Jay’s Life

The pictures from our trip are up here.

We’re sitting the waiting area at Charles De Gaul. It’s very nice, open and spacious and not too noisy. Did I mention that this airport is enormous? It’s easily twice as large as Pearson if not larger. The taxi ride in was much cheaper this time only 34€, since we arranged for a shuttle service through the hotel. My advice for anyone is to always do that, and I would have if I wasn’t so tired yesterday on our arrival at 8am after being up since 4:30. Also, on top of being cheaper, we got to see the Arc de Triumph, which was the only thing we had not been able to get to yesterday. So it was a perfect round out to our trip. Paris is nice, but so very busy, Staysea and I both agree that we prefer Montpellier and the south of France to the hustle and bustle of Paris. But I wouldn’t have traded yesterday for anything. Well, in a couple of minutes we are going to go get a massage, and then start boarding our plane for the 7 hour flight back to Toronto, see you all soon.

We’ve just returned to our room after our ‘fit Paris into one day’.

We visited the Louvre, saw the Mona Lisa. She not really that small, she only seems small compared to the area rug sized paintings of the same time period. I can definately see why they say it would take 5 days to see the place properly.

After that we had lunch at a cafe, a short nap then off to the Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower. So we did manage to fit the Paris highlights into one day.

Tonight we went to the ‘top of Paris’ the highest point in the city. There was a church up there that i wont remember the name of until Jason gets his pictures developed. We had dinner at a small pizza place that made us a pizza with cheese, ham, sour cream and an egg fried on top. SOOOO good! Does it sound odd? It was delicious! Guess what we’re having for dinner tomorrow. lol

Now we’re back in our room, drinking wine, watching CNN (the only english channel). Jason has constructed a table for his camera using a closet shelf and the bathroom sink. The Eiffel tower is all lit up and looking gorgeous (we have an amazing view from our bedroom window).

Today has been so long so I wont post about the rest of my week wandering around Montpellier, it was wonderful. I’m really going to miss the owner of the cafe I went to everyday. She is a wonderful lady, her dream is to come to Canada in the winter and go snowmobiling. I certainly hope she does.

Home tomorrow! We’ve had a really good time but I’m so ready to go home. I miss my dog, my birds, the cat and even Spencer. lol *wink*

Bon Nuit

The flight in from Montpellier was a little exciting. The fog was very thick when we landed and when we emerged from the fog, I could clearly see blades of grass. I think that I could live without experiencing that again.

The taxi ride in to our hotel was very expensive, 50 € but it was quite far, 30 km. Our hotel room at the Duquesne Eiffel has a view of the Eiffel tower right out our bedroom. It’s marvelous. The fog has just started to burn off so, the top of the tower is visible.

Staysea and I had the pleasure of having dinner at our friend’s home last night, Arnaud, Anne-Françoise & baby Manille. We also learned about an apéritif and digestif, drinks before and after dinner. The apéritif was a red wine mixed with pure alcohol that was very sweet and tasted kinda like maple sugar, which was made by Arnaud’s father. We had a great time and a wonderful dinner.

Just thought I’d put up one picture of what Staysea sees every day in France. Her book, café and the nice lady who speaks enough english to make her stay pleasant.

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Sure enough, we’re here (although i had my doubts when we we’re landing on the ocean).

Since I’m not burdened with work like Jason I’ve been recovering from my seriously disabling jet-lag by walking around Montepellier drinking wine and disguising the fact that I’m lost by acting like a tourist.

Funnily enough everytime I’ve tried to interact with someone using my inarticulate french they’ll decided to speak english to me and save me the struggle. So far so good. The Canadian Flag sewed onto my bag has even won me a couple of smiles from passing people.

I love this place, its so warm, something I didn’t pack for. oops.

I’m actually at the Genesys office right now, they are having cafe after lunch. I’ll remember to mention that in my Organizational Design and Effect class next time international culture comes up.

After this I guess I’ll go wander around some more, drink some more wine (maybe at a slower pace) and take some more pictures.

I absolutely love how many dogs there are here. They have no leash laws so these dogs walk around following their owners, playing in fountains and sniffing people at random. I wish Happie was here, he’d think this was great. Dogs are allowed everywhere, malls, hotels, buildings, grocery stores….we could have spent the entire day together. Then when I get lost and need to find my way back to the hotel Happie could figure it out….well maybe not. I’m going to ask about a humane society. If they have one that would be a good way to spend an afternoon this week. Safe too, since I wont be able to bring them home with me.

I made friends with a german shepherd today who hung out with me while I had coffee and read my book in front of a statue/fountain of a naked man.

There are a lot of status here, a lot of them naked men too. I avoided taking too many pictures of those, didn’t want to make it seem like a re-occuring theme when I upload my pictures to the Photo Gallery later.

I guess I’ll take off and consider doing some shopping now.

Staysea and I arrived in Montpellier at 1pm local time. We had a bit of a sleep on the flight to Paris, but it was crowded and did not sleep too well. I never realized that the plane flies at 1,000 km/h. I suppose I never gave it that much thought. The food was actually quite good, and the open bar was very nice too!

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Well, with any luck, our plane is taxing onto the runway right now, and we are headed on our way to France. Staysea and I will be in Montpellier for the course of the week and be spending the following weekend in Paris. I’ll be working durring the week, but Paris will be just the two of us. I’m very excited, and we’ll hopefuly be able to post pictures in the gallery as the trip progresses.

See you all!

I read a great little blurb about comment spam on NSLog(); about comment spam, and he called them spamments. I like that, and I am going to add it to my list of web words. I run spam blocking software on my blog the results are bellow. It’s ridiculous that I have to block these jack asses in my email, my web browsing and my blog. If it’s not a popup, it’s an email, and then it’s a comment, with links to sites with more popups and emails and a endless slurry of filth, drugs and garbage, that I just don’t want. Fortunately because of great software I can keep most of it out of my life. But it would be nice if it would just go away entirely.

Comment spams blocked: 1489

Comment spams moderated: 279

Duplicates blocked: 3

Blacklist - Strings: 2427

Blacklist - URLPatterns: 33

Blacklist - Regexes: 24

Blacklist - FlexProtect: 0