Paris: Days 4-6?
I'm starting to lose count of the days. It seems like it's only been two days since my last post but maybe that was really four days and this is two; rather than three and three. Oh well. Some number of days have passed. Yeah. This is about Saturday and Sunday. Friday was covered in my last entry.
Saturday morning we went to the data center and wrapped up a lot of stuff. We'd finally cleared some of the roadblocks and made serious progress. Our goal was to get out of there by 4pm so we could head back to the hotel and catch a few hours of sleep before the festivities were to begin at 7:30pm. Instead, we left the data center at 7:30pm, got no nap and made it to the first bar in Boulogne at half-time of the US/England game. Part of that was just leaving late and it being a long metro ride from Saint Denis to Boulogne. The other part was we got off on the wrong Boulogne stop and were navigating by Google Maps so it as quite an interesting walk to get to the bar.
The bar was neat. It was a little bar and stood out, to me, by having its name clearly in English. It's apparently the EU admin team manager's favorite place. The EU crew had been there for a while already so they had a little spot setup for us all in the corner by the TV. We drank, ate lightly and watched the game. We didn't stick around long after the game was over, though. We left about 11pm. I had thought we were going to be there until they closed at 2am. We stopped at this great kebab place nearby for food since the US team hadn't eaten since the morning. The food was great and they had this amazing spicy mayonnaise-based sauce for the fries. It was really good and just what we needed before more drinking. I'd already been developing a headache and the other engineer later mentioned he was getting a bit nauseous at that point.
We hopped on the metro at that point and went back towards Notre Dame to this Scottish pub. It's a really cool place tucked in some residential area. The bouncers are really quick to keep people quiet so as to disturb their neighbors the least. Smokers have to actually walk down the block to the street to do their business. You can't smoke in bars or restaurants in France these days.
The pub had two floors. The main floor was a typical pub with the bar, tables, TVs, etc. The basement was more like a small techno club with a DJ up above the dance floor, a small bar and speakers blaring music while people crammed into a small space and danced. We started out drinking and chatting upstairs. Eventually, the shots started flowing and people started scattering. After like five rounds I was getting tired of having to defend the stools of the guys up getting the shots from other customers. One guy got pissed when I told him he couldn't have the stool for his buddy and pointed at me, shouting something or other. Shortly after that the smokers all went outside and a few of us went to check out the basement.
The basement was pretty neat. It was really crowded when the three of us arrived. There was this one French couple who were alternating between completely molesting each other against the wall or thrashing around like they were in a mosh pit. They were seriously a danger to themselves and others. We found a spot to stand and watch while we danced. Some others from our group came down to see what was going on but they were focused on drinking and didn't stay. At one point a very tall and drunk Nordic gentleman bounced our way and joined our little dance circle after putting his arm around me. I guess he was filling in for the Polish version who is currently stationed in China who usually joins us and is equally obnoxious. We weren't very fun so he didn't stay long. I eventually ended up alone there with one of the wives who was the one interested in dancing until the floor emptied out a bit and we went back upstairs.
Back upstairs the group had reconvened right at the bar and had apparently been through quite a few more rounds of shots while we'd been downstairs dancing. I sat with one of the EU guys who is originally from Liverpool. He was super excited that I had even heard about Red Dwarf, much less that I was a huge fan of it. We talked for a long while about Red Dwarf and various other science fiction shows. Towards closing time, two other English guys (they were wearing England jerseys) came up and heard his accent and started chatting him up about soccer and various other things. They were from Bristol and mentioned it many times. One of them was fascinated by my hat and asked to borrow it twice. I let him, which freaked some people out because they didn't think I would let someone else wear my hat. I figured at least he had asked and he didn't seem likely (or able) to bolt. And I got a picture of him wearing it, which as neat.
The bar closed around 5am and they kicked all of us out. At that point, next on the itinerary was urinating in the Seine (the river that runs through the middle of Paris). Apparently this is the standard tour of Paris our EU team gives people: expat bar, kebabs, Scottish pub, piss in the Seine, pepper steak and then head home. There's a special tree on an outcropping in the middle below a bridge they have picked out for it and everything. Some people didn't really understand that the river was supposed to be the target. I can barely use public urinals so I did not partake. It was an unusual interlude.
Last on the list was a steak breakfast. I hadn't realized at the time how difficult it was to normally find a restaurant open on a Sunday morning; much less 6am after drinking all night. But this was clearly a local's hangout and it was completely packed with people, like us, hungry and still drinking from the night before. There weren't even menus or anything. The bartender barked what was available, in French, and one of the EU guys ordered for us. The steak wasn't anything special but the pepper sauce with it was simply amazing. I've had a lot of peppercorn steak, including when I ate on Champs-Elysees earlier in the week, and that was the best sauce I've had.
With the evening's plan complete, we walked back to the Saint Michel (near Notre Dame) metro station to head to our various homes. We'd walked through that area earlier, too, and pointed out to the EU team where we'd eaten dinner during the France/Uruguay game. As we approached it this time we spotted the homeless transvestite who'd chatted up C that night coming our way. We quickly pointed them out to C and laughed hysterically while they passed; paying us no mind. It was great to be able to show the whole EU team about whom it was we'd been talking.
Back at the hotel, we decided today would be a non-work day. We were still pretty drunk and it was already almost 8am. There had been some discussion that we might head in to Paris to hang out around 3pm. I did wake up around 3pm but no one else was awake. My TV woke me up again a bit after that to tell me housekeeping had given up on me for the day. The smokers (everyone on the US team but me) texted me later that we were going to dinner at 8pm so that woke me up at some point and I set an alarm. I finally crawled out of bed around 7pm and was still dragging. I woke up as we gathered downstairs. We only had to call one guy's room to wake him up to come join us; it wasn't bad.
Tonight we ate near the Louvre. We found this Korean BBQ restaurant from Google and it turned out to be really good. It was near the National Academy of Music and was full of Koreans when we entered. The food was great and the servers were very friendly. It helped that we had a Korean engineer with us. He ordered for us and we had a great time. He also introduced us to Soju bombs and some other Korean dessert liquor. It was a lot of fun. We walked around a bit more before heading back to the metro and home.
Tomorrow the plan is to finish up what little we have left to do, QA everything and get ready for Wednesday's maintenance. The idea is to leave quite a bit of Monday afternoon/night available for us to hit Momart for dinner and give us all of Tuesday to ourselves. We'll see how that works out tomorrow.
Saturday morning we went to the data center and wrapped up a lot of stuff. We'd finally cleared some of the roadblocks and made serious progress. Our goal was to get out of there by 4pm so we could head back to the hotel and catch a few hours of sleep before the festivities were to begin at 7:30pm. Instead, we left the data center at 7:30pm, got no nap and made it to the first bar in Boulogne at half-time of the US/England game. Part of that was just leaving late and it being a long metro ride from Saint Denis to Boulogne. The other part was we got off on the wrong Boulogne stop and were navigating by Google Maps so it as quite an interesting walk to get to the bar.
The bar was neat. It was a little bar and stood out, to me, by having its name clearly in English. It's apparently the EU admin team manager's favorite place. The EU crew had been there for a while already so they had a little spot setup for us all in the corner by the TV. We drank, ate lightly and watched the game. We didn't stick around long after the game was over, though. We left about 11pm. I had thought we were going to be there until they closed at 2am. We stopped at this great kebab place nearby for food since the US team hadn't eaten since the morning. The food was great and they had this amazing spicy mayonnaise-based sauce for the fries. It was really good and just what we needed before more drinking. I'd already been developing a headache and the other engineer later mentioned he was getting a bit nauseous at that point.
We hopped on the metro at that point and went back towards Notre Dame to this Scottish pub. It's a really cool place tucked in some residential area. The bouncers are really quick to keep people quiet so as to disturb their neighbors the least. Smokers have to actually walk down the block to the street to do their business. You can't smoke in bars or restaurants in France these days.
The pub had two floors. The main floor was a typical pub with the bar, tables, TVs, etc. The basement was more like a small techno club with a DJ up above the dance floor, a small bar and speakers blaring music while people crammed into a small space and danced. We started out drinking and chatting upstairs. Eventually, the shots started flowing and people started scattering. After like five rounds I was getting tired of having to defend the stools of the guys up getting the shots from other customers. One guy got pissed when I told him he couldn't have the stool for his buddy and pointed at me, shouting something or other. Shortly after that the smokers all went outside and a few of us went to check out the basement.
The basement was pretty neat. It was really crowded when the three of us arrived. There was this one French couple who were alternating between completely molesting each other against the wall or thrashing around like they were in a mosh pit. They were seriously a danger to themselves and others. We found a spot to stand and watch while we danced. Some others from our group came down to see what was going on but they were focused on drinking and didn't stay. At one point a very tall and drunk Nordic gentleman bounced our way and joined our little dance circle after putting his arm around me. I guess he was filling in for the Polish version who is currently stationed in China who usually joins us and is equally obnoxious. We weren't very fun so he didn't stay long. I eventually ended up alone there with one of the wives who was the one interested in dancing until the floor emptied out a bit and we went back upstairs.
Back upstairs the group had reconvened right at the bar and had apparently been through quite a few more rounds of shots while we'd been downstairs dancing. I sat with one of the EU guys who is originally from Liverpool. He was super excited that I had even heard about Red Dwarf, much less that I was a huge fan of it. We talked for a long while about Red Dwarf and various other science fiction shows. Towards closing time, two other English guys (they were wearing England jerseys) came up and heard his accent and started chatting him up about soccer and various other things. They were from Bristol and mentioned it many times. One of them was fascinated by my hat and asked to borrow it twice. I let him, which freaked some people out because they didn't think I would let someone else wear my hat. I figured at least he had asked and he didn't seem likely (or able) to bolt. And I got a picture of him wearing it, which as neat.
The bar closed around 5am and they kicked all of us out. At that point, next on the itinerary was urinating in the Seine (the river that runs through the middle of Paris). Apparently this is the standard tour of Paris our EU team gives people: expat bar, kebabs, Scottish pub, piss in the Seine, pepper steak and then head home. There's a special tree on an outcropping in the middle below a bridge they have picked out for it and everything. Some people didn't really understand that the river was supposed to be the target. I can barely use public urinals so I did not partake. It was an unusual interlude.
Last on the list was a steak breakfast. I hadn't realized at the time how difficult it was to normally find a restaurant open on a Sunday morning; much less 6am after drinking all night. But this was clearly a local's hangout and it was completely packed with people, like us, hungry and still drinking from the night before. There weren't even menus or anything. The bartender barked what was available, in French, and one of the EU guys ordered for us. The steak wasn't anything special but the pepper sauce with it was simply amazing. I've had a lot of peppercorn steak, including when I ate on Champs-Elysees earlier in the week, and that was the best sauce I've had.
With the evening's plan complete, we walked back to the Saint Michel (near Notre Dame) metro station to head to our various homes. We'd walked through that area earlier, too, and pointed out to the EU team where we'd eaten dinner during the France/Uruguay game. As we approached it this time we spotted the homeless transvestite who'd chatted up C that night coming our way. We quickly pointed them out to C and laughed hysterically while they passed; paying us no mind. It was great to be able to show the whole EU team about whom it was we'd been talking.
Back at the hotel, we decided today would be a non-work day. We were still pretty drunk and it was already almost 8am. There had been some discussion that we might head in to Paris to hang out around 3pm. I did wake up around 3pm but no one else was awake. My TV woke me up again a bit after that to tell me housekeeping had given up on me for the day. The smokers (everyone on the US team but me) texted me later that we were going to dinner at 8pm so that woke me up at some point and I set an alarm. I finally crawled out of bed around 7pm and was still dragging. I woke up as we gathered downstairs. We only had to call one guy's room to wake him up to come join us; it wasn't bad.
Tonight we ate near the Louvre. We found this Korean BBQ restaurant from Google and it turned out to be really good. It was near the National Academy of Music and was full of Koreans when we entered. The food was great and the servers were very friendly. It helped that we had a Korean engineer with us. He ordered for us and we had a great time. He also introduced us to Soju bombs and some other Korean dessert liquor. It was a lot of fun. We walked around a bit more before heading back to the metro and home.
Tomorrow the plan is to finish up what little we have left to do, QA everything and get ready for Wednesday's maintenance. The idea is to leave quite a bit of Monday afternoon/night available for us to hit Momart for dinner and give us all of Tuesday to ourselves. We'll see how that works out tomorrow.