Skip to main content

February 3 - 4, 2007 :: First Weekend in Paris

Dscn0192Biennvenue á  Paris!
I arrived in Paris, France on 30-Jan for my four month stay with the Corporate Audit Staff at GE.  While the first few days were dedicated to getting down to business at work, my colleagues and I got to have some personal time on the weekend to explore the City of Love.  Check out this link to see all of the pictures from the weekend.



Sat: Le Tour Eiffel, Le Arc De Triomphe, Le Champ De'Lyse
On Sat we started our site-seeing extravaganza with brunch near the Eiffel Tower.  We ate at Le Grande Corona (no, not the beer :).  After some great food and a coffee or two, we popped over to see the Tower itself.  We wanted to climb to the top, but the line to buy tickets combined with the line just to start ascending were so long it would have been the only thing we could have done that day and that's to say we would have gotten in before they closed!  Instead we decided to take a bunch of pictures and walk over to the Arc de Triomphe.  The Arc is a symbol of the victories in several different wars that France has been in.Dscn0204 Finally, we continued over to Le Champ De'Lyse which is equivalent to New York City's 5th Avenue.  Lots of nice stores are lined up and down this street which has a very metro/cosmopolitan feel to it.  It's always neat walking on it, too, because you see and hear people from all over the world that are there for one reason or another taking time to shop the shops of Paris's 1st district. 



Sun: Sacre Coeur and MontMartre
On Sun two of my partners in crime and I decided to take another rigorous walk over to the famous Sacred Heart church.  Sacre Coeur is located up on an enormous hill in Paris's 18th district.  It over looks the city and hides the neighborhood of MontMartre behind it.  MontMartre will sound familiar to you if you've ever seen the movie "The Moulin Rouge".  Dscn0217 Dscn0229 It's were that story takes place, and where the famed dance club still exists today. 



Just getting started and so much more to do...
Of course I left out some things that tie the weekend story together.  For example, we've been eating at fantastic restaurants and hanging out at super bars/café's as well.  We walked all around Paris last night trying to find a karaoke club or a night club, but settled for a cool little, private bar somewhere in the 1st district.  I've met a group of awesome people to share this experience with from work as well.  I've been spending days and nights with these guys and gals and wouldn't replace even one of them.  It's been a good week.  Now hopefully we'll be able to keep up some of that energy and fun as we get deeper into our actual task, the reason why we're all here.  I'm sure it'll be a bit more of a challenge, but that's all part of the fun.



Look for more fun stories as they come.  I can already tell you there are some things in the hopper.  Trips to other near-by countries, people coming out to visit, and just more great times in Paris are all going to be decorating the "pages" of this blog real soon.  Also don't forget to check the link above often for more cool pictures!



Dscn0198 Au revoir for now! :-)



M@

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Finally a member of a local community!

T oday I was officially welcomed into the St. Paul's of Norwalk family as a part of a special Rite conducted at the 11AM service. When I first started going to this church in my new Connecticut community six months ago, I was almost terrified to think about becoming an official member of a religious organization. Over the course of these past several months, I've really fallen in love with the building, the people, and the sense of closeness that they all have. I had an "ah-hah" moment today: the people there actually WANT to be there more than just going out of a sense of obligation. It's refreshing and comforting. It's also nice that this particular parish community welcomes people from ALL walks of life, and even has LGBT clergy people. How wonderful to be in a place that so emmulates what I hope the future of our whole world ends up being: concerned with who we ARE inside instead of how we express it outside. Thanks St. Paul's! It's nice to have a ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reflections from a crazy summer

Y ou would think that I'd blog more here since I do so much traveling, but I guess it's a testimony to how pervasive Facebook has become in my life. In any event, I'm writing on layover in Seoul Korea's Incheon International Airport after having spent the past two months bouncing around the world. Peaked your curiosity have I? I'll try to be somewhat breif and give you the highlights here: July 5-August 3 - Detroit, MI: The day after celebrating July 4th with my friends in CT, I moved out to Detroit to greet and help educate 101 of my program's finest new recruits at our advancd technology center. This is a highlight of my current job that I look forward to twice a year. I really enjoy meeting with these young men and women who are embarking on their IT careers having just recently completed their university studies. While I have instructors that do the heavy lifting, teaching them about programming languages, presentation and communication skills, and busine...
Post a Comment
Read more

Los Angeles Pride Revelations

F lying back from an outstanding weekend in Los Angeles where I spent the weekend visiting friends and celebrating Pride, I'm finding myself full of wonder and a pent-up desire to live in a place where being out, open, and able to live a "normal" life is second nature (doesn't sound too unreasonable, eh?). There are few cities in the world today that actually afford this possibility to its citizens, and even they have certain restrictions due to state or federal laws (in whichever country they're in). L.A., however, has an incredible appeal from its west-coast lifestyle, proximity to Tinsel Town, and its people's history of civil demonstrations for equal rights. The energy there is completely unique. Over the past three-and-a-half days I was overwhelmed with parties; meeting new, attractive guys; and experiencing L.A.'s Pride parade and festival. Thanks to my friends Jayzen Patria, Joe Keenan, and Logan Grizzel, I felt like a VIP (and even had VIP access t...
Post a Comment
Read more