Beneath the Glow of the Eiffel Tower

14 November 2011, 06:18

We fly through the darkness, where time is crossed and changed and set our internal clocks haphazardly. Lights twinkled below as we flew high above the sleeping cities of the Middle East and Western Europe.

A bald Frenchman with pierced eyebrows and ears sat diagonally across from Daphne and blew his nose every now and then. We’re soon to land to a foggy Paris in 5C, the pilot announced, a sleepy Paris about to awake to a new dawn, a new day.

It feels a little surreal how some 14 hours or so before I was still sitting in Etihad’s Boeing 777 at KLIA about to depart for our transit point in Abu Dhabi. And now freezing and rainy Paris awaits, after what seemed like countless of lactose-free meals and little naps that were often un-deep.

The City of Love awaits, and work for the next 4 days too.
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22 November 2011, 22:58

11887m up high in the sky, and I saw a sight so beautiful it caught my breath: swirling passages of blinding white rose like an obelisk donning a cloak of purity, the snow vast and twisted like a tornado – and after a few moments, the desert, brown, harsh dust and dirt. And all this found southeast of Tripoli, nearly 7pm Abu Dhabi’s time and 4pm Paris.