Tuesday 22 January 2008

Paris - Day #2, Arc deTriomphe, the Grande Arche






Paris is a planned city with many of the major arteries radiating out from the Arc de Triumph. Paris' most famous street, the Champs Elysee also draws a line through the city. The line starts at the Louvre which was built around 1500 by an early King, then goes through the Arc de Triomphe which was built in the 1800's to honor Emperor Napoleon's victories, and ends at the Grand Arche built about 20 years ago by President Mitterand as a landmark for their commercial sector full of skyscrapers. It represents the history of France, the Kings, Napoleon, and now into the modern era.
The Grande Arche is huge, as I hope you can get a sense of. It is 38 stories tall with offices and living quarters for 30,000 people. (larger than the town I grew up in) The structure you see underneath it on the left side is an elevator you can ride to the top but we didn't. After the Eiffel Tower, it would have been a disappointment and we were running short of time. The arch is so big, supposedly you could fit the Notre Dame cathedral under it.
As you can see, you can go on top of the Arc de Triomphe and we did. (see the Eiffel Tower over their shoulder? the influence of my daughter the photographer) It was neat to see the radiating lines of all of the streets from that traffic circle. Interestingly, the traffic circle it sits in has had so many accidents that they have changed the law just for that circle. Normally under French law, those in the traffic circle have the right of way over those entering. For this one, they have changed the law, it is a no fault accident area.
And in the last picture you can see a family of very tired Allens riding the subway to the train station for the ride back home to London.

Paris - Day #2, Eiffel Tower


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I'm sure all of us kids love the Eiffel Tower. The symbol of Paris. We could see it from our hotel room and it is really beautiful at night. It is lit up, and every hour it strobes for 10 minutes. Very impressive, day or night. It is 1,000 feet tall and you cannot help but be awed. There are levels at 200, 400 and 900 feet and we went to all three. We had waffles with chocolate sauce and hot chocolate on the second floor - even the picky kids liked that. It was cold and windy, but the view was awesome.
The pictures are of the family at the 900 foot level, both the Arc d'Triumph and Sacre Coeur from the tower, the small version of the Statue of Liberty (it plays a role in the new 'National Treasures' movie) and lastly they have mannequins hanging from the tower in several places to show you what it looks like when they have to paint it. Kind of catches you by surprise when you see the first one.

Paris - Day #1






Being the mean parents we are, we took our kids to Paris for the weekend. (Aaarrrggghhh!) The poor things hated the food and worried they would starve. John immediately claimed the half-eaten tube of Pringles as his to help him survive the weekend.
We started off with the Rodin museum which was just amazing. The museum was actually created while he was alive (early 1900's) which is interesting because when you look at the source of many of the pieces in the museum, Rodin himself donated them. There is actually film of him on display. Another interesting thing is that his most famous sculptures are display outside in the garden. The Thinker, The Burghers of Calais, The Gates of Hell, and Balzac are outside. How strange! Pictured are The Thinker, The Burghers of Calais, and the two hands are called The Cathedral.
'The Burghers of Calais represents a true story. The French port city of Calais was under siege by King Edward III of England. The king of France told them to hold out at all costs. The French king was unable to come to the rescue and the city was about to starve. The English king told them that if they could get six of the city leaders to surrender to him, nearly naked with nooses around their necks, bringing the keys to the city, he would spare the city. So they did, and he did. Later the pregnant English Queen asked her husband to spare their lives, killing them would be a bad omen for the baby's birth - so they lived.
After the Rodin we went to the d'Orsay museum, which is the sister museum to the Louvre. The Louvre has all the really old art and the d'Orsay the more modern pieces by very well known artists such as Manet, Monet, Cezanne, Toulouse Latrec, Gaugin and Degas. The building itself is also interesting as it is a converted train station. One picture is of the main gallery and the other is one of the world's most famous painting by Degas ... or Monet ... or Manet??? No idea, but I liked it.

Lyon France





Our team had our quarterly meetings at the Wolseley France IT offices in Lyon. Lyon is a beautiful town. We worked Tuesday through Friday morning and then everyone traveled home. I took the train to Paris and met the family, but before I left I took the opportunity to see the sites I was most interested in.
There are several beautiful buildings in town, but the one that stands above the rest, literally and figuratively is the Basilica de Fourviere. It sits on the hill overlooking the city and is absolutely stunning. And just down the hill from it are two, side by side, Roman amphitheaters. The one on the left is the larger of the two. Lyon still has concerts and other performances in the larger of the two.
I had a few hours to kill after I checked out of the hotel and before my train left for Paris, so I decided to go to see the Basilica. Obviously, I had to take my suitcase. Getting up the hill to the church looked to be quite an effort so I decided to be smart and take the tram up the hill. So, in my halting and limited French, I found my way to the ticket booth and purchased a tram ticket and rode it to the top of the hill. But it was still about a mile to the Basilica, so I hauled my big suitcase over to it and thoroughly enjoyed the visit, but worked up a sweat getting there. On the way down I realized the ticket I purchased was for a bus that takes you from the tram right to the cathedral, and back to the tram. The tram ride was free. Whoops!

We Got Ruins!




I'll bet you don't have Roman ruins in your neighborhood. We do! Just down the street we have a park and in that park are some Roman ruins the royalty brought in from Africa back in 1826. The UK government is working on them now so soon we will have remodeled ruins. :-) There was also this bench with weird female statues ...

Friday 11 January 2008

A Flea In His Ear????

My boss told me a story today about one of our company's employees that moved to the UK to work, and tried to do things the same way he did in the US. Needless to say, that did not work and they had to send him home because he couldn't adapt and work with the Europeans. My boss described the guy as "being sent home with a flea in his ear."
What a language!

Thursday 10 January 2008

Maybe They Got It Right???

When we were home (driving on the right side of the road) I noticed that the traffic lights were really, really slow to change from red to green. Here, a high percentage of the intersections are roundabouts. At a roundabout there are no traffic lights, you jump into it and jump out quickly - or die. But it gets you through the intersection really quickly. Hmmm...

Wednesday 9 January 2008

Traffic Accident - January 2008




What a traffic jamb!
I was sitting at an intersection, minding my own business, waiting for the light to change when BAM! I was struck from behind. It turns out the gentleman in the car behind me was also sitting waiting for the light when a delivery truck hit him from behind, shoving him into my car. Amazingly, the driver of the truck immediately admitted he had fallen asleep at the wheel. And when the police arrived, he told them the same story. That would never happen in the US, no one would admit fault. No one was hurt, just vehicles to be repaired.
The most ironic aspect is that when the police arrived traffic was terrible, so they wanted to get us out of the road as soon as possible and directed us "take the first left, then another left, and pull into the parking lot." That turned out to be a Wolseley Build Centre.
In the pictures you can see the back of my car, the three cars lined up immediate after the accident (you can see the truck was pretty big), and the Wolseley Build Centre.

Saturday 5 January 2008

Christmas 2007



My generous company gives its ex-patriot employees (me) and their families one yearly trip home. We chose to go back to Raleigh at Christmas to stay with Christina, Derek and Lincoln for about two weeks. It was great. Every day but Sunday was 'shopping day'. We were lucky because many stores were having sales, plus just buying in the US saves at least 25%. We brought back four more suitcases than we left with, all big ones, and all packed to the seams.
This will always be "The Christmas of the Wall" to me, because as you will see in the picture, we decided to remove a wall - only to discover that from an engineering point of view, it is not a smart idea. So the wall stays, but since the sheet rock is already off, we have some options we are considering. You can't see it from this shot, but the other interior study wall is being remodeled as well. The shower is gone. So there are opportunities there as well.
The second shot is the family gathered in the living room, everyone looks happy. I think Christina's family is happy because we were there, the Allens are happy because they know they are getting American food for supper.
The third shot is the wrapping paper wasteland that we always create by the end of Christmas morning. Imagine how it would look if we weren't trying to clean up as we went?
And the last shot is Amanda with her gift pile - and a beautiful Christmas smile.

Wanna Peel A Tomato?






Brittany, Amanda, Rebecca and Christina each put on clothing to be giving to Mom for Christmas then wrapped themselves in wrapping paper. Hopefully, these pictures will come out in the right order. One at a time, Mom "peeled her tomatoes" to find out what her gifts were. Brittany is wearing a tan sweater, Amanda a dark sweater, Rebecca a gold blouse and forest green vest over it, and Christina a matching skirt and jacket. Mom loved it!