A Hard Day's Night

I should be sleeping like a log...

Actually, I will be soon. I didn't sleep all that well last night, largely due to the fact that I cranked the heater too much - this room's great at retaining heat. But it was too damn cold outside to open the windows and air it out. All groggy, I snoozed through my THREE freakin' alarms and ended up getting up an hour later than planned.

But I was motivated.

'Cuz dammit, there was more of that yogurt to be had down in the salle de petit dejeuner. Despite being on the verge of being late for my day at the Mothership, I sat and savored it. And the office is so close, I made it in at exactly 9:00 anyway. Note to self: set the alarm a bit later tonight.

I'm glad I had a good feed in the morning, because I was at the office until 8:00. As in P.M.

Whatever you've heard about the 35-hour work week in France, my company obviously hasn't heard of it. Either that or they only work three days a week. It struck me when I was told that I had one of my meetings scheduled at 6:00 that this is definitely a business trip.

But I have to say, the French know how to do business. When you're in meetings for an ungodly amount of time, languishing over a long lunch is fully justified. We hopped down to the local bistro (known as the official restaurant of my company's executive management - a handful of others showed up there) where I shared a charcuterie platter with our new marketing honcho. Next thing I knew, my mouth was full of tongue.

Umm, that'd be braised beef tongue. Opting yet again out of my usual steak frites, I went instead with the other special of the day: a French kiss from a bovine. Served up in an awesomely meaty gravy and a side of pureed potatoes, it was the perfect, hearty fuel for a cold day full of meetings.

Our Paris office is remarkably different than back in the Bay Area. Most notably in how quiet it is. While we spend a lot of time joking around and cranking silly songs, people have got their noses buried in their work here. Of course, here they take two hour lunches and 364 days of vacation and/or strike time. In the end, we all get our work done.

Of course, 8:00 didn't mark the end of the work day. Back at my hotel, I decided to check in with the office back home - as it's still early in the day there - and had more work to do. So once again, my chances at a decent dinner went up in smoke. Or up in a cup of convenience-store chocolate pudding I'd kept chilling on the windowsill. I tried once again to forage up some dinner at a late hour, but this is the suburbs, where fluorescent lighting and cheap formica tables rule. And at our horrendous exchange rate, I'm not about to pony up $30 for an Applebee's-level experience.

Yeah, this trip isn't as glamorous as it could be. I've yet to see the Seine or even be within clear viewing distance of the Eiffel Tower. I've snapped only a handful of photos, and I've become intimately familiar with the Canal+ cable programming lineup.

But I knew going in that this wasn't going to be a free vacation. No corporate junket here. And in the spirit of discovery, I'm getting a good, close look at everyday work life in another country - something you won't find in any guidebook. So take that, Lonely Planet.

Why I Love France

At home, when I flip over to Headline News to see what's going on, I see this:


For the last couple of days, I flip on the 24-hour headline news channel and I see this:


The conclusion: LCI's graphics packages are obviously less tacky than Headline News'.

Rockin' the Suburbs

I seem to have made a habit of this in Paris: Walking around at a late hour, trying to find someplace to eat, and repeatedly striking out.

Only I'm in Clichy, a suburb a few kilometers from the official border of Paris, so instead of this happening at midnight, it happened around 9:00 pm.

I finally started feeling hungry again, then realized it was 8:00. On a Sunday. I'd best get to walking around and hunting down some dinner. To my surprise, there were a good number of places open during my hour-long walk. Unfortunately, most of my choices seemed to be things under heat lamps, kept warm on steam tables, or presented by the enemy of gourmands everywhere: Menus in English. Mostly at crappy-looking hotels.

At one point, I approached the périphérique where the darkness of the suburbs started to give way, the glow of neon signs and open businesses luring me like the siren's call. But this trip's all about avoiding the obvious. (That and, umm, work.) So I headed back another way toward my hotel. Things looked ever more depressing as I trudged along. To quote an email from one of my co-workers here, "Don't stay all the week-end in Clichy ! (it's so sad)"

Well, it's not fully sad. The nearby Allée Léon Gambetta and the city hall are gorgeous when lit up at night, the trees covered in tiny white lights and casting long shadows across the boulevards of grass. But all the night time beauty in the world won't feed me.

An hour had gone by. I'd about given up when I noticed the Turkish kebab shop right by my hotel was still open. I went in and ordered a platter of shawarma to go - no sauce, no drink, the mixed salad, and a plastic fork, please - quite a feat when mixing my heavily accented French with the shockingly more accented French of the guy behind the counter.

This was the best decision I made all day. Being closing time, he hooked me up with all the meat remaining on the skewer. The rice had time to steep in whatever grease it sits in before being served. And he also gave me some extra bread. And it was all fan-frikkin'-tastic. A gorgeous meal, all wrapped up in a styro box to enjoy in my little hotel room. Now you might think, "What's the big deal? You got a kebab platter to go." You don't understand what a feat this is back at home. In San Francisco, there's plenty of good falafel. Something about a huge vegetarian hippie population. But you can barely find a decent kebab to save yourself. This shit is the domain of Europe, Australia, and most likely the Middle East.

Speaking of the Middle East, it's been entertaining watching the news here - something I've been doing a lot. It looks like Nicolas Sarkozy (a.k.a. Sarko l'Americain) is mimicking his hero Bush, as they're both doing little tours of the Middle East. While CNN here is full of sensationalistic reports about US sabre-rattling toward Iran after the patrol boat incident in the Strait of Hormuz, the European media is treating it with a bit more... let's say... incredulity.

Don't get me wrong - they skewer Sarkozy quite a bit. But it seems the hatred of the Bush administration is even greater now that it holds sway over France's current president. Obi-wan Kenobi once wisely said, "Who's the more foolish? The fool? Or the fool who follows?" Obviously, the French place more emphasis on the progenitor of the foolishness.

The French news is also blissfully devoid of hoopla about the US presidential campaigns. They make some mentions whenever actual news come out, and people here are following it closely, but I've yet to see a clip of Hillary crying like a bitch or Huckabee selling his evil-wrapped-in-a-nice-guy package.

Anyway, the ten o'clock hour is approaching, and it seems like a good time to get out and have a drink at a bar.

Only looking out the window, everything is closed.

What a difference 4 kilometers makes.