Bumming around the city and hitting the "in" bar with Neil
Slept in a little bit today. Neil came up to my place and helped me hang curtains in my bedroom. Hooray! Privacy! He thinks I could've reached up there, but I'm still not sure. If the rod falls down, I'll be finding out, but so far, so good. (Thank you again, Neil! What would I do without you?) After that we walked through some pretty streets towards Abbesses and Place du Tertre (the one on the Montmartre hill with all the artists.) After enough crowds and crappy tourist traps, we metro'd downtown and just kept walking. We'd thought of going in the Pompidou for a temporary exhibit, but decided to skip out, so we pretty much just walked around central Paris all day. It was lovely. We thought about heading to the Jardin du Luxembourg, but the weather turned pretty rainy, so we hung out in a cafe for drinks and a crepe. A wonderful, lazy afternoon. Thought about a movie to get out of the rain -- we weren't in the mood for museums, and many of their movies here are English with French subtitles -- but decided not to try to squeeze that in, either. Metro'd up to my apartment, where we both ended up falling asleep a little on the (huge) couch -- quick stop at Neil's hotel -- then tried a restaurant near Charles de Gaulle Etoile (Arc de Triomphe) that a guy at work recommended. Everyone here kinda gives him a hard time about being the typically swank Parisian guy, but this place didn't quite fit that mold. It was a Cuban-styled place with typically French food, folding chairs in the bar, and an awful cover band doing American tunes in English. (I'm not convinced they really understood the words, but it was good enough to attract a few middle-aged groupies in the front.) From there we went to Buddha Bar -- supposedly the trendy place to go now -- down near Concorde. It felt like you could've transported that bar to any major world city -- in fact, it reminded me a lot of Tao or Asia de Cuba in NYC -- giant budda; dark; loud, monotonous music; super-crowded; expensive -- but, that's what you get when you go where all the beautiful people are. It was worth it to check it out, at least, but when 80% of the tables were still eating dinner at 1 AM, I was glad we'd decided not to eat there...
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Neil's here!
Neil arrives!
Work -- fine. This morning two people in our office brought in gigantic, rich pastries to celebrate their new cars -- pains au raisins, pains au chocolat, et croissants. I think they call this whole category vienoisseries. I ate one -- most other people ate two and a half. They couldn't believe I didn't want more. I still don't get how they stay so skinny here. Also noticed at work today that we have to shake hands with everyone who walks by in the office. Doesn't matter if you've never seen this person in your life; they're going to walk up, limply touch your right hand with theirs, and say "Bonjour." Kinda nice, but by the 12th one of the morning it's a little tiresome.
After work I metro'd into town to meet Neil at his hotel near the Champs-Elysees. (For anyone who doesn't know Neil, he's a really good friend from Austin who happened to be in town on business.) Called me "Darcy Paris Dement," coined after having to create another name for me in his phone to store my number here without screwing up the Austin ones. Kinda like the ring to that. After a quick drink at the hotel, we metro'd a little ways east, walked over the Pont Neuf to the Left Bank, and wandered around until we found a good place to eat. Funnily enough, we ended up at this little French place I'd been before when I was over for work; the place was crawling with Americans, but good. We didn't stay up too late that night, relatively -- we were both tired, so we decided to call it a night. I tried to take the metro home, but got stuck at the station where I had to transfer (Concorde) when the trains stopped running at about 1, I think. I made it on a train from Neil's to Concorde, but missed the last train from Concorde north. No biggie -- headed to a taxi queue, which didn't actually have any taxis in it -- but after watching many, many, many go by occupied, I finally caught one. Good to note: a taxi from there to my apartment is less than 10 Euro. Not too bad.
French class pour deux
Work -- only notable thing was that I went to La Defense, considered the business district, for a tradeshow in the afternoon. Good times.
Another round of French class. This time was harder, since there were only 2 of us. I think the Canadian woman might've thought we were draggin' her down after her 5 hours a day of French grammar at the Sorbonne. Not sure what happened to the Germany guy -- either he didn't make it from work in time, or he was just too lost and gave up. It's a toss-up. So just having two of us put a little more pressure on us for participation and dialogue, and there was also an expectation that you'd remember something from the class before, unlike the clean slate of the first class. Towards the end of the session, after reviewing a mock interview on tape and on paper, the teacher asked us to fill in a little CV (resume.) I could tell where this was headed, and she did eventually ask us to switch and pretend to be in an interview. When I saw the Spanisih guy's paper, I had to just laugh. The teacher was prompting me to be more confident in my French and to just start talking, but my French wasn't the problem; I didn't even have any questions for the guy in English. He had described on the paper a 15-year-old Mexican girl who wants to be a go-go dancer. What am I supposed to do with that? Ask "Do you have your boots?" or what? I told the guy that I was all for creativity, but at least gimme something I can work with!
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Smoking at work and meeting my second friend here
Work was uneventful except for a 3-hour meeting called by the outgoing branch marketing manager (Philippe) to clarify my goals and activities with his direct reports. Nothing too notable, except that: #1 -- we halted the meeting once, and maybe twice, for Philippe to go have a smoke break; #2 -- partway through the meeting he had to step out again for his medical visit. Basically some hack doctor pulls up in a van, you strip down, he checks you out, and he stamps a piece of paper that says you're legal to work. Weird. (I just trust everyone here when they said he's a hack -- they said he never actually finds anything.) Plus -- Philippe didn't go down by himself -- another NI guy went down went with him -- which isn't too surprising if the dates are set by the system, not by you -- but still not the type of closeness I think you need with work colleagues. Ah, the joys of socialized medicine.
After work I headed into town to meet Averill, an American I met on an expat website. Turns out he thought I was a guy,based on my name, until we met. I'm used to that in Europe, but not from an American. Oh, well. We headed for this Italian place recommended to him by colleagues, and as it turns out, it's next door to this great little hotel on the Left Bank, the Hotel des Fleuries. It was pretty relaxing to meet up with another American -- felt less like of a struggle. Averill's also over for a few months from the Bay area -- but he's lived in Europe (Amsterdam) before for 3 years, and he was trying to put the hard sell on why I should consider sticking around. We'll see about that...
Also, some blog houskeeping. #1 -- these updates will get a lot more succinct now that I'm pretty much settled and less is new every time. I just couldn't be brief in the first few days -- sorry for slogging you through. #2 -- there won't be new posts every day. I don't subscribe to that "blog every day, even for a little bit" thing. I'll update it when I have news, but when I do, I'll predate it for when the news actually happened. Otherwise this'll get pretty boring for all of us...
Supermarket & first day of French class
Today included two firsts: my first outing at Carrefour, and my first day of French class. In between all that was work, which was fine. Everyone again was very friendly, and very supportive of my baby steps with French. At lunch I decided to head to Carrefour, the grocery store near the office, to get a few things. Carrefour is, of course, like everything else in the 'burbs here, in the mall. I also discovered that it's basically like a Super Wal-Mart. They've got everything you could ever possibly need there -- which is great, but makes the trip a lot longer when the place is huge and you can't read the signs. I took a picture of the gigundo wine aisle, which I expected to see in a place in France that's that big to begin with. What I didn't expect to see was Carrefour workers on old-school roller skates. This was a total crack-up. I'm sure it's an efficient way to get around a store that big, though, but it has a certain sock-hop or Sonic drive-in feel to it. Definitely not tres chic.
After work I parked the car at its new garage spot -- today I got word that I actually have a garage now -- hooray! No more parking tickets. The guy at the front was very friendly and complementary again, via his translator, the other guy who worked there. Anyway, after dropping stuff off at the apartment I headed down to my first day of French class. There were supposed to be 6 of us, but today there were only 4 -- even better -- a 27-year-old guy from Spain, a 28-year-old guy from Germany, and a 41-year-old woman from Canada. Luckily English is a common denominator among us. The teacher was 30-ish, I think, and spoke almost zero English to us the whole time. Not when she walked in, no "hello"s in English or anything. It was a little intimidating, but I'm sure it'll make us learn faster. Thank goodness I'd already picked up a few words here and there so I could participate in class -- it was pretty much all conversation. Thank goodness, too, that I'd already studied another language before -- things like all the verb forms would blow my head off if they were all being given to me in French with no English whatsoever. The other people in the class were very friendly, too, and I'm hoping I might even get a few friends out of the deal. After class I took the metro home with the German guy -- he lives near here -- and after withstanding his 20 questions about what I'm doing here, I asked him if he knew anyone else here, either. When he said no, I suggested we exchange email addresses, to which he blankly replied, "But I'll see you on Thursday." Ok, dude, so not for the next 48 hours, but how about for the next quatre mois when neither of us knows anybody? When I explained, he was cool to switch addresses, but I guess he took me pretty literally at first. We have homework, too, which I think is a good sign. Now that I've already made my Carrefour run, that might be what I do tomorrow at lunch...
Oh, also opened the cheapest bottle of wine I've ever had tonight. Bought it last night on the way home for under 4 Euro, a Bordeaux. And it's not bad, either -- makes me wonder how good the good stuff really is...
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First day at the office
Today was my first day at NI France as a semi-full-time employee here. Felt a little like the first day of school, even though I've been to this office many times. My first minor triumph of the morning was finding my car easily with no parking ticket. Merci. I also found my way through the maze of Paris rush hour to the office ok, or nearly, at least. I didn't get lost at all getting outside of Paris; I only got lost when I got off the highway to find the office. Seems like that should be the easiest part, but what do I know? So after much driving that should've been fairly straightforward (as I later learned,) I got to the office early enough, about 8:40, which is a little early according to what they tell me here. I walked into the office and was invited into the break room to have a coffee with the marketing team, as they do every morning, where everyone was again very friendly and helpful. Everyone here really has been helpful, particularly when I've ever asked for anything. The morning was relatively uneventful, just tried to get the RFID demo working for the RF tradeshow tomorrow. Good times. Lunch was again at -- you guessed it -- the mall, although this time at a Euro-style cafeteria. Quick and easy, so it works for me. At lunch I was telling them of my directional challenges finding the office off the highway, and Sophie generously offered to drive me in her car from the office to the highway, and then from the highway back to the office, so that I could make notes and figure out how to get here with less hassle. So incredibly nice of her, and I took her up on it.
The workday was fine, mostly just doing little things and getting set up. Tomorrow I meet with the branch manager to share my goals again with him and to ask for his help on a few things. The way home was easy except for the traffic -- 45 minutes just to get to the public parking down my street, and I'm heading the opposite way of all the traffic leaving the city. Wow. But hey, what do you expect living in such a place?
This afternoon I also decided which language class I'm going to take, after calling the two option schools and asking my questions verbally. Turns out one of them is just headset only, and the other is with a teacher, so I picked the one with the teacher. I've got lots of questions regarding French, and I need to have someone I'm paying to ask instead of bugging everyone I know with French grammar questions. So, I'll be in class every Tues & Thurs 7:30 - 9:00. Therefore, after dropping the car and changing, I took the metro downtown to find the school. Lucky idea, 'cause it took forever to find it, even with the address. I even had to call Mike to ask him to check the address for me. Thanks, Mike! At last I found the school wedged between a futon store and take-out Asian food, so at least I've got two rock-solid landmarks to find it tomorrow. Now if only I can get there on time... For that, I'll probably have to leave work at 5:30 to make it there by 7:30. C'est la vie.
Ate dinner in a brasserie near the Seine, where the waiter was especially friendly but sternly reprimanded me while eating my
moules marinieres for not using a discarded mussel shell as my sole eating utensil. Apparently the proper way to eat those things is to use an empty shell like tongs, no fork required. Again, these are the things you learn...although I still think it's possible he was just messing with me.
Enough for now...off to bed...
Day 3- end of vacation!
Today is day 3, mostly a free day and the end of my vacation feeling in Paris. Tomorrow the work begins! This morning I
had to clean the kitchen floor and cabinets -- not that they were filthy, but I couldn't let them go. A little more organization around the house, and I was out the door. First I went to check on the car, partly because of yesterday's good-morning parking ticket surprise, and partly to make sure I knew how to get there before I have to do it in the morning before work. After hiking back up towards the apartment, I stopped at the
boulangerie for a baguette the length of my arm. Couldn't help it. Fresh fruit at the fruit stand, check; return to apartment to put away, then back out again. My plan for today was really just to bum around and read, and maybe pick up a few extra things if possible. Today being Sunday, most places are closed, though, so I decided I'd be fine with just the reading accomplished. I walked towards the Abbesses station to scope out what the walk'll be like once my station closes. A little far for everyday, but very charming, both the walk and the entrance to the station itself. (Downstairs the station is a pit, but who cares.) I headed towards the English-speaking bookstore, WH Smith, to get a Paris driving map and a copy of
The Da Vinci Code. (I want to reread it before the movie comes out, just to compare.) That place is great, and it's big -- if you're ever looking for English books here, head to Place de la Concorde and check it out. I walked back through the Jardin des Tuileries (near the Louvre) and headed for the little park on the Ile de la Cite to read my book (
Merde Actually -- funny, and about an English guy who moved to Paris. Seemed appropriate.) The author mentions that the park was where some former prince or king or something used to come to seduce his lovers -- either that guy was a little kinky or the park was a looooot less busy then. You never know -- although I will say that except for the tourist boat that loads from one end of the park, it's not overly crowded. I sat and read for a bit, which was exactly what I wanted to do today. After a while, I headed towards Notre Dame just to check it out. I'm wondering if the huge crowds of tourists are due to spring break or if it's always like that. It seemed busier than during off-peak trips I've taken in the past, but could be that my memory's off.
Bought fresh cut tulips at the flower market on the island -- I blurted out a couple of phrases in French at the guy working the stall, which he seemed to not understand until he responded in English. Sorry, buddy, I'm working on it, but you'll have to work with me for now. The island's flower market is spectacular when all the stalls are open -- I'm definitely returning, even just to take pictures.
Just walking around Paris is an experience. Everything is so beautiful it almost spoils you, and you start getting used to it. I'm excited to be here, but in a subtle way -- I don't know if it's not more overt because I've been here several times before or that it hasn't sunk in yet. Not sure yet, but so far, it's been awesome.
Came home again by metro and got asked again for directions in French. That's not the first time so far. I'll take that as a good sign, but I really wish I had more to say back to them. Hopefully I'll get started with French class this week, if all goes well... I saw in the metro, too, that Rousseau, Cezanne, and Pissarro all have temporary exhibitions in the next few months. Maybe that's the yin to the station closing yang or something.
Cooked dinner at home for the first time here. Uneventful except for the fact that I don't have an oven, which makes certain dishes rather difficult. I do have a microwave, with some kind of metal rack inside, and I've heard that there are some microwaves that can also roast as well as microwave. Not sure. I really hope this isn't what the apartment listing meant by "American-style kitchen." Do I need to tell my landlord & lady that we actually do have ovens in America?
Oh, and a minor but warm-and-fuzzy triumph of the evening: my DVD player plays my DVDs! Which is unexpected, since they're usually coded for a geographic region only, but is a wonderful surprise. It doesn't matter in the long run, but it's nice to be able to put on a familiar show like "Sex and the City" when there's nothing else familiar, you know?
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