I've just typed up my notes from my Paris trip. I will try to upload photos relating to these entries in the next couple of days.
Had breakfast at the hotel this morning, the first time all trip. Baguette and Brioche were the order of the day and who were we to disagree. We ate our fill and took some for later as well.
Rather than cart our luggage around with us all day we went straight to the expo and checked our bags into the coat and bag check then headed out to see Notre Dame unencumbered by bags and laptops
Notre Dame was big, impressive and surrounded by more American accents than you can shake a big stick at. The stain glass was impressive but personally I liked the gargoyles more.
After Notre Dame we visited Sainte-Chapelle. A small church with big stain glass windows and an assortment of holy relics (not on display). It was definitely impressive but compared poorly with Notre Dame on a cost/size analysis.
The expo beckoned once more, so we went on a final plunder of collecting sweets and trinkets from the various stalls that offered them and finished up at the Wacom booth. Here they held a Q&A game with Wacom tablets up for grabs. The contest however was conducted entirely in French. I'm proud to say however that I competed keenly and came as close as you could to winning a graphics tablet without actually getting the prize. I did however walk away with a towel.
We arrived at Gare du Nord with plenty of time, had a bite to eat and boarded the train. Fortunately when we arrived in at London Waterloo we were able to walk straight through without even needing our passports. This is in stark contrast to Duncan's last trip where he was delayed by immigration and long queues.
It's nice to be home.
Today I wanted to do the tourist thing, so we went to l'Arc de Triomphe - you seriously don't want to drive around this thing. Took a stroll along the Seine, and finally climbed le Tour Eiffel. The Eiffel Tower was great, you get such an amazingly different view of a city from that height. That sounds obvious I know, but what struck me was how some landmarks that are imposing from ground level, like the Basilique du Sacre Coeur, become almost indistinguishable from the top of the tower.
We headed back to the conference for some afternoon sessions, and then on the recommendation of a friend of Duncan we caught the Metro over to Rue Mouffetard for dinner. Dinner was good, but not great, the mousse au chocolat was definitely the meal's strong suit.
At 11pm on the way back to the hotel we stopped off at the Eiffel Tower again. This time to witness the sparkling light show that illuminates the tower in remembrance of September 11th.
Very late night. Fell asleep before reaching hotel.
After a late night we got up early (6am) to make our way across Paris to the Palais de Congrés where the keynote for the expo was being held. The keynote was being presented by Steve Jobs (Apple's CEO) which made it a fairly big event on the Apple calendar. There had been a problem with the passes we had been mailed out so we wanted to make sure we would be admitted in to the 'stevenote'. We arrived at the venue without any problems and made our way to the queuing area where we were scanned, searched and divested of all our belongings (not clothes).
Apparently both Duncan and I misread some fine print somewhere, and were under the delusion that the keynote started at 9:00am. At 9:25am we realised this wasn't the case and subsequently found out the keynote started at 10:00am, a full (nearly) 3 hours after we arrived. As it turned out, this was still the correct time to have arrived.
When the doors finally opened, we made our way with little concern for life and limb (on other people that is) through to the auditorium where we had prize seats just behind the VIP crowd in the centre of the theatre. Steve did his thing, it was good. New goodies were announced, these were also good. Prices were still a little high (not free) so I don't think we'll be purchasing any new hardware in the short term, but is was still a fun experience.
Free buses were provided to transport keynote attendees to the exhibition centre so we availed ourselves of this service. The expo was very big with all the major players present. We started with a presentation given by Apple France on Apple's latest version of their operating system. It was interesting. Almost more interesting however was the experience of using a translation headset. The translators did an amazing job and at times they were very funny. Sometimes intentionally, and sometimes by virtue of them not having a clue what they were actually translating.
More geeky show floor happenings...
Dinner that night was that traditional French meal of... Pizza. This was a momentous meal for me as I was unable to eat all my meal (not the amazing bit). I successfully negotiated having the remainder of my meal boxed up to go all in French. This I would like to add is without the benefit of French at school to back me up. I was very pleased with myself.
Arrived back at the hotel around 11pm and crashed.
In honour of the commencement of 'Geek Week', this entry is currently being written while on the Eurostar. We have just emerged from the Channel tunnel and I feel the need to scream out that I am now in another country! I think this feeling comes from living my life (to this point) in a country where, if you traveled on a train for three hours, you wouldn't end up in France, so much as you would end up in Turangi. It is an understatement to say that I am excited. Though I'm hiding it very well.
The laptop battery is now getting very low so I'll stop now before it has a fit at me. This will no doubt not be uploaded till tomorrow as I can't see internet access materialising before then.
We arrived at the Hotel le Quercy just before 11pm earlier than we had anticipated as the Metro was very quick. We managed to check in (in English) and take the lift to the third floor where our room is. Taking a lift may not sound like a big deal, but wait until you see the size. Let's just say you want to be on reasonable terms with the other person in there with you.
Nick is off to Paris tomorrow and I shall be computer-less (well not completely computer-less I will still have one at work) so I am doing a quick update before there is radio silence. (I know there has been quite a degree of radio silence from me anyway- Nick tells me the last time I did an update was in March)
We have had a busy weekend this weekend. On Saturday we went for a flat outing to IKEA. Nick and I spent the princely sum of £1.70. Seventy pence on a glass to replace one we broke and £1 on a little something which I won't mention because some of you may have a clone winging its way to you for Christmas. Duncan and Bronwyn were a little more extravagant and we now have a slightly more exciting lounge. There is more colour and less cream on cream. Thanks Duncan and Bronwyn!!! The boys also had hot dogs which at £0.65 each at least kept them quiet on the ride home.
Today we had our first visitor who we didn't know before landing on these fair shores and she is even English. My work-mate Liz braved the London roadways and came to visit us from North London. We went up to Cannizaro Park for a picnic. The park was strangely empty given the beautiful weather. We decided to work off our lunch with a little Womble-spotting in the common. We went for a long walk in the common and for the first time found the famous windmill. I'm not sure we know how we got there but never mind :) The windmill contains a museum, we didn't go in today but at £1 each I'm sure we will at a later date. It was a very fun afternoon and we are intent on making the most of the rapidly disappearing summer.
Even though I don't get a trip to Paris I have a very busy week planned. Lots of meetings at work and I'm sure Bronwyn and I will find a way to fill in the evenings - I guess a lot of reading will be done this week!
Okay, so maybe the previous update didn't happen on the day stated. Well, technically it did, but it wasn't accessible to the general public. After updating the style to be applied to this site I realised that there were ramifications for previous content that needed to be dealt with. This has meant a weeks delay on the new improved autumn styling.
I'm going to Paris next week for three days. Duncan and I will be attending the Paris Apple Expo. Hopefully this will be a chance to learn some new tricks and do some networking. Hayley and Bronwyn will be staying home for this trip so by the time we return our dialogue will no doubt have degenerated into some sort of sub-lingual-techno-babble.
I set a new record for myself today. 12 hours from concept to live web site. I was feeling a bit bored with the current design of our site and I thought it could do with a tweek or two. The idea behind this particular face-lift is not entirely mine. I was talking to Dave the other day and he made a comment about "seasoning" a web site and I confess the idea took hold of me. The photos for the new theme were all taken in our garden, which is rapidly turning into a sea of dried leaves.
Hayley's job continues to keep her busy, and this week the web site she was working on went live. They celebrated the launch at work with bubbles and one of the bottles was Lindauer. I think Hayley had to stop herself from bursting out laughing.
On Wednesday Hayley met up with Charlotte (supervisor) for drinks and a catch up while she is over here on holiday. Hayley seemed to have a good time, although I'm not sure it was in my best interests for her to have spoken to Charlotte. Now she keeps muttering about a PhD or some such thing.
Post Script: As this site has been cobbled together in a short space of time there will likely be errors in the way it displays. If you are unlucky enough to have a computer that does have problems with this site, please let me know and I'll do my best to track down the offending code.
