Tuesday October 12, 2004

Here I am working in Paris...

As I have a lab here in France - Paris Velizy I am spending a week onsite. Velizy itself is not the nicest part of Paris but its a functional industrial area that suits the requirements we have of it.

There are many reasons for enjoying being here. The first is the language. It is the most wonderful thing to hear it being spoken. Some say Italian is the prettiest language but I think French is. I am a typical anglais, in that my French is pretty non-existent. I can survive over here, make myself understood but that is more of a function of the French being able to understand English than my command of their language.

The other reason is the food. These folks know how to do it well and the whole eating out thing is just perfect. It can be formal but they treat it very seriously and so you should. They eat strange things like escargot (snails) and frogs legs but then we English like jellied eels and cockles pickled eggs....

Last night we met a friend in Paris together we visited the centre of the city and had a meal. We went into the centre via her flat in her car an interesting experience. Parisien drivers are scary - worse than London. We then took the Paris metro into the centre which is a good overground/underground transportation system.

If you walk in Paris you should treat zebra crossings with caution if you are used to the relative sanity in the UK where most drivers stop as soon as you approach the kerb. In Paris this is not so. If the road is busy you have to do a kamikaze act and start crossing and they should stop. It is not always guaranteed to work. The Parisien drivers have numbers of their plates that indicate the car is from Paris. So other parts of France treat these cars very carefully when they are seen outside their main territory...

We then had a whistlestop tour of some of the sites, Hotel de Ville, Notre Dame and we also walked up close to the Eifel Tower . The Eiffel tower on the hour twinkles with fairy lights for seven minutes. I prefer the static light show myself , but I am old fashioned. These webcams thankfully do not show this fairy light show...

The French tea is something else out of the drinks machine. It tastes like warm milk which is frothy. The coffee here would stop you sleeping for a week. Water seems the best option.

It all bring backs happy memories of my honeymoon in Paris fourteen years ago.. Must come back soon as a tourist.