This is 4PM in the afternoon!

I am sure you remember the scintillating story I had about meeting my first pen friend. This one was a bit more tempered down. For one thing, everybody spoke English when I needed directions. For another, we met in a place we had agreed on in our communications. Yes, I did not spring a surprise this time. It was a planned one.

Marine and I have been writing to each other for some time. One common theme is that she has visited India. And she had first hand experience of discrimination by skin color. We have written to each other a lot about our personal experiences. She was not too surprised when I discussed how skin color of a girl in India often was the deciding factor on your choices of suitors… or the amount of dowry you have to pay.

Today, though, it was all about her work and her family. For the life of me, I never dug into what she does for a living. I would have have a lot more letters to write then – both of us are in technology!

The best part? Talking about our own set of pen pals and experience of writing to them. She was most thrilled by my story of pen friendship with a prisoner! The only pen friend I ever had in the USA. Fortunately, she eventually got released. Unfortunately, I never heard back from her again!!

It was a great meeting!

I will tell you how great it was. Five minutes after we had said good bye, I suddenly realized that I forgot to take pictures. Texted her and she was kind enough to come back from the parking lot to take this picture.

I promised Marine that next time I am in Paris, I will meet her dad. Sounded like a guy I someday want to be!!

The hotel we are staying in is hosting the Paris Fashion Week. The lobby is teeming with models and photographers. The most stunning thing for me was how many clothes they had lined up. They filled up two huge halls just with clothes. By my estimate, there were at least 2000 pieces of clothes!! I am just trying make sure Sharmila does not see that collection 🙂