flying shoes
From living in Paris ... Eventually, yes, eventually, you wake up one day and you realize that it's all not foreign to you any more. I am not sure when this happens exactly. I have my favorite running routes nailed down, know what movie theatre I like and how to find the movies in English, and know my favorite, absolutely THE best, bread in THE BEST local bakery. I don't know how to think in Francs, but I can divide everything by 5 real well by now. Ah, that higher math you learned so long ago. I say good morning in French, when it's really morning, say good evening just when I am suppose to. My automatic reaction to any situation has become either "pardon" or "merci", even when I am traveling in Germany or Ireland. I try to pronounce everything like the French do .... not that they can understand me when I do, but I try.
Work is still chaos, but becomes some sort of predictable chaos. I have begun to realize that I get tossed on to the real strange issues ...like someone needs to represent Europe at the Eurpoean Comission "Life Long Learning"symposium ... not that I consider myself any sort of an expert on "lifelong learning", whatever that might be. I guess if it's a goal of Bill's, it's suddenly my own personal goal ... and hey, I know how to bullshit with the best of them even though I am not sure what I know about Europe's problems in education. Sign me up, Brussels here I come.
Oh, but wait... I have to be somewhere else, back in Seattle, on the same day. Maybe next symposium from the EC. And then let's not forget the zillion strange mystery phone calls I get from people who think they should have a real "special" relationship with Microsoft, because they for some reason are "special", have some "special" product that I just can't live without, or they know Bill "especially" really well.
I don't know who gives out my number, but I really think I am going to stop carrying business cards. It's insane to go to some big meeting and then pass them out... oh, please do call and let's just chat about nothing really "special" for hours. Or better, we can play phone tag in several different languages, with operators who sometimes get the numbers down right ... or you can call that wonderful voice mail system I have, just buzzz through your long foreign name and leave me a phone number I am not sure how to dial. Mmmm, mmm.
But enough about business. Let's talk about the real big news in France, which I found out yesterday from someone who called from the US.....
It's really quite a problem to not read the newspaper ever ... a terrorist bomb could explode 3 blocks away and unless our admins told me, I would never know. It's a good thing our travel desk is suppose to warn me about any dangerous situation in other countries. Imagine if I had my second home in Belfast and not Dublin. Woweee..... Yes, when I go to Dublin every couple of weeks, the road to Belfast is the armed, guarded, scary-looking road that I don't have much desire to detour on. I doubt I would find myself saying to the taxi cab driver, "Hey there, how about a spin up north. I want to see if anybody is REALLY shooting at each other. You know, just for the pure entertainment." Oh... being the passport-carrying, English-accented American, I find that to be a real bad idea. Like hey ya, if you want to make a real strong political statement, just shoot me... or worse kidnap me. Fun times in NortherIreland. ......
Oh, I still have you in suspense. Over France... tomorrow is the first of the planned strikes. Close the metros ... close the airports ... we are just going to shut down the city. It's really such a lovely thing to do. Traffic will be snarled endlessly all day... no getting in, no getting out. Paris, which is known as the walking city ... will become more like the "real long haul" city.
I could take my bike I suppose to work ... but wearing all these "girl clothes" I think I will stick to walking. A couple of miles in nice "girl shoes"...
I don't know how these French woman do it... I see them every day just wabbling to work. Big black heels... just wabbling along at a pace for me that's a full run.
It's odd how they plan these strikes. I really do not understand the planning... big planning that goes in to making a real miserable day for everyone.
It's like, "hey customer you are going to be screwed all day on Thursday so please just get ready for this. Just plan that you will spend all day trying to get to the office... and what's left of the day, you will spend trying to get home."
Mmmm. Wonderful. And let's not just shut down the Metro... but get Air France involved so it's just really hopeless. I think it's just all the people who work on the trains...
I certainly hope the little green men don't go on strike. Who will vacuum up all the dog poop? Now, there's a real disaster... that would shut down the city for sure. How could you walk? How could you breath... all those little yappie dogs. A crisis. You don't expect them to go in the park on the grass? Why not the sidewalk...
Really, if you think the French are unfriendly, think of how you would feel in this constant paranoid state that you are going step in it. I know I keep my eyes on the ground at ALL times.
Merci...
