyan (Yes, the author would like to stress that you read it correctly. Go rub your eyes and wash your faces if you want, but this is true.) and starts dancing with them until Mother Nature doesn't want him to carry on. And this time, without any place to go, he heads to the shop he ate at that morning and makes himself comfortable, while fearing what would happen if someone saw him there. As he is done, he looks up and gets the fright of his life when he sees Frenchies approaching him. With his heart in his mouth, he surrenders himself to his fate, until he sees them following suit and bemusedly chuckles. On his return to the group, he makes sure this story (interspersed with swear words and sorries, obviously) is relayed to the others and convinces TNNG to do the same.

The second one takes place at a time when the 6 protagonists are tired and want to go sit at the bar. They run across a public toilet and after paying just once and managing to hold the door open, they all manage to be at ease with their bladders again. (The author would like to bring into notice that within a short time of the publishing of this story, some of the protagonists will receive a bill from TFG demanding the requisite fraction of the usage charges to be given to him.)

Time : 3:00 AM

Place : A bar somewhere in La Rochelle

Somehow, stumbling and falling, taking photographs and making videos in the process, the group reaches the bar, not with the intention of drinking, but with the intention of resting there. Hence, the readers should not be surprised at the fact that 6 of them ordered 2 drinks in total. While the others are taking a rest, TSG, or his Alcohol-governed split personality, takes his drink in his hand and goes to the dance floor. An hour later, his return is marked with a thump on the table and a crash onto the chair and voila, he is, as they say, out. The time passes, with TFG asleep, others falling in and out of sleep and TSG completely out, till its time they have to leave the bar and head to the gare.

Time : 5:00 AM

Place : The Gare,La Rochelle

As the scene is shifted, TSG is having to be coaxed to leave the bar and be held onto by 2 people so that he doesnt fall down. At the gare, his hyperactivity is monitored by continuous rendering of the sentence "Calm down, or the police will come" (Amazingly similar in meaning and intention to "So ja beta, warna Gabbar aa jayega") by TCNG. The fear being instilled and the hyperactivity being monitored, the group waits for the gare's doors to be opened. The instant this much-awaited moment comes, they pour into the gare-directly into the waiting area to catch some well deserved sleep. 90 minutes is the total amount of sleep they get before TSG's alarm wakes them up. (The alarm which TCNG set up because TSG couldn't remember the way to.) At the moment of him waking up, TSG wonders about where he was and how he got there, with the last thing in his mind being his dance at the bar.

Conclusion and the Incidents that follow

In the broader perspective, this time, they are able to catch the train and make it back to Nantes and in the spirit of the weekend, miss the bus back to the hostel. The author regrets that there has been no mention of their planned visit to La Baule (The article figures here too - THE Baule) the next day and apologizes for it having disappeared from his mind. Now, they are faced with a decision of whether to go back walking or to wait for the bus and miss the next day's trip. TSG, TFG and TCNG decide to walk back while the others decide to wait for the next bus. What follows for the first three is half an hour of brisk walking interspersed with brief spells of jogging and they arrive in time to brush their teeth and head to La Baules. Out of the others, TPG has a change of mind and gets back to join them (somehow making it back in time even after taking the bus) and what follows is another day to remember at La Baule.

The author would like to conclude by saying that both La Rochelle and La Baule deserved the articles before their names (and at the same time, requests the readers to leave comments) before signing off and having the dinner he completely forgot about having.

FIN