Paris review from a colleague

One of my colleagues just went on a holiday spanning London, Scotland, Rome and Paris. Had a small chat to find out from her what her experience of Paris is like. She informed that it's full of Senegalese touts, gypsies and her friend almost got pick-pocketed in a fast food counter (but was foiled by the sharp-eyed cashier). From the description that she gave, it made as if Paris seemed a dangerous place as a tourist. She also claimed that London (and Rome too) is very much safer than Paris.

I've been to Paris in 2004 during our honeymoon and it is indeed a beautiful place, with the Eiffel Tower, Musee du Louvre, the wonderful Paris metro stations, the various gardens, Fontainebleau, etc. Our experience with touts was only at Montmarte where we were forced to buy a friendship band for 10 Euros from this Senegalese tout (who claimed to be a Muslim) after he had tied it on my wife's hand.

I hope that this does not stop me from visiting Paris again but I also wish that the place is free of such touts, pickpockets to make it safer for tourists.

Checklist of items to bring for BLR trip

Now that I'm more or less being tasked to go to Bangalore for work (for a month), I'm trying to list of essential items which I need / might need for my stay there. I've come out with some:

1) Baby wetwipes. Convenient for me to clean my hands, seats, etc on the go
2) Dettol hand sanitizer
3) Medication for indigestion or bowel meltdown situations
4) DVDs to watch during free period (that include my long list of French movies recorded from Starhub cable)
5) Macbook (don't intend to lug my company laptop around for short trips within India) rigged with Adobe Lightroom, Reason, Logic 8 and The Sims 3
6) iPod
7) Ricoh GR Digital camera (with 24mm wide angle lens attachment)
8) Skype phone for communication with family in SG
9) My Sony portable DVD player (when I get bored at airports or in trains)
10) A book; "Underworld" by Don Delillo