Work. (again)

OK here is a super quicky. Just some footage of my walk to work and a couple photos.

Have a look:


The sky can be so beautiful here:



Everyone here rides a Moto of some sort:

I am still here.

OK so it is time to catch up on some of the stuff I have seen and been doing over the last 2 weeks.

Le Cabaret
Let me start with Le Cab. Check out their website here. I was invited here my a friend of my friend Sydney (we worked together at Current TV). The friend's name is Rachel. I didn't really know what to expect so I checked the website first to see what I should prepare myself for. I found it on many of the "Top 10 Clubs in Paris" lists, so I knew that I was gonna be in for a night and a half.

So at first we almost didn't even get past the bouncers because one of the guys we were with was wearing sneakers, which as us Vegas people know, is a big no-no. But then this lovely girl comes out from the door and has a few words with the bouncer (none of which I understood). After a about 2 minutes of discussion, he unclips the velvet divider and let's us pass. I greet him with an grateful, "Merci" and cruise on through. I asked her what she said to him and she explained that she just flirted with him a bit. Shit, in the States, only money and bribes work at the clubs. Here you can just do a little flirting to make it past the gorillas.

There was no cover for this particular evening because there was a special event going on, but to give you an idea of the normal cost, the site lists it as about 30-40 euros. On top of that, my first venture to the bar set me back a cool 13 euro. Yeah! That's right, 13! And that was for a Heinekin beer. What the hell? But who cares right? It is an experience either way. So on I go to end of the bar and chat with my new friend, Rachel and explore the rest of the club. I was very impressed with the decor. Take a look at some photos:





I will tell you what I was not impressed with though, the music. How can I describe it to you? Let's see... OK, go back in time to the mid 90's and try to remember the candy-ravers and electronic beats. Exactement! That by far has been the worst part of Paris as a whole. The music here is like taking a time warp back 10 years and reliving the electronic side of the 90's. So just as I was coming to terms with the state of things, a strange thing happened. The next song came on and it was The White Stripes. Yeah, it didn't fit the style at all, but then something even stranger happened. Everyone started humming the beat of the song. Just to be clear, they were not singing the song, but like kinda yelling the beat to the song. If you can understand... It was very strange to say the very least.

Anyway, I danced for a bit and brought the night to and end around 1 am cause I had to work the next morning. I headed over to grab my coat from the coat check, which by the way, is common at all clubs in Paris, and costs 3 euro (just to leave a coat). Shit. how much am I making again? hahaha... I exited the club said goodbye to Rachel and her friends and headed towards the taxis. This was the very peak of the evening to me, because I only had to say my address once and the driver understood perfectly. Hell yeah!

Design Contre Design


I also want to mention this very cool design show that I attended at the Le Grand Palais. Check out the video on this page here. It was a furniture design showcase from the past 200 years. My favorite part of the show was that it was difficult to tell when a piece was created. This just goes to show that truly good design is ageless. Honestly, there were pieces that could have been for sale at a trendy furniture shop today and they were created 150 years ago. It was very cool to see where we have come from and where we are today, even where we are heading in the future.

Some Favorites
NOTE: These photos were taken directly from this website.

This section was more my taste in terms of classy design:

I love the random pieces of the couch that line the wall and floor. Random is great!


The table here appeared to be shaped out of a single piece of wood.


This radiator fooled me too. So beautiful...


This was called "The Womb House". It was in fact a womb of a woman and had all the aspects of an actual house. Kitchen, desk, toilet and bed complete with a vaginal opening for the children to enter the way they came out. LoL.


Finally, this was my favorite section in terms of creativity and fun. Everything is just made from leftovers or random junk:

Coolest dresser ever:


This chair is made out of old clothes:


This is 100% shredded newspaper:

Unchained Melody.

Although this post has nothing to do with Paris, it has the world to do with me being in Paris. This goes to the girl that fills my thoughts all of of the time. You deserve the world...



Je t'aime!

Interpol.

Ok, so we are back a little earlier than expected. I am am gonna jump ahead a bit and show you what I did this evening because it is fresh in my mind and worthy of an immediate post.

21 Novembre
Tonight, I went to an Interpol concert. It was more than amazing! They are a great band and even better live. The concert was help at a place called the Le Zenith. This place was a proper venue. The people here were really into them. I was shocked that so many Parisians loved American music. I will say this though, the majority of the kids at this concert were very clean cut. No one out here has tattoos, at least from what I can see. I haven't seen any tattoos the whole time living here. I stand out like a sore thumb...

Look how packed Le Metro (subway) was on the way home. It took like 20 minutes to catch a freakin' train:



Here is Le Billet:



Anyway, I am gonna keep this post short. Here are some videos to lay your eyes on. The first is of Interpol playing "Evil" live (hosted on Youtube):



The second is the trek back home from Le Metro:



Well, there you have it, more video content. Voila!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the U.S. I miss you all! Save me some stuffing...

Monoprix.

Bonjour once again! Welcome back and thanks for taking the time to keep up with my travels. I appreciate it very much. Sorry it took me so long to write this one, but this is a bigger process than I expected...

Grocery shopping.
Where shall I begin? Ah yes... Monoprix:



Inside (notice the electronic price displays):



So I went grocery shopping or "faire des courses" on Sunday for the first time. Let's say that it was an experience! First of all, at this point I knew zero french. This means that unless I could visually identify a particular item, I was just taking an educated guess as to what it was. I would say that about 50% of what I bought that day was a guess. LoL... Here is what I purchased. Take a look:



Le Fromage.
So here are some things that I noticed when shopping on this premiere occasion. First of all, Parisians love cheese. There are way too many kinds of cheese in this country. They have Chevre (goat, "chevre" actually means goat), Gour Noir (goat, very tastey), Compte (cow, has been made for centuries), Brie (cow, goes well with Champagne) and the list goes on forever... I ended up only picking up about 3 different kinds to begin to figure out which I liked the best... Gour Noir was my favorite! I really didn't like Chevre. It just tasted gross (kinda moldy)... Oh well, no problem. I have about 250 more kinds to try...

Le Jambon.
Next, there seemed to be a lot of "le jambon" or ham. So I asked one of my friends why? They told me that pork (le porc) is a favorite meat in France. In the lunch meat aisle, there was ham everywhere, but only a couple selections of Chicken (le poulet) or Turkey (le dinde). I guess I better learn to like ham.

Here are some other interesting facts. Everything is in the metric system, which in and of itself is fine. But it changes the way everything looks as far as packaging is concerned. For instance, milk does not come in 1 Gallon containers. It comes in 1 Litre containers. All the nutrition information is also worded a bit differently due to the metric system. So instead of it listing a serving size and then the calories, fat, protein, etc. per serving, it lists how many grams the product weighs. Then, it lists it like this:

Poids net: 120g (total weight of the product)

Pour 100g (per 100g)

106 kcal (Calories)
447kJ (Joules = high school chemistry? what the...?)

Proteines 22g
Glucides 1g
Lipides 1,5g
Fibres <1g

Notice that instead of a period as a decimal point, they use a comma. It seems to be in all number related items. No clue...

Le Pain.
Also, bread doesn't come packaged as it would in the States. Here it is fresh and on shelves. You simply choose the one you like and wrap it up yourself. Weird, but it tastes delicious!

Finally, here are a couple comments to wrap up the whole grocery store debacle. THERE WAS NO PEANUT BUTTER! What?! They had almond butter, caramel butter, chocolate butter, but no peanut butter... That was a disappointment since it is like my favorite snack. Also, there are zero medical related items in a grocery store or any store in France for that matter. Even for contact solution, you need to visit "une pharmacie". These are small, cozy store fronts where you can get anything from hydrogen peroxide to penicillin.

So there is my shopping experience in Paris. Hope you enjoyed:) Check back soon for updates on my night out at Le Cab (one of the hottest night clubs in Paris). As well, as a full detailed story about my trip to London to see The Arcade Fire.

A Bientot.

Random Questions and Answers.

OK so, I think from now on, I am gonna take a more freeform approach to this blog thing. I have been receiving some random questions here and there, so here are the answers to most of them.

Time.
Paris is 6 hours ahead of you guys in Eastern Standard time. So just take whatever time it is there and add 6. For those of you on the West Coast, add 9.

Les Toilets.
No, Biff, the toilets flush the same direction. You are thinking of the Southern Hemisphere weirdo. And the toilet paper is just fine. Better than alot of places in the States.

Work.
I work with 4 other people (3 guys and one girl). One of the guys is the creative director. His name is Patrick. The main producer is Jacques. There is another designer who seems to be doing alot of the print design work currently. And then there is one more girl who works hand in hand with Jacques. Her name is Hermine.

So far I have been working on Noel (Christmas) Designs for the Station called TF1. It is the largest TV station in France. They are also broadcast through much of Europe from what I understand.

The computer that I work on is mostly in French which is interesting. I can get around most of it though because I memorized where everything is. But the keyboard layout is also different. Here is a pic:





Drinking Age.
In France, the drinking age is only 16. And it is not common for anyone to ask for an ID unless the child is way too young. The other night at the concert, I saw someone who looked like they were about 14 drinking a pint and chatting with his mates. Very strange to see but apparently, it is very common.

Money.
Currently, the Euro has an exchange rate of about .69 to the dollar. This means that for every dollar you trade, you will receive .69 euros. For instance, when I arrived, the first thing I did after Customs was to exchange some money. I changed in $380 and received back about 264 Euros. Here is what they look like:



The cool thing is that you can use your ATM cards here in any ATM. My bank (Bank of America) even has a partner here with the biggest bank in France so that I don't get charged any fees. Also, you can use your credit cards everywhere. I haven't even been to a place that doesn't accept credit cards or debit cards. Tres facile (very easy)...

Electricity.
So, they have a different kind of outlet here as well as a different Wattage (Thanks to Keffer for clarifying this for me) Not to much to tell you about this but here is a pic of what the outlets look like:





Speaking French.
I took my first lesson for French last night. I enjoyed it very much. I will be taking about 10 hours a week (2 hours a night). Hopefully this will get me up the speed very quickly.

After last night's lesson, I am able to count from 0 - 100. I can hold a very basic conversation saying who I am, where I am from, say my birthday and explain that I am single. LoL...

Addresses.
Will you all please send me your addresses? I have some post cards and things that I want to send out asap. I would greatly appreciate it. My email is crabbey1@email.com

Cheers!

Le Louvre.

9 Novembre

Bonjour! Well, here it is, my second post. Yey! Everything is still terrific. So let me begin where I left off...

Friday morning I woke up with a bit of a headache and hangover from the evening before. :( But it was ok since I had such a great time. Work went smoothly and I had to finally go to le dejeuner (lunch) alone and make my first purchase while not intoxicated. It went well. When entering a business here in Paris, it is respectful and common to greet the owner when entering with: Bonjour Madame, Monsieur. So I did. So far, so good. I went to the same Bagel shop once again since it was familiar and less intimidating. "Deux Grand Central, s'il vous plait", I said. I ordered 2 so that I also had some dinner waiting for me for later:) Mister prepared! After work I locked up and headed home with a couple red beers from Belgium. I just sat at home played some guitar and drank. Very relaxing and enjoyable:)

Here are some bikes for rent in the city. It is a cool concept:





10 Novembre

I awoke at about 8:30 and made some coffee and began to plan out the day a bit. I picked up my copy of the Lonely Planet's Guide to Paris and began reading. I settled on Le Louvre for the days activities. Walking seemed like a good way to learn a bit about the city, so I did just that. I did in fact learn something, Paris seems to have a lack of street signs. LOL. After a little exploring and map searching, I was able to come across the street that I needed and proceeded on my way.

Along the road to Le Louvre, I came across many interesting sights. For instance, I came across this example of how NOT to lock up a bike, or maybe where to not lock one up?



Look, they also have Midas!



I also wondered through this staple of Paris called the Place de L'Hotel de Ville. It was beautiful. Take a look:











All of the architecture here is very detailed and refined. I have not seen one building that didn't make me look twice. Which means that I have a lot to see:)

After snapping a few photos at L'Hotel de Ville I stayed on track towards Le Louvre. The road to Le Louvre from my flat is along La Seine (the river that flows through Paris). This made for a beautiful walk during a fridged autumn day. All along the riverbank were small booths selling different second-hand merchandise such as books, small furniture and artwork. It is almost like sensory overload for a foreigner like myself. So much to see, hear and smell all at once.

Which brings me to the next fun fact, chestnuts. Haha, what, you ask... Yes! Chestnuts or at least what I believe to be chestnuts. Upon crossing the road to Le Louvre, I spot this guy standing next to a shopping cart. From my previous experience, I regard him as just a homeless guy asking for change, but as I get closer I realize he is selling, what appear to be, chestnuts. Yes, he has his cart setup with a tray sitting on the top and he is offering roasted chestnuts for sale. Very interesting. Since this first encounter, I have run across numerous other "Chestnut" vendors throughout the city. Gotta love new things:)

Here is what they look like:



So I enter Le Louvre's exterior wall and here is what I see:







It is massive. It is said that it would take 9 months to glance at every piece of artwork within these walls. That is just crazy. Good thing I got an early start:) Once inside the museum, everything was pretty much par for the course as far as museums are concerned. Don't get me wrong though, this place used to be used as a Palace before being repurposed as a museum in 1793. So the building itself is as much a work of art as the pieces held within.

The security here was no joke either.



I must admit that the Roman religious artwork was, to me, the most moving. I have, for some time now, had an interest in this type of artwork. It is very beautiful and was usually created by the master's of the time. The church always had the money to pay for the best...

Anyway, instead of me going on and on about art, I will just show some of my favorite pieces and some of the most popular. Take a look for yourself:































Venus de Milo:



The Mona Lisa was quite popular:





Some Egyptian works:







OK that is enough for now! More to come this post:)

PS: Here is a random walkthrough of the city:



Au revoir