I was in Paris last week, and didn’t want to come back… Albeit my second time in this beautiful city, I am still constantly amazed with what this place has to offer.
I arrived in the Charles de Gaulle airport on Monday morning 7am, and took a cab to the hotel. For some reason, I was relieved to find that my cab driver was an Asian, although he wasn’t one who believed in making small talk. Which was a good thing I guess, since I was pretty tired from my 13 hour flight. My flight to Paris was uneventful. I sat next to this mother and her baby. At first, I was cursing at my luck cause I thought I would be hearing the baby cry throughout the flight. I hate it when people bring their babies or small kids onto business class! Then again, maybe the truth is I hate that they’re that wealthy to afford it. = ) Nonetheless, I was surprised to find that we had a happy baby. He was smiling and laughing all the time, and more importantly, he slept like a baby (pun intended) for most of the journey. Lucky me!
It was a 45 min ride to the hotel.. I checked in and didn’t really like what I saw. The room was small.. And they didn’t provide bedroom slippers!! I would have brought my own if I knew this was the case. The worst thing was, there is this part of the room ceiling that slants, and I kept knocking my head against it when I prance around the room. In addition, the work table was extremely small, and I had to ration the limited space for my laptop, wires, hair straightener and my dry toiletries… Nonetheless, after the first 2 days, I kinda got used to it and it wasn’t so bad.. = )
My initial plan was to take a 2 hour nap at the hotel and then do some sight seeing after. But I ended up logging on to my laptop and was clearing emails and work until 3pm, before my hunger got the better of me and I decided to head out for some food. Lunch was a small quiche lorraine which I bought at a bakery by the streets. I strolled to Notre Dame and had my quiche there at the gardens beside Notre Dame – a true architectural wonder. It shames me to know that people in the 11th century can build something of this caliber, while we in the 21st century, with all the technology are making buildings that pale in comparison in terms of the design and architecture.
After my quiche, I went window shopping at the street side stores near my hotel, and ended the day with dinner at this Italian restaurant. Had really lousy spaghetti bolognaise. I made it up with two scoops of Haagen Diaz ice cream after. = ) The Haagen Diaz guy attending to me didn’t really understand English, so he kept scratching his head when I asked him about the toppings.. So it was like, my 2 scoops of ice-cream (with no toppings) in his one hand, and him scratching his head in his other hand. I was quite freaked out by the fact that his dandruff might just float its way into my ice-cream.. My colleagues called me soon after and asked if I wanted to join them and my boss for dinner. I rejected because I had already ate, but mainly because I was too exhausted then and didn’t feel like socializing.
The next 3 days were all business and a little bit of fun.. I met my new team member from Guatemala for the first time. He did a little presentation on his home country, and it was interesting. Will definitely visit Guatemala and its active volcanoes one of these days.
If there’s anything I didn’t quite like, it’s the food. I know the French are known for their fine cuisine, but I guess the food is too exotic for my liking. We had like foie gras for lunch almost everyday, and then there was a lot of wine and bread and cheese. And there were the escargots, and beef and veal. All of these are not really my favorite foods.. but I think K would be loving it if he was here! And the French loves late dinners, and they love to talk alot so I ended up having my dinner at like 9pm every night, going back at 11pm to work, and hence sleeping late every night. On the first night, my boss took the guys out for a night cap after our late dinner, and they slept at like 4am because they were watching the US elections live. The next morning, when I did my presentation, half the group were half asleep cause they had like only 2 hours of sleep! Haha.. = )
Anyways, here are some of the highlights of my 5 day trip in Paris:
On the first night, we went for an evening cruise on the river Seine. It was so romantic I wished K was there with me. We passed by a lot of historic building, and of course the Eiffel Tower. It was lit up in blue to commemorate the country’s presidency in the European Union. The view of the tower from the river was magnificent. My boss bought us ice cold Heineken beer, so we were drinking beer on the river at night at 8 degrees Celsius! I couldn’t feel my hands after the cruise.. During the cruise, we also went under the most romantic bridge in Paris. The guide said we are supposed to kiss our neighbour as we go under the bridge and make a wish. I kissed Laurie, my only female colleague in the team, and made a wish... = )
We witnessed the election of America’s first black president Barrack Obama. There was plenty of Obama talk after the 4th Nov with phrases like “Yes we can!” and “CHANGE has come to America” within the team, especially my male colleagues. We had so much difficulty connecting to the internet during our meeting that one of the catch phrases among the team was: “Can we connect to the internet? YES WE CAN!” = P
Our team building was a city tour of Paris in a van conducted by a super cute French tour guide named Christopher. We went to the Notre Dame (the interior was as spectacular as the outside), the French Arc of Triumph, Basilique du Sacre Coeur (another of my fave churches), Eiffel Tower and passed by the Louvre and many others. My boss even bought all of us a Eiffel Tower key chain each.. = ) Tea break was at a little street near the Basilique, where I had hot waffle with Nutella spread and a cuppa hot chocolat, while watching people walk past and street painters displaying their works of art.. Ah.. such is life.. = )
Our lunch was at a glass house restaurant in the hotel, with a huge crane hovering above us with a bunch of steel rods in tow. The best thing was, the crane operator had a wine bottle in his cabin. How reassuring!
My favorite meal was this fish burger we had for one of our lunches: a huge chunk of fresh white fish in between 2 potato patties. That was the most “normal” meal I had since the first day of the meeting.
On my last day on Friday, I went to the Louvre and saw the world acclaimed Mona Lisa, as well as Venus de Milo (the goddess without arms). Was quite disappointed by Mona Lisa cause it’s really tiny! And it was too “protected” with all the glass panels and frames. They even erected a barrier in front of the painting so people can’t get too close to it.
- Went shopping with Anne on the last day, and witnessed a basker at work in the metro. He had props set up, tying a black cloth between the two steel bars in the metro and hiding behind the cloth to do his tricks. Even had music playing from his stereo player. It was totally innovative, and I simply had to donate come of my Euros to him when he came by.
- I finally bought something from the flagship LV store at Champs Elysees. A speedy 35” bag and a short wallet. But both are not for me, but bought on behalf of my friends.. So sad! First time buy LV and it’s not for myself.. So I made up for it by splurging on 2 bags: One from Long Champ (the famous foldable one in dark brown), and one casual black sling bag from Agnes B.
- I had my name paged over the PA system in the airport for the first time. Shopping and dinner with Anne took longer than expected (we had super delicious Japanese for dinner!). So by the time I got back to the hotel to pick up my luggage, it was 830pm. My flight was at 1010pm. I reached the airport at 930pm, checked in, and tried to look for the tax refund counter. The usual one was closed so I had to look for the other one, and I ended up running around in circles getting lost. By the time I found it, my name had been paged, and some immigration guy got me and asked me to hurry up cause I was the last passenger. From then on, it was a 300m sprint to the gates with 2 airport staff running beside me with my bags.. When I reached the gate, the whole crew was standing there waiting for me.. it was so embarrassing! And when I got on the aerobridge and approached the aircraft entrance, there were already 3-4 senior air crew standing there waiting for me… oh boy! >_<>
My flight back was uneventful, watched one show and slept mostly. There was this couple beside me who actually stood up to take pictures of themselves in business class. I smiled to myself, cause I remembered myself wanting to do exactly the same when I first flew on business class. Then again, I never got to it. Too embarrassing lah!
Overall, I must say my trip to Paris has been quite dramatic. And I picked up a bit of French along the way too! At least now I know what R.S.V.P stands for! = )
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