Paris in the (not really) springtime
Well it is finally time to sit down and give you all an update of life in Paris. To start with I hope you are all well and happy.
Its been an interesting couple of weeks thus far.
Al and Adrian accompanied me down here in the car and were with me on the first slightly wobbly inspection of the apartment. It is eclectic. That is about the best word I can use to describe the place. I have a couple of photos which I will try and post on this blog once I have worked out exactly how to do that!
Basically it is a true artist’s loft as you would imagine that to be. There is a large living room with old beams running across the high ceiling and old furniture with art on the walls. The bathroom is large and the kitchen very useable. The bedrooms are…. cosy.
To get into my bedroom, I have to practically bend over double. The doorway is very low. I then have, inside the room, what Alix and I describe as a porn star bed. This essentially means that my bed is set on a raised carpeted platform. Mmm. My apologies to my grandmothers for the terminology!
All in all though it is very comfortable and came with everything included which is good. In addition I have a metro station outside the front door which takes me directly to work. I have about five stops and then I get out at Concorde where I emerge up the steps into the Place de la Concorde and have quite a fab view ahead of me of the obelisk in the centre of the square and the Eiffel Tower beyond. Not too bad. It is from there that I turn up the main street and walk up to Gucci where I turn left as previously described.
The apartment is in the Marais area which is very touristy but a nice residential area generally. There are a lot of restaurants, cafes, bars etc nearby as well as a selection of supermarkets and other amenities close.
My office is in a quaint old building with again very high ceilings. All the people I am working with seem really nice. French is definitely the working language which I am getting used to.
The same day I started, a Spanish guy started in the equivalent of my position managing the Viticulture Commission. He is great and it has been good for both of us to have that initial support.
I spent this week attending the conference of the Codex Alimentarius Commission which is kind of the equivalent of our Organisation but for food and mainly food safety. It was quite an experience as it was kind of like a mini UN meeting. There were full time interpreters working with three channels of translation available. All the countries were represented with their little boards in front of them to show where they were from. Thankfully I wasn’t expected to say anything. The actual topics discussed weren’t especially interesting but it was good to be able to see what a meeting was like as I think our meetings are going to be quite similar.
Generally speaking I am still not entirely sure what I am expected to do every day although it seems that I will mainly be just trying to keep up to date of world wide developments in wine law and economy issues.
On the social side, my life here has also been quite hectic. Al, Adrian and I had a couple of really good meals out just around my local area. I had forgotten a bit how good the food is here. Every restaurant I have been to I have picked up the card of so that I can go back later.
The Friday after we arrived, Al and I went out to one of the massive supermarkets on the outskirts of Paris. Apart from a short stint on the highways on the way down from Amsterdam, it was my first experience of driving on the wrong side of the car. All in all we went surprisingly well with me driving through central Paris (yes, not really the ideal learner environment) except for one horrible moment when my navigator accidentally directed me right into the middle of the Bastille roundabout, a six land affair where you have to give way to traffic coming onto the circuit. Much screaming was done and recollections of National Lampoons European Vacation where, for thos of you who have seen ti, will recall that the family gets stuck for half a day on the innermost lane of the Arc de Triomphe roundabout and can’t get off. Needless to say that didn’t happen and all was well in the end.
After the weekend, on the Sunday, the others headed back to Amsterdam leaving me on my own for the first time in a while to explore my new place. A little tricky over the initial few hours but getting better now all the time.
The Monday was a public holiday so I hung around unpacking and then in the evening met up with my friend Andrew who I used to work with and who was here with a couple of friends on holidays. We had a wonderful dinner at Brasserie Flo not too far from Gare du Nord where Andrew and friends were staying. A huge recommendation for anyone in Paris as it is a really authientic little place with amazing food.
After dinner I made my way back to the aprtment but didn’t manage to crawl into bed until around 1:30. Not perhaps ideal the day before my first day of work! Thankfully the first week was pretty quiet at the office with various key people away so that didn’t cause too many problems.
On the Tuesday night the others came around to the apartment for dinner and in a very classy mode I made it home late from work and ended up serving take away Chinese that Andrew paid for! Not really the dinner party experience I could have made it with all the food in this area. By the time they headed off, I again crawled into bed after 1am.
On Wednesday, Andrew and one of his friends, also Andrew, came to stay in the spare room. Obviously, we went out again and this time it was almost 3 by the time I eventually got to bed.
I know you will be seeing a bit of a pattern emerging here but I justified it to myself by rationalising that I am probably going to be doing a bit of home alone, pasta for 1 in the next few months so I decided to make the most of social outings whilst available to me! Anyway, after going out again Thursday night, I got some proper sleep on Friday and Saturday when the Andrews headed off to Amsterdam for the weekend.
That also gave me the chance to finally get down on hands and knees and scrub this place to get it properly clean so the first weekend in Paris on my own was exceedingly quiet.
On Sunday, I travelled out to the outskirts of Paris to catch up with my friend Daphne who I was at high school with and meet her little boy. We had a nice walk around the high point around her area where you could look back across the rooves of Paris to the Eiffel Tower and beyond.
It was great to catch up with her and nice then again to come back home to greet the Andrews on their return and head out for a quieter dinner before they left to go back to the UK on Monday.
Last night (Wed), I went along to a pub night hosted by a local expat group here in Paris. It was a really good night in the end and I met a number of good people including another Australian living here right at the end. We are hopefully going to catch up again on the weekend as I am off to see Australia play France in the rugby at the Stade de France.
I again made it home pretty late but was justified this time by the fact that today was another public holiday. I took the metro today to the Oz embassy to check in and see what info they have for Aussies living in France in the hope they would be open as it is not a holiday at home. I underestimated the Australian dedication to a day off however and discovered it all closed up. Thankfully, the embassy is only a short stroll from the Eiffel Tower so I walked up there and then made my way across the left bank towards home passing a number of the big tourist attractions. A nice brisk day to be out walking and a really enjoyable way to spend the day.
Back to work tomorrow for the end of the conference. Then tomorrow night some of Al’s friends from the Hague are coming down to stay for the weekend for the rugby. I have been out and bought proper French supplies to welcome them (and amuse myself) and hopefully will have a nice dinner tomorrow night and possibly a couple of drinks…
Well, I didn’t mean to drag this out quite so far but hope you have managed to keep your eyes open all the way through. I will try and spread out any interesting news a little more in future.
Cheers to all and air kisses as always.
Its been an interesting couple of weeks thus far.
Al and Adrian accompanied me down here in the car and were with me on the first slightly wobbly inspection of the apartment. It is eclectic. That is about the best word I can use to describe the place. I have a couple of photos which I will try and post on this blog once I have worked out exactly how to do that!
Basically it is a true artist’s loft as you would imagine that to be. There is a large living room with old beams running across the high ceiling and old furniture with art on the walls. The bathroom is large and the kitchen very useable. The bedrooms are…. cosy.
To get into my bedroom, I have to practically bend over double. The doorway is very low. I then have, inside the room, what Alix and I describe as a porn star bed. This essentially means that my bed is set on a raised carpeted platform. Mmm. My apologies to my grandmothers for the terminology!
All in all though it is very comfortable and came with everything included which is good. In addition I have a metro station outside the front door which takes me directly to work. I have about five stops and then I get out at Concorde where I emerge up the steps into the Place de la Concorde and have quite a fab view ahead of me of the obelisk in the centre of the square and the Eiffel Tower beyond. Not too bad. It is from there that I turn up the main street and walk up to Gucci where I turn left as previously described.
The apartment is in the Marais area which is very touristy but a nice residential area generally. There are a lot of restaurants, cafes, bars etc nearby as well as a selection of supermarkets and other amenities close.
My office is in a quaint old building with again very high ceilings. All the people I am working with seem really nice. French is definitely the working language which I am getting used to.
The same day I started, a Spanish guy started in the equivalent of my position managing the Viticulture Commission. He is great and it has been good for both of us to have that initial support.
I spent this week attending the conference of the Codex Alimentarius Commission which is kind of the equivalent of our Organisation but for food and mainly food safety. It was quite an experience as it was kind of like a mini UN meeting. There were full time interpreters working with three channels of translation available. All the countries were represented with their little boards in front of them to show where they were from. Thankfully I wasn’t expected to say anything. The actual topics discussed weren’t especially interesting but it was good to be able to see what a meeting was like as I think our meetings are going to be quite similar.
Generally speaking I am still not entirely sure what I am expected to do every day although it seems that I will mainly be just trying to keep up to date of world wide developments in wine law and economy issues.
On the social side, my life here has also been quite hectic. Al, Adrian and I had a couple of really good meals out just around my local area. I had forgotten a bit how good the food is here. Every restaurant I have been to I have picked up the card of so that I can go back later.
The Friday after we arrived, Al and I went out to one of the massive supermarkets on the outskirts of Paris. Apart from a short stint on the highways on the way down from Amsterdam, it was my first experience of driving on the wrong side of the car. All in all we went surprisingly well with me driving through central Paris (yes, not really the ideal learner environment) except for one horrible moment when my navigator accidentally directed me right into the middle of the Bastille roundabout, a six land affair where you have to give way to traffic coming onto the circuit. Much screaming was done and recollections of National Lampoons European Vacation where, for thos of you who have seen ti, will recall that the family gets stuck for half a day on the innermost lane of the Arc de Triomphe roundabout and can’t get off. Needless to say that didn’t happen and all was well in the end.
After the weekend, on the Sunday, the others headed back to Amsterdam leaving me on my own for the first time in a while to explore my new place. A little tricky over the initial few hours but getting better now all the time.
The Monday was a public holiday so I hung around unpacking and then in the evening met up with my friend Andrew who I used to work with and who was here with a couple of friends on holidays. We had a wonderful dinner at Brasserie Flo not too far from Gare du Nord where Andrew and friends were staying. A huge recommendation for anyone in Paris as it is a really authientic little place with amazing food.
After dinner I made my way back to the aprtment but didn’t manage to crawl into bed until around 1:30. Not perhaps ideal the day before my first day of work! Thankfully the first week was pretty quiet at the office with various key people away so that didn’t cause too many problems.
On the Tuesday night the others came around to the apartment for dinner and in a very classy mode I made it home late from work and ended up serving take away Chinese that Andrew paid for! Not really the dinner party experience I could have made it with all the food in this area. By the time they headed off, I again crawled into bed after 1am.
On Wednesday, Andrew and one of his friends, also Andrew, came to stay in the spare room. Obviously, we went out again and this time it was almost 3 by the time I eventually got to bed.
I know you will be seeing a bit of a pattern emerging here but I justified it to myself by rationalising that I am probably going to be doing a bit of home alone, pasta for 1 in the next few months so I decided to make the most of social outings whilst available to me! Anyway, after going out again Thursday night, I got some proper sleep on Friday and Saturday when the Andrews headed off to Amsterdam for the weekend.
That also gave me the chance to finally get down on hands and knees and scrub this place to get it properly clean so the first weekend in Paris on my own was exceedingly quiet.
On Sunday, I travelled out to the outskirts of Paris to catch up with my friend Daphne who I was at high school with and meet her little boy. We had a nice walk around the high point around her area where you could look back across the rooves of Paris to the Eiffel Tower and beyond.
It was great to catch up with her and nice then again to come back home to greet the Andrews on their return and head out for a quieter dinner before they left to go back to the UK on Monday.
Last night (Wed), I went along to a pub night hosted by a local expat group here in Paris. It was a really good night in the end and I met a number of good people including another Australian living here right at the end. We are hopefully going to catch up again on the weekend as I am off to see Australia play France in the rugby at the Stade de France.
I again made it home pretty late but was justified this time by the fact that today was another public holiday. I took the metro today to the Oz embassy to check in and see what info they have for Aussies living in France in the hope they would be open as it is not a holiday at home. I underestimated the Australian dedication to a day off however and discovered it all closed up. Thankfully, the embassy is only a short stroll from the Eiffel Tower so I walked up there and then made my way across the left bank towards home passing a number of the big tourist attractions. A nice brisk day to be out walking and a really enjoyable way to spend the day.
Back to work tomorrow for the end of the conference. Then tomorrow night some of Al’s friends from the Hague are coming down to stay for the weekend for the rugby. I have been out and bought proper French supplies to welcome them (and amuse myself) and hopefully will have a nice dinner tomorrow night and possibly a couple of drinks…
Well, I didn’t mean to drag this out quite so far but hope you have managed to keep your eyes open all the way through. I will try and spread out any interesting news a little more in future.
Cheers to all and air kisses as always.
posted by Parisienne at 7:13 pm
3 comments
