I’m leaving in about an hour for Toronto and will be there until 28 Dec. Torontonian friends, I’d love to see you again.

girl_tm and I are also leaving for Paris on 29 Dec until 2 Jan. Parisian friends, I haven’t seen you in a very long time and it’d be lovely to get in touch again.

To show how small the world is, we’ll be staying in a Parisian apartment, swapped with someone I met the night before he left Montréal for the City of Lights. And this apartment swap was arranged through the miracle of the Internet. For all of its scariness, it sure is helpful!

Courtyard
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

23 June 2006

Our last night in Paris involved a trip to Au Pied de Cochon in the heart of Paris. Claire organized the trip and I couldn't believe my ears when I heard where we were going. My eyes must have gone as wide as saucers.

I had walked pas the restaurant many times while in town. And it's always open, so you can duck in for a late-night bowl of onion soup. This time, however, we would be having a table d'hôte. After all, we were feeding a huge group of very hungry people.

I gathered a group into one of the hotel shuttle buses and managed to get us all into the city. Along the way, I chatted with Andreas, who had managed to come along with us. We talked about the anthropological implications of studying hackers, who are some of the most introspective people on the planet. He admitted that it was different but he was glad that he didn't have to explain what an antropologist does.

We got out of the huge underground complex and found ourselves steps from the restaurant. We went up the richly decorated staircase until we arrived at our dining room. There were a few people milling about inside, and I started taking photographs while the light was still out.

Cheers!
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

We started with a tender hunk of buffalo mozzarella on a plate of beautiful tomatoes. Then we had a perfectly grilled steak, which came out consistently good, on so many plates. I'm just in awe at their grill station. We did, however, have one hitch in the meal.

Michael Vogt was sitting at our table, and he's vegetarian. His plate arrived with wonderfully cooked vegetables plated beautifully. But in the corner were caramelized onions rich with bacon. Now, I love onions sautéed in bacon fat, but poor Michael just stared at it. I got up, found the maître d' and pointed out that this was completely unacceptable. In as best indignant French as I could muster. After convincing her that there really was meat in that dish, she apologized profusely, and her waiters quickly removed the offending dish.

They returned with new dishes that were missing the offending garnish.

For the rest of the meal, she kept on checking with me to make sure everything was fine. It turns out that her husband is vegetarian as well, so she was quite aware of the problem. And she was so apologetic because she hadn't caught the mistake. We left on very amiable terms, and I promised to return the next time I was in Paris. After all, I really do want to eat random things off their menu.

Notre Dame
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

After dinner, a group of us decided to go exploring. The others, I'm afraid, were too tired and headed back to the hotel. We walked past Notre Dame, sat on some chairs, and chatted with some French girls who wanted to practise their English. Then it was off to David's favourite pub.

We crowded our bunch into the upstairs, which was more like a hallway than a room. We sat on some benches and chatted for a while, and then I was accused of impropriety. This amused me greatly. A few drinks were had among our group, which supplemented the ample quantities of wine and champagne served at dinner. This caused some people, names omitted, to become quite entertaining. When the bar closed, I had to prop some of them up as we staggered out.

The vast majority of our group opted to take taxis back home. But the hardcore among us went to a small alleyway outside Corcoran's Irish Pub. There, we entered and ordered some drinks. Well, actually, I opted to stay outside because the heat and pressure within were just suffocating. I watched as a bakery closed and vast groups of American tourists wandered drunkly down the street.

Flaming poi
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

A group of girls from Vermont was asking the doorman of Corcoran's to take a picture of them. They were hanging out with Mexican boys with reasonable English. They saw me writing in my notebook and asked where I was from. "Canada," I replied, which sent them into a gleeful fit. They insisted that I join them in a photograph. How could I refuse? They left with one of the girls leading the way, she had been staying in Paris for a while, and they were here to be shown around.

My friends left the bar with plastic glasses of beer in each hand. I proposed that we head to somewhere quiet where we could sit down, so David decided that we needed to walk along the banks of la Seine. There, we found some small amphitheatres, set in the concrete overlooking the river. It was just like a small version of Tam Tam Jam. There were drummers and people sitting on the steps drinking beer and smoking pot. Homeless people would come by and beg for money, but everyone sitting down seemed to be poor students, so nobody had spare change. I asked some poi spinners if I could photograph them. Nobody refused.

After appreciating the night air for too long, we got up and hailed a taxicab. Good night, Paris. I'll return, I promise.

22 June 2006

Paris is such a gorgeous city. Especially at night. I walked every night through the narrow old city, and as the sun would set, lamps would start flickering to life. Now Paris has a lot of streetlights. But unlike Hong Kong, they're rarely tacky. The lights are aimed to light the streets in a warm, orange glow. They light up elegant buildings to show the detailing.

I couldn't help but be happy wandering around. Although I took plenty of photographs, none of them can capture my wide-eyed delight. I walked along rue de Rivoli and sneered at the tourist menus posted outside the little cafés. I crouched down beside the cobblestones at Place Vendôme where cars and bicycles sped but inches beside me. And I marvelled at the sight of Place de la Concorde as it lit up at night.

Oh how I wish I had a better camera. And a flat overlooking the city.

Cyclist
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.
Obélisque de Luxor
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.
Bridge
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

In Montréal, there is a métro station that has wrought-iron railings and a huge sign that looks so old-world. So imagine my shock when I saw identical copies everywhere in Paris!

Arc de Triomphe
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.
Tour Eiffel
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.
Under repair
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

One time, as I was riding home on the train, I noticed that my car was getting emptier and emptier. Eventually, I was sitting behind five youths. Two girls, three boys. They were speaking in rapid-fire french and smoking on the non-smoking train. They noticed me and asked me where I'm from.

—Je suis Canadien.

They were quite happy to hear this and started burbling amongst themselves. I apologised for my terrible french and we have a broken conversation where they discovered that I was going to Terminal 2. That's when they asked me to help them out. Their plan was for me to get off at Terminal 1 and help them book a hotel room. Because they weren't old enough to do so themselves. They looked about sixteen or seventeen.

I pondered this situation and realized that, although I do like adventures, this one would happen way past my bedtime. So I figured that I'd just sit on the train and continue to my stop. As we got closer and closer to Terminal 1, the youths pleaded their case. Sometimes in French. Sometimes in very broken English. In the end, I lied:

—Desolé, desolé. Je ne comprends pas.

They left rather dejected. But they seemed resourceful. I'm sure they had an interesting night.

RER
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

21 June 2006

So when my co-workers, Robert and David, suggested that we go to town to eat, I was enthusiastic. "Absolutely," I exclaimed to Robert. Finally, a group of us were going into town to eat a proper French meal. Tonight was also the night that many people were going to be in Paris. There was some fête that people were going on about, but I wanted my meal!

Robert and I took the RER in to the city, where David met us at Châtelet-les-Halles. We emerged within Forum des Halles, a huge multi-level, glass and steel, shopping complex that was built in the middle of the city. A hundred years ago, we would have been standing in the central marketplace of Paris. Les Halles was world-famous for being the center of good French butchery. You used to have pigs wandering around, getting slaughtered, and butchered promptly for the restaurants that peppered the market.

We were going to carry on this tradition.

David led us down the cobblestone walk for a few paces, chatting with us and drawing on his ubiquitous cigarette. We stopped in front of Le Lochébem, pushed past a small crowd, and into a too-hot restaurant that smelled of meat and smoke and fat. David went to speak with the maître-d'. I turned around, found myself gazing into the grim visage of a suckling pig and waved to it morbidly. Then we were led upstairs.

We sat in a booth where I could see into the doorway of the upstairs kitchen. It was too small for the three of us, and the dangling light fixture clocked us each on the head, several times. I could see the shadows of people bustling about and the flickering of flourescent lighting. This must be what Anthony Bourdain had been writing about all this time. I was sitting in a brasserie in France!

Pig's head
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

Robert ordered an onglet and David got the restaurant's all-you-can-eat special. I ordered off the menu. I started with some head-cheese and a terrine of pork scraps and beef rillettes that were all buttery, tender, and tasty. This is what food is all about: taking bits of unusable leftovers and transmuting them into culinary gold. Then came rolls of sweet French bread with huge oxbones that had been roasted to buttery perfection. I was in heaven.

The rack of lamb that arrived afterwards was pleasantly tasty and tender. It had the marvellous crackling that I'd expect from a place like this, along with the token vegetables that garnished the plate. After I had tucked into this massive meal, I was quite ready to forgo the pudding. Until I heard David order a tarte tatin. It was too large, but far too good.

We waddled out on to the street, where le Fête de la Musique was still going on strong. Outside the front door was a crowd of people listening to some locals sing French power pop. Further down the road, we saw some kids covering old Beatles songs. And in the distance, there was a band playing in an outdoor ampitheatre. The sun was just touching the horizon when Robert announced that he was retiring. So David and I went to le Sous-Bock, which is a Parisan tavern that served international beers.

Smoking in Paris
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

There was a guitarist singing some English songs, in between the songs queued up on the bar's soundsystem. Huge oaken beams supported a low ceiling and a massive wooden bar dominated the place. There was barely any place to stand, let alone sit, in this narrow hallway of a tavern. We sat down, ordered drinks from a dancing bartender, and sat back to chat. The people around us were clapping and dancing and making out in darkened corners. David noticed me glance at a young couple, "it's very Parisian", he shrugged. I assured him that I completely understood.

I thought I would miss the last train, but I lucked out because during this festival, two things happened. The first was that all noise-ordinances were suspended, so you couldn't get anyone arrested for partying all night. And the second was that public transportation ran all night long. I took advantage of this, got on the subway, and ended up at the aeroport taxi stand. With no taxis and a very forlorn group of people.

One of these people was Ellen Reitmayr, who's from Germany and works with the Open Usability project. We found a family from Washington, D.C. who had just arrived in Paris. We chatted with them while we waited, and they suggested that we should visit their city. Ellen and I were able to flag down a passing police car and got terribly misdirected. By the time we got back from a futile search, Ellen and I managed to spy an errant taxi and get inside.

I didn't even check my e-mail when I got back to the hotel room. I just collapsed.

Art house
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

20 June 2006

Lest you think that my trip to Paris was all fun and games, I assure you that it wasn't. We worked really, really hard and I was always exhausted by the end of the day. Maybe I should describe what an Ubuntu Developer Summit is like.

We woke up early to show up for the 9:00 presentation. Each morning, someone would have a little presentation about something Ubuntu-related, and it was always profitable to show up. Then we'd break into small groups for one-hour meetings. There were about eight of these sessions every day.

Each meeting was meant to deal with one of the specifications targetted for the summit. These would range from informational discussions about what philosophy we'd use to track bugs, all the way to in-depth design of new features for the Edgy Eft release. I'm still new at this, so I decided to sit in on any session that seemed relevant. What I realized early on is that almost everything is related to Quality Assurance. Which meant that I was going to be in more than one session at once.

Still, I got to lead several of these sessions myself. That was an interesting experience, as I hadn't moderated an open discussion in a while. But I think I managed to keep a handle on the topic and we hammered out some fairly good results. As part of these discussions, we were supposed to chat over the Internet, so other people could join in, but this worked rather poorly. Especially since the microphone port on my laptop has decided to stop working.

After eight hours of constant human interaction, I'd be pretty tired. But I wasn't going to waste my first trip in Europe sleeping! Oh no, that's why I took afternoon naps instead of eating lunch. Immediately after every session was over, I'd go over my e-mail and then hop on the next shuttle bus to the train station.

Raindrops upon leaves
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

19 June 2006

I soon discovered that I was not actually in Paris. Instead, we were in a small town called Le Mesnil Amelot, just outside of Terminal 2. This distinct fact is important, because no French taxi driver knows there is a Radisson SAS attached to Charles-de-Gaulle. When you ask for them to take you there, and show them the brochure, they're awfully confused. Some of them even suggest the Sheraton, which is actually inside Terminal 2.

What this meant was that to get to town, I had to take quite a bit of transit to get there. So the first night at the summit, I spent sitting in the hotel hot tub. Oh, and then going for a brief swim in the frigid pool. But the hot tub was much nicer. Then I did a token amount of exercise, because I knew I was going to get lazy at this conference. As I always do.

A continuing theme in this travelogue will be about food. And why not? France is a country renowned for its food. I was determined to try some of its best. But my early hopes were quite dashed.

Sugar
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

The hotel was not living up to my standards. Or any standards, really. The breakfasts consisted of the tiniest of baked goods. I managed to eat one of their so-called croissants in one bite. And it wasn't even flakey. Their pain au chocolat was equally disappointing, with merely a smidgen of chocolate. As for the coffee, it was unmentionably bad. I had to make my own café au lait to make up for the fact that it was awfully bitter.

Lunch was a cold buffet that was exactly the same every day. They had smoked trout, smoked salmon, and boiled prawns. Oh yes, and fish terrine and pâté galore. But the main dish, the pièce de la resistance was always broiled salmon, garnished with sliced cucumber, in apsic. That's right, dishes that come straight from The Gallery of Regrettable Food. Why were these people serving food that was out of vogue in the seventies?

Supper was a three course affair that was absolutely terrible. We'd start off with some sort of insipid starter like salmon terrine in aspic. Then we'd have thinly pounded steak that was mostly fat and gristle. It would be flavourless while the accompanying vegetables would be limp and over-salted. Dessert was the saving grace, but that's only because they were bought in.

Another conference-goer, who was a professional cook in a previous life, was just appalled by the state of the food. And we were being charged large sums of money for essentially slop. Not only that, the kitchen consistently failed to serve meaningful vegetarian or vegan dishes. They were all missing protein, let alone flavour.

After the first day of such treatment, I resolved not to eat supper there again. I would take my chances with the town.

Charles-de-Gaulle
Originally uploaded by sfllaw.

18 June 2006

I was ever so excited to go on this trip. Yes, I know it was for business, but it was going to be my first trip to Europe! Having only ever gone to conferences in North America, I was finally going to see the Old Western World. I packed my luggage, thew in everything I thought I'd possibly need, and then some. Then I grabbed my passport and hailed a cab.

At the aeroport, we went through some preliminary security and then I was inside. I met bbollenbach ad we chatted about life for a brief while before we were called upon to board. I have to thank Brad, actually, for he was the one who told me that our flight was at 22:30, not 10:30 as I had believed. Curse people and their use of twelve-hour time! It was thanks to him that I actually got any sleep that night.

Well, I was still tired so I slept through most of the flight. I was awakened to have two meals, both of which were bad signs. Air France, I'm afraid, likes to serve stale baguette. I had not yet learnt to be assertive with the French service, but this is a lesson I would be taught during my trip.

I arrived at Charles-de-Gaulle where it was bright and sunny and hot. We crowded on to a bus and found ourselves deposited at the terminal. Brad and I picked up our luggage and found our way to the shuttle bus that got us to the hotel. We were trying to check in, with exceptional difficulty, when Claire Newman whisked in and convinced the hotel that we were actually staying there. I dropped off my luggage in the room, flopped on a bed, and sighed in relief. Paris, at last!