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So I am in Paris, France for work and here is the first few days of the trip - in no discernable timeline:
So Paris, France.
Alternately hot and humid and sunny, and then coolish and rainy. All in the space of an hour or so.
Impressions that are probably out of order on the trip thus far:
Logan Airport Terminal A is open for business! Wow. Only five or six or seven years after it was torn down to be rebuilt!
The columns that look like gigantic coffee cups with coffee being poured into them (with appropriate splashing) are disturbing in the extreme and does not make me want to drink Dunkin Donuts coffee…
The flight was only about seven hours, so not so bad. ROBOTS! Is a cute little movie. I’d like to see it again without the annoying airplane whine in the earphone.
Aside to Gwen – National Treasure? French title: “Benjamin Gates et le trésor des Templiers.” Still a ridiculous movie, but it sounds better in French. Billboards seen on the way into Paris:
Les 4 Fantastiques –
Four in a row with the French names of the four (for example, La Femme Invisible). Very funny!
Morning traffic in Paris is Horrible!
So it’s two am or so for me (EST) when I get to the hotel at 9am local time, and I get into my room (a tiny bedroom with two small beds- not even twin size, and in the hallway from the door there is the sliding doors to the closet on one side and two doors on the other! I investigate: one is the room for the toilet and one is the room for the sink, bidet, and tub. So you have to *exit* the toilet room, go three steps up the hallway and into the other room if the bidet is something that enchants you as being useful. I have not used it).
I lay down to rest for about an hour – drift, really as I had turned on the television so I would not sleep, and A calls needing me to work. I change my shoes and I am up and out. They keep me up for the rest of the day and into the night. Lunch was a lovely working lunch with the food providers for the meeting. Yummy buffet that had lots of things I can’t pronounce, and some I can’t even describe, but it was delicious.
Dinner is a huge social event here. A and MB took me to dinner that night at a little Parisian restaurant where I had Poulet Fermier (chicken with potatoes and mushrooms) with Crème Caramel (like flan, or crème brulee without the crispy top) for dessert. The wine was Pouilly Fume (with appropriate accents over various letters, but ?), and was very nice.
Friday we worked all day again and had dinner at La Cave (ML and B had joined us by this time) and I had the roast duck with dried fruit and pear polenta with a dessert of puff pastries, vanilla ice cream, hot fudge and almonds. They pour the hot fudge right at the table, so it has no time to melt the ice cream. Again YUM!!!
French TV is funny. I don’t understand a stick of French, but I can tell you the woman who dubs the lines for Sarah Jessica Parker on Sex in the City is much easier to listen to. I can almost stand to watch it - however, other than knowing they all talk about sex all the time, there is a lot lost on me when it is in French.
Overheard in the Terminal Room (computer room, for those who see "terminal" and think "death") on Saturday: "You see this? This red passport entitles me to whinge on." Regarding the fact that we let him in to use the network 30 hours before there was any support. He was a good sport about it though.
Dinner with my potential new employers on Saturday night (they took us all out) at this tiny little hole in the wall place within walking distance from the hotel one of them had found (I just read how this sounds, and its new employers as in "who are buying the company I work for," not "new employers who are *hiring me personally*"). We had the place to ourselves by virtue of the twelve of us took up all the tables inside.
I had the apertief (spelling? Dunno!) of wine made from cherries - which at first tasted a bit like if you had made cherry cough medicine into a wine this is what it would taste like, but it kind of grew on me. My salad was the baby greens with duck foie gras (sauce on the side!). I chose the cockerel with spinach and couscous for the main course, and strawberry mousse for desert.
They also served us truffle oil breadsticks and smoked duck slices between courses. Yum!
Later I will talk about the private party (for a thousand!) at the Musee d'Orsay. Too tired now.
So Paris, France.
Alternately hot and humid and sunny, and then coolish and rainy. All in the space of an hour or so.
Impressions that are probably out of order on the trip thus far:
Logan Airport Terminal A is open for business! Wow. Only five or six or seven years after it was torn down to be rebuilt!
The columns that look like gigantic coffee cups with coffee being poured into them (with appropriate splashing) are disturbing in the extreme and does not make me want to drink Dunkin Donuts coffee…
The flight was only about seven hours, so not so bad. ROBOTS! Is a cute little movie. I’d like to see it again without the annoying airplane whine in the earphone.
Aside to Gwen – National Treasure? French title: “Benjamin Gates et le trésor des Templiers.” Still a ridiculous movie, but it sounds better in French. Billboards seen on the way into Paris:
Les 4 Fantastiques –
Four in a row with the French names of the four (for example, La Femme Invisible). Very funny!
Morning traffic in Paris is Horrible!
So it’s two am or so for me (EST) when I get to the hotel at 9am local time, and I get into my room (a tiny bedroom with two small beds- not even twin size, and in the hallway from the door there is the sliding doors to the closet on one side and two doors on the other! I investigate: one is the room for the toilet and one is the room for the sink, bidet, and tub. So you have to *exit* the toilet room, go three steps up the hallway and into the other room if the bidet is something that enchants you as being useful. I have not used it).
I lay down to rest for about an hour – drift, really as I had turned on the television so I would not sleep, and A calls needing me to work. I change my shoes and I am up and out. They keep me up for the rest of the day and into the night. Lunch was a lovely working lunch with the food providers for the meeting. Yummy buffet that had lots of things I can’t pronounce, and some I can’t even describe, but it was delicious.
Dinner is a huge social event here. A and MB took me to dinner that night at a little Parisian restaurant where I had Poulet Fermier (chicken with potatoes and mushrooms) with Crème Caramel (like flan, or crème brulee without the crispy top) for dessert. The wine was Pouilly Fume (with appropriate accents over various letters, but ?), and was very nice.
Friday we worked all day again and had dinner at La Cave (ML and B had joined us by this time) and I had the roast duck with dried fruit and pear polenta with a dessert of puff pastries, vanilla ice cream, hot fudge and almonds. They pour the hot fudge right at the table, so it has no time to melt the ice cream. Again YUM!!!
French TV is funny. I don’t understand a stick of French, but I can tell you the woman who dubs the lines for Sarah Jessica Parker on Sex in the City is much easier to listen to. I can almost stand to watch it - however, other than knowing they all talk about sex all the time, there is a lot lost on me when it is in French.
Overheard in the Terminal Room (computer room, for those who see "terminal" and think "death") on Saturday: "You see this? This red passport entitles me to whinge on." Regarding the fact that we let him in to use the network 30 hours before there was any support. He was a good sport about it though.
Dinner with my potential new employers on Saturday night (they took us all out) at this tiny little hole in the wall place within walking distance from the hotel one of them had found (I just read how this sounds, and its new employers as in "who are buying the company I work for," not "new employers who are *hiring me personally*"). We had the place to ourselves by virtue of the twelve of us took up all the tables inside.
I had the apertief (spelling? Dunno!) of wine made from cherries - which at first tasted a bit like if you had made cherry cough medicine into a wine this is what it would taste like, but it kind of grew on me. My salad was the baby greens with duck foie gras (sauce on the side!). I chose the cockerel with spinach and couscous for the main course, and strawberry mousse for desert.
They also served us truffle oil breadsticks and smoked duck slices between courses. Yum!
Later I will talk about the private party (for a thousand!) at the Musee d'Orsay. Too tired now.
