Chapter 8: Trip to America

Early February 1952, my friend Boris Melcomian and I took off from Mehrabad airport in Tehran to Orly airport in Paris. I don't recall how long the flight was but it was very enjoyable. It was our first experience on a plane. The flight was scheduled for early morning on February 2. That cold winter morning many friends, relatives, as well as family were gathered at our house, boarded the bus, and drove to the airport, and all the way along the route singing, joking, and laughing. My grandfather Nushan Kellejian (my mother's uncle) had brought his clarinet. He sat in the back of the bus and played all the way to the airport. He said (very prophetically I might add), I will never see you again, so I'm going to play for you. At the airport, after the usual hugs and kisses, after the tears and prayers, we finally got aboard and winged to Paris.

We stayed in Paris almost a month, which gave us a chance to do a good deal of sightseeing. We were staying at a hotel near Saint Onge subway station, convenient central location. We lived frugally. Every morning we bought a fresh baguette from a basement bakery just two doors from the hotel [and] with some butter, feta cheese, and honey [we were set] for breakfast. We did find some inexpensive restaurants and sidewalk cafes for lunch and dinner to strech our limited finances. Naturally we saw all the tourist attraction places, such as Eiffel tower, the Louvre museum, the Versailles palace, Chaillot palace, and the like ... the Bois De Boulogne (very beautiful park-promenade just outside central Paris), the Champs Elysee, the Arch de Triomph, Les Invalides.

We were most impressed with their subway system (the Metro). It was the most modern and comfortable (for that time ) yet very inexpensive. As you descended to the station level there was a big map on the wall, [and] by pushing the button for the current station and the station of your destination, the map would light up the route, the car number, and time of arrival at your station. Subsequently you entered through the turnstile by depositing a token and waited for your car. Towards the end of February as we were getting ready to leave France, they remodeled the Metro system. They actually refitted with newer cars that had better lighting (fluorescent), more comfortable seating, and quieter running.

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