Gatecrashing and other Parisienne Adventures

I hate to disillusion anyone, but my recent trip to Paris wasn't entirely spent sitting in a corner of a room writing, writing and writing about the United Nations Education Leaders' Forum that was going on in front of me.


_{Real time analysis, research and inventive writing requires concentration...and silly faces}

There was also a 'networking' aspect to the proceedings, which in the first instance required me to visit a lovely restaurant that was located on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately, once I'd gotten up this high, and consuming a certain amount of champagne, I was seemingly unable to persuade those I was with that yes - I really didn't like heights, and no - I really didn't want to go on top of the tower.


_{The rave lighting's even better when you're actually on the tower}

Once the conference was over, we decided to stick around and gatecrash a party for the Imagine Cup (a bit more on that in another post methinks) that Microsoft were throwing simultaneously in Paris. We popped into the awards ceremony, which - as you can see, was a bit more chaotic than the ordered UN meeting of ministers and the like:


_{The Brazilians were so much fun during this chaos}

The awards were given out by a range of minor celebrities, each with their own unintentional level of comedy. From the professional snowboarder who was very clearly ill at ease with public speaking (or numeracy, telling the first place team they'd won third...) to the French cabinet minister with the translator from a student party.

This particularly serious politician had to give his speech in French, as government policy dictated. The translator, who'd been with students all week decided to add a level of 'pep' to his talk, by rephrasing half his sentences and adding in her own little bits (even referring to herself in the third person a fair few times) whenever she thought it might be amusing. Given that the minister probably spoke flawless English, I dread to think what happened afterwards...

Later that evening, there was a party for the ~400 students and Microsoft staff that had made up the finals of the Imagine Cup, and worked hard all year (and especially hard all week) for the privilege of an open bar with good music and great food, all in a trendy little club underneath the Seine. Quite noticeably not on the guest list was...me - but little things like that shouldn't spoil the night.

After talking my way past the first two 'layers' of security outside the club, I arrived at the reception desk - which had yet more security folks with lists in front of it. A quick complaint about the poor listing system, and the hold up from the first two sets of security and I had a blue armband, which apparently was some form of party ID meaning 'let this guy in' - gatecrashing with style.

The party was great, all the people I met over the few days were great, the two hours of sleep before my flight was not great and when can I go back to Paris please? :)

Back in sweet Paris (pronounced 'pah-ree' thank you very much)

Ah, how I love Paris. The beautiful architecture wherever one chooses to look, the superb food (let's not mention that 4 figure bill though), the gorgeous clothes and the unique air of contempt for everyone that each and every Parisienne manages to harbour.

I'm sitting in the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) HQ at the moment, listening to some light jazz (Wes Montgomery if I'm not mistaken) and being paid for the priviledge too.

Soon enough it'll be back to work - I'm doing a stint as the official blogger for the Education Leaders' Forum, where a group of Secretaries, Director Generals, Ministers and suchlike are getting together to discuss the future of Higher Education (at the University level in particular). What's up there right now is just stream of consciousness almost - but by the time I'm complete it should be a fairly full reference guide for these important folks to review, get underlings to read and research - all that jazz.

It's also a great way to insert a student bias into the proceedings (given that it's my future they're all talking about!) and I'm also trying to make it fairly light and readable - providing links to the detailed and in depth resources as and where appropriate.

One of the coolest things I've heard discussed so far is the concept of Virtual Universities - already thriving in many places. There's also been some very cool discussions around the future of distributed learning, and collaboration, sounds like the future will be far cooler than the lectures I'm used to.

Back to work for me now anyway, but I'm off for a meal on the Eiffel Tower tonight, and I'm gatecrashing the Imagine Cup party in the Louvre tomorrow :)

Paris Hitch 2008

I've just spent 36 hours hitch-hiking to Paris, eaten an average bowl of chips and then caught a 12 hour coach back to Bath. Tomorrow morning I need to be at a venue in Cardiff to start work at 6am. I'm off to sleep very soon...but here's a quick update as to why I suddenly disappeared off the face of the planet a couple of days ago.


_{The secret to hitching? Smiley faces and the word 'CHARITY'}

I was on the phone to Lucie at 11.30pm on Thursday night, having just had what I thought was an exciting adventure with a fire alarm in Asda. I thought I'd been fun and impulsive suggesting we follow a BMW leaving the Asda car park to see if they were going to another supermarket (they were).

More fun, and more impulsive, and more exciting, was finding out that her partner for the Bath University Paris Hitch had let her down and that she needed someone male to travel with. After checking I met the strict criteria it was a very early morning train to Bath for me on Friday morning, after a late late night staying up making sure that Work wouldn't fall apart without me for a day.

A million health and safety briefings at Bath later, and it was time to start hitch-hiking. Finding a lift to the M4 was no problem and a couple of cars and a lovely lorry-ride later, we were at Newbury Services. Stepping out of our ride to Newbury Services, we were accosted by a gentleman who saw our sign and offered us a ride to Reading Services. 4 seconds from leaving one ride to getting another - that has to be some kind of record. Pity it was just back to Reading, which I'd left at 7am to get to Bath...


_{I had to point out the problem with Lucie's original idea to get us on the M25 going anticlockwise}

An unplanned trip to Heathrow followed (to the chap from Roadway to Runway: 'No, the M4 is *not a dual carriageway with a nice lay-by, and no we can't just "run across it". Also, screw you for dropping us at Heathrow) which did rather put us out a bit. Once the police had moved us along from the terminals, it was a long long walk around London in the rain before a charitable cabbie got us back on track - all for free.


_{Dover really was quite cold}

A Polish lorry driver took us down to Dover (letting us off in the middle of the docks, in an area security were very unhappy to see us in) where we ended up spending the night. People aren't too happy to pick hitchers up at midnight in the dark and cold I'm afraid to say.


_{On the ferry, our 'destination whiteboard' also served well for Pictionary}

After a cheap night in the Eastcliff Hotel (possibly the worst establishment on this island), we managed to get through to Calais the next morning, which is a complete and utter dump. We eventually arrived at Paris around 8.30pm - just in time to walk through some increasingly disturbing ghettos before finding our Hostel. Then, after the aforementioned plate of chips, it was a coach ride all the way back again.


_{I wasn't the only tired one on the coach ride back. Aren't they cute?}

Bed for me now.
Xx

I Hate America

Lots of people make this claim, but mostly they're just basing it on some trivial little thing, like wars, foreign policy or unbounded capitalism. They probably don't even care too much - I mean, look at this chap:



He just forgot to bring his jacket along for a day of standing on the street corner, and wanted a bit of warmth. Then the media got involved and suddenly he had to start pretending he had some problem with the USA. Then you've got these fellows:



This was originally reported as an 'anti-America rally', but if you look closely, you'll notice that the guy in the foreground is actually making a 'scissors' motion. He's about to stage the grand opening of a much needed Gilette shop.

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Back to the topic I, on the other hand, have a perfectly valid and, quite honestly, shocking reason to hate the Americans. I took the novel approach of 'walking' (walking, noun: the act of travelling by foot - I got that definition from an online, American dictionary. They'd spelt 'travelling' wrong) from place to place in Seattle.

I soon noticed, as I 'walked' about the place, that they were big fans of traffic crossings. Well, you'd have to be really when it's impossible to walk more than 50 metres or so in any direction without encountering a road. Such big fans, in fact, that they had three different variations on images for the 'stop' and 'go' paradigm, which as far as I can discern, all meant exactly the same thing.

One of these types was the familiar 'red hand' and 'white man':


_{Colour's a bit off in this pic, you'll have to trust me that the man at the bottom is really 'white'}

This is quite an interesting picture if you actually analyse it a bit. You'll notice the hand is designed very clearly to convey a message of 'stop'. You may think the colour red is designed to do the same, but if you think carefully, you'll realise that what Americans really associate the colour red with is...communism. So, the top of this sign is really saying "STOP COMMUNISM" every time you cross the road.

I hardly think I need to point out the implications of 'progress for the white man' to anyone with a brain either. Shameless subliminal messaging from the American government there.

That's not why I hate America though.

The reason I hate America, is another type of pedestrian crossing sign you'll see over there:


_Bastards.

Yes, the infamous "Don't Walk" sign. Or, actually, if you take a good look at it, the "Dont Walk" sign. What the hell is a Dont? Every single day, every single American (well, those that go outside...so probably more like 50%) is being exposed to a horrific violation of the English language - it's little wonder that in a word association survey 'stupid' recently came pretty high when people were asked to associate something with 'American'. British people, that is, obviously - not American ones. Can't find the source for that survey at the moment, I believe it was on BBC News, let me know if you have a link.

Finally, two more pictures of something from my little Paris trip that never made it up:



Something that classy makes it hard to hate France, doesn't it? I still manage that feat though, fortunately for all.

The Great British Pint

The EU's had a lot of stupid ideas in the past, and quite often they've managed to annoy the people of Britain, which might explain the national reluctance to completely join in all the fun. That and the fact that the average Brit is inexplicably xenophobic (I'm no exception) and would rather die than associate themselves with the French.

The EU made a lot of progress winning over the English voters when they left wales off a map - but unfortunately forgot that the level of literacy in Wales has increased by leaps and bounds in recent times - 9/10 farmers can now make their mark on a voting slip.


_{...the UK Independence Party (Ukip), which wants Britain to pull out of the EU, welcomed the removal of Wales. - BBC News}

They've thrown all their hard progress away though, with recent attacks on the much beloved British pint. Brits could put up (grudgingly) with not being allowed to sell goods by weight in pounds alone, and being forced to used grammes. Our milk suddenly got measured in litres, but as the dairies cleverly kept the quantities the same, no-one minded too much, and everyone still talks about pints.

When they tried to make us ask for half a litre of beer though, that was one step too far, and so it's with pleasure that I can tell you The EU are backing down - and we can keep our antiquated, nonsensical measurements, all of them. Thanks to Anthony for letting me know about this one.

Under the covers however, they've slipped in a stealthy change to our pint, which is the first step on the road to having us all wear berets and carry around rings of onions. No longer shall we see the Crown on new British pints, instead we're being forced, despite a petition to the PM to have some crappy European symbol on glasses.

As such, the penalty for smashing a pint glass will no longer simply be being kicked out of the pub for the night - but instead a mob lynching up on the nearest lamp-post. You have been warned.

Paris - Eiffel Tower

_{I bet no-one's ever taken this picture before...}

So, the Eiffel Tower, Paris's largest phallic structure (and there are many, is there something we should know about French architects?), obviously had to be visited. We didn't get there until our last night in Paris, already rather footsore from having walked about the city for three days straight, but it really was worth saving till last.

That picture above is taken from the Trocadero, which as far as I can tell was originally built as a palace of some sorts, but now serves only to be stood upon whilst people take touristy photos. There are also lots of dodgy French folk selling what they claimed were Eiffel Towers, but I was too wily to be tricked by perspective (small...far away, do you get it now Dougal?), and didn't shell out a Euro for what was clearly an inferior structure. There was also one rather optimistic enterpreneur selling ice cold beer...at 11pm, on the steps of the Trocadero. Surely no-one wants ice cold beer then? Surely.

Despite the fact that the tower was:
a) Built by the French
b) Built by the French
c) Soaking wet
Lucie forced me to climb the stairs, to avoid being branded a wuss, and thus we did so, neatly avoiding a lift cabin stuffed with overweight Americans discussing where Eiffel-land was. I wish, I wish I'd taken a photo of the screen advertising prices at the bottom of the tower, but I didn't, and I can't find the picture online. As such, you'll just have to believe me when I say that the 'stairs' option was illustrated by a very happy man apparently sprinting to the top. Hm, it's really not as funny without that picture, so just laugh now, as though it were, and we'll move on.

There's not really a lot else to say, lots of nice views of Paris, I didn't fall off, the usual. On those two subjects however, there were a couple of amusing things on the tower. Firstly, on the first floor 'stage' of the tower, where you can mill about and look at Paris, there were bizarrely some signs pointing in seemingly arbitrary directions that said 'scenic viewpoint'. Now, I'm standing 60 metres above ground, on a wire-frame structure, with an open balcony at every age, in the centre of Paris. Do they really need to direct me to a particular viewpoint? Secondly, I was very amused by the 'emergency exit' stairwells. Surely, in an emergency, you're pretty screwed regardless.


_{The Eiffel Tower is used as a lighthouse at night, to keep French drivers from mowing down too many tourists.}

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Part of the Paris series of posts.

Paris - Champs-Élysées/Arc de Triomphe

The Champs-Élysées is where we generally ended up getting off the Metro to wander around central Paris, and impressively...big...though it is, it's not really that much fun, or that impressive. It's full of high-street shops and tacky restaurants, along with hot dog stands at the like, not really so great.

At either end stands certain death, and attempting to cross it in the middle still isn't that reliable. It took me most of the holiday to figure out French road traffic laws, but here's my guide to what you need to know.

• Only ever cross the road on what looks like a zebra crossing.


• It's not a zebra crossing.


• Unless of course, it is.


• If it is, then simply step out into the road and hope the drivers stop for you,


• Or alternatively, stand around with other tourists waiting for an expendable Frenchman to take this risk.


• All Frenchmen are expendable.


• If it's not, then wait for the pedestrian lights to turn green, before following the above steps.


• If there's a glowing, flashing, large red sign indicating that this is a pedestrian crossing, then don't cross. They didn't put that sign up for fun, this is an area where more than 10 road-crossers are killed daily.


• Don't run across 22 lanes of road with your girlfriend, she'll hit you afterwards.

The Arc de Triomphe is, you guessed it, a very large and impressive arch. Built to commemorate France's military victory in...just kidding, France has never had a military victory. It was actually built to commemorate those French soldiers who weren't so fast at running away, or so talented at making white flags, and as such, died for their country.


_{They turned the Arc's mighty wind machine on just as we took this photo}

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Part of the Paris series of posts.

Paris - To and from

_{'Passerende' is French for 'Hammer'. 'Vleigtuigen' is French for 'Time'}

So (:wink:), we flew with ThomsonFly, one of the low cost airlines round about nowadays. I was just trying to remember the guy who first came up with budget airlines, 'till my mother came up with Freddie Laker, so I put that into wikipedia to check that was the right one. And this rather hilarious picture came up:



We flew from Coventry airport at some ungodly hour, which was quite an adventure in itself. For the uninitiated amongst you - Coventry is comprised of one shack, one runway and about four members of staff. After a thorough security check, in which it was established we had no bottles of water, or other such lethal devices, we walked up a shaky ramp to the plane.

Paris Orly was quite fun, with a full orchestra playing before each announcement, but not a lot else of interest there, as I can remember. Getting back we almost managed to miss our plane, as we went to the wrong terminal. Upon finding what we thought was our boarding gate closed, I first went to some random member of staff, who, once he understood my French, managed to kindly inform me he actually didn't know anything. He directed me to the Air France desk, where the attendant couldn't conceal a look of horror when I told her which airline we were flying with, I think she genuinely feared for our lives.

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Part of the Paris series of posts.

Paris - Americans

Like chlamydia,

Any post that starts with 'Like chlamydia' is bound to be good isn't it?

Like chlamydia, Americans are unfortunately to be found all over Europe nowadays, and Paris is no exception. To Americans I mean, but - I'm sure it also has more than its fair share of STDs too. Maybe that explains the smell?

So anyway, Americans in Paris. Americans who may or may not be harbouring dangerous venereal diseases.

Wait, I'm not implying I think they (the Americans, or the French for that matter, though they probably do) might have certain embarrassing and painful ailments, and I'm certainly not implying they picked them up in a Parisienne backstreet, I was just making the analogy that Americans are all over Paris, like I presume chlamydia is. In fact, I have no grounding at all to presume it's all over Paris, let alone all over the Americans. And certainly no proof it's dwelling in the Americans in Paris.

Speaking of Americans in Paris, we saw some, which was amusing enough on its own, but we also heard quite a few of them. There was one point, walking through some of the dodgier parts after getting off at a fairly random Metro station, when we were actually hoping to hear an American voice signifying that we were in a tourist-friendly zone, and not about to get stabbed.

Here's a selection of some of my favourite eavesdropped quotes from fellow tourists of an American background (I don't think these guys had chlamydia, though it's possible. If they did have it, then they probably didn't pick it up in Paris, though that's also possible):

At a gift shop;
"What's the French for souvenir?"

Best Ever;
"I still can't believe the F word isn't actually French."

The Venus de Milo;
"Come on Brad, this one doesn't even have any arms."

In the Louvre, in front of Egyptian papyrus comprising part of a philosophical work on life and death;
"Hey, cool! They had cartoons back then!"

Entrée + Plats de jour - €30;
"Hey Brad, you can get food and entry here for 30 bucks."

At another gift shop;
"Yo Brad, will these like, French magnets work back home y'think?"

In a restaurant (disturbingly);
"I've been watching girls pee for like, an hour now"

They weren't actually all called Brad, but I can't remember which one was...

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Part of the Paris series of posts.

Paris - Obelisk/Concorde/Tuilerie

Right at the end of the end of the Champs-Élysées stands the Obelisk, transported from Egypt, and extremely impressive looking. And, like many, many other French monuments, it's rather large, and phallic. I'll leave you to ponder that one.


_{Part 1 of: 'Me standing in front of large stuff'}

Surrounding the obelisk are two fountains from the same period, which (and not a lot of people know this) depict an ancient Egyptian game, played with fish, which worked much like Guitar Hero does today.


_{Star Power!}

Past this is the Place De La Concorde - the largest open space in Paris. It's not actually that impressive - it really does live up to its definition of 'an open space', with all the lack of drainage, lack of amusement and lack of interest that implies. Still though, if you're into large open spaces, and are for some reason unable to venture outside of metropoli, then this is certainly for you.

The Tuilerie gardens lie past that magnificent patch of ground, which are actually really cool. The hedges are great fun to play in, if you're bored, and it's a really nice relaxed place, which somehow manages to avoid the swarms of tourists milling about down the road, waiting to get into the Louvre.

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Part of the Paris series of posts.

Paris - Metro

Our hotel was a little out of the way, in a town called Clichy in the suburbs of Paris. Still though, thanks to the wonderful Parisienne metro service (for all their faults, they are pretty good at building stuff), nowhere in the city was more than 15 minutes away from us.

We got a 3 day unlimited travel pass each, for around €35 each, which was amazing value and highly recommended if you visit, unless you get a hotel right in the centre. The metro is pretty much like the London Underground, though it occasionally goes above ground, and is a lot cleaner and nicer smelling, in my experiences anyway. On the downside, it's got a hell of a lot more French people in it than the Tube though...

Vying with #1 recommendation for the trip to Paris, from all sources, were 'Visit the Eiffel Tower' and 'Watch out for pickpockets on the Metro'. Admittedly there were a few dodgy characters around, and our 1996 guidebook (which had such wonderful lines as 'The towers at Notre Dame are due to open in 1997, so phone for details') went missing at one point - but I wouldn't be overly worried about this. So long as you keep a hold on your bag, you should pretty much be ok - all the French people were pretty lax about holding onto stuff.

There were a few Oliver Twist style beggars, who'd tell a tale and then go round to collect on the strength of it - and also some buskers who'd play a tune instead of talking, but this just lent the place a bit of character.


_{The Louvre metro station}

Some of the stations are themed, which is really cool - the Louvre's main metro station is obviously awesome - I can't remember the other one I really liked, but it had massive mosaics all over the ceiling. The trains are also a bit themed too; If they have buttons to open the doors, nice seats and announcements, you're going to a nice part of the city; If they have rusty handles to open the doors, ripped posters and oddly stained seats, then the street you get out on is going to have water pouring down each side of it because there's no drainage.

The problem with that street was that we knew it was near somewhere touristy, but weren't exactly happy about getting the guidebook (aka, crosshairs) out to find out how to get there. Doing so on the steps of a bank seemed the best comprimise, fortunately it was a short walk till we heard the sweet tones of a retarded American.

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Part of the Paris series of posts.

Paris - Introduction

So, to avoid...hm, I've really got to stop starting blog posts with 'so', but it just seems so natural to do it. I mean, you guys don't even see all the posts I want to start with 'so', because sometimes I think about it after typing and go back and delete it. This time I decided just to ramble on a bit.

Anyhow, to avoid one massive, 10,000 word post which nobody would ever read, because you're all idiots, I've decided to tell you about Paris in nice little bite-size chunks. For those of you reading this in a while's time, via the archives, I'll explain that I took Lu to Paris for the weekend, before rushing off to Reading to start work at Microsoft.

We visited all the touristy places, laughed at a lot of foreigners, drooled over a lot of food and took a full range of photos, from us, to stuff - with everything inbetween (such as, us standing in front of stuff, us sitting in front of stuff, us near stuff, us with stuff...).

To access all of the posts about Paris, simply click the link I'll handily put at the bottom of each one, or click 'Paris' in the labels section at the bottom of the blog. Hope you enjoy reading :)

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Part of the Paris series of posts.