Paris
I
left from London early on Wednesday morning. The flight was at 10:45, so
not too bad - bad at Heathrow you really need all the 2 hours of
extra-early arrival to get through all the security checks. I just about
managed to have a breakfast, and didn't have time to try out the credit
card wireless internet access at the terminal.
The flight was slightly delayed, but it had already dawned on me that I would never make it to the office in 40 minutes from Charles De Gaulle airport in time. The fast-train ride already takes about 40 minutes in itself, and then I would still have to negotiate the metro, and walk to the office. When I arrive in Paris I called Emmanuelle and estimated a 1.5 hour late arrival. Paris was quite warm I was constantly breaking out in sweat in my winter coat. It felt like the very late relatively warm days after the summer, not like a sudden nice spell in October. I finally arrived at the office, which is quite a dark and dingy place in an unsuspecting building.
I did two
of my sessions, and the rest was re-arranged for Thursday, which would
have been the more logical schedule anyway. People were very nice, and
attentive -- hopefully my endless terminology rants were good for
something...
After the sessions I walked to my hotel couple of blocks away. I had
booked the "Standard Design Hotel" in the Bastille area because it looked
pretty and posh. It was indeed a well interior-designed place: All black &
White with lime green, with beautiful swishing minimalist furniture. They
even had wireless internet access! I didn't quite figure out how to
connect to the particular hotel's network, but there were about 5 other
networks in reach, so I simply used one other those.
For dinner, I went out, I got a right shock when I realised that I was bang-on in the hippest area imaginable. I had never seen Paris like that - I must admit I am of the opinion that Paris is vastly overrated, and that the city centre doesn't hold much excitement - but this area was very young: full of independent record shops (vinyl! -- how many "DJ stores" can you possibly have (or need) in the same street?!), vintage clothes shops, random-design-item shops and bars, tapas bars, restaurants en masse!!! In the parallel street every house was a bar! It had a very Mediterranean feel to it, like Barcelona! And it was only a Wednesday night! I settled for one of the restaurants and decided on a menu. The food definitely is different from English food! All that fancy stuff, I love it! I had salmon tartar, squid fried in garlic with wilted spinach and sun-dried tomatoes, and crème brulé. Very nice. No wine. I was still under the impression that alcohol made my eye-lids swell up and me feel miserable. Surprisingly I woke up the next day with swollen eyelids (especially the left one), so unfortunately I now have lost my reason to avoid alcohol on health grounds!
Thursday I did a couple more sessions,
and they took me out for lunch - another very nice meal. A fish called
Panda (or something) in red(?!)-wine sauce and mousse au chocolat - which
cause a major guilt pang...
In the evening I walked around for quite a while and then went to the
restaurant just opposite my hotel. It turned out to be the secret "in"
place of the quarter, people where piling up to get inside! I had a great
meal consisting of Mille Feuille au crabe (really good!), Fish Hot Pot and
wine. I spent the rest of the evening checking the latest youtube videos
and emailing.
I had decided that it wouldn't make much
sense to come back to the office on Friday morning to check my work email
because 1)I had internet access in the hotel, 2) Nobody was sending me
emails anyway and 3) I wanted to go to the Louvre. So on Friday I
embarqued on my journey to the Louvre - cum luggage. When I arrived there
were long queues - really long, like at least 1 mile! But then I figured
out that they weren't for the Louvre museum but for something else. So I
did get in quite quickly, had my luggage taken care of and then raced
around the museum to find any inspiring art. I am only interested in
paintings, and especially in the 19th century and beyond. Therefore I had
to quickly realise that the Louvre was not the ideal place for me - it
deals with antiques. I did walk by the Mona Lisa, but what that fuss is
about is not clear to me. Are we only fascinated by certain works of art,
just because generations before us were? Nowadays those painting do not
mean anything to us, but we still flock to them, pretending to be moved??
I had an early lunch at the cafeteria, and then made my way to the
airport. I arrive early enough to buy 10 Euros worth of internet time, and
checked my work email and youtube.
Then it was off to
Vienna.
