後四日で日本に帰るよ。自分でも信じられない。今はパリに最初来た時と比べれると全然違う時代でしょう。フランス語を習ったり色んな経験があったりした。それにしても本当にフランスに２０ヶ月住んでもあっという間に時間が経ってしまった。「先週に住んでいたね」という感じだ。
。。。帰るって言っても、日本人じゃないけど、 そういう感じだ。
Archive for September, 2007
Nothing works in France… part 523 (it’s the little things)
I need to telephone an agency to make an appointment. I’m given a sheet of contact information from someone in a related agency. On the contact sheet there are phone numbers consisting of 4 digits. No 10 digit numbers, just numéros azur, numbers that incur local tolls from wherever they might be dialed.
I dial the number, 4 digits, from my office phone. It doesn’t work. I try it from my cell phone. It doesn’t work. There’s a * in front of the number. I didn’t think it would be necessary but I try it anyways with the * and without the *, from my office phone and from my cell phone. Neither works. Dialing from the cell phone, without the *, I get a message from my telephone carrier asking me to enter my pin code as if it thinks I am trying to dial a special service access number (there are services accessible by dialing 4 digit numbers on the cell phone). Nothing works. I ask a French colleague. He is just as perplexed as I. In the end I look online and, after a long search (French websites are horrendously poorly organized), I find a full 10 digit number to call. That works. Finally.
I don’t think I’ve ever been given useless information like that anywhere else but in France. Yet another data point that reaffirms the hypothesis that (almost) nothing works the way it should in France; to make something work, it is never easy. It’s little day-to-day things like this that build up to make the case. It is the one thing about France that I will not miss at all.
Last week
It’s the last week in France. I do hope that everything goes well this week. A week from now we’ll be moved back to Japan. It’s hard to believe there’s only a week left before another big change.
Demain: Resto Etoilé!
Demain, on sera dans un resto etoilé. Plus precisement, deux etoiles: Le Cinq. Comment ça se passera? Est-ce que le prix sera justifié par rapport la qualité? En fin, qu’est ce que ça veut dire, etoilé?
V
V. An episode from the miniseries was playing on the TV, dubbed in French. I had forgotten about that series. I remember watching it as a kid. It simultaneously fascinated and freaked me out and gave me ideas to play humans vs aliens. Being a kid, I didn’t appreciate the plot line any further than its action-sci-fi bent. Now, after having refreshed my memory and read through the synopsis, I see that there was indeed more significance to the story.
Le Palais de l’Elysée
Saturday we saw the Palais de l’Elysée (Elysée Palace). The French presidential palace. It’s the French equivalent of the White House. It’s in Paris, just down the street from the American embassy and just off of the Champs-Elysées, near to Place de la Concorde.
This weekend is the annual Journées du Patrimoine, “World Heritage Days”. Many museums, famous buildings, and other world heritage sites are free and have special events or exhibits, including many which are not usually open to the public, such as the Palais de l’Elysée. The president office was open and on display for the first time this year (I’ve attached a picture of the desk where Sarkozy “works”).
Since the Palais de l’Elysée is not usually open to the public, there were a large number of people wanting to visit. We got up early and made it in line around 8:20am. The opening time was at 9am, so we figured that it would be a good head start. At that time, however, the line already stretched to Place de la Concorde, about a third of a mile away. There were A LOT of people, as you can see from the picture I attached. Sarkozy came out to shake hands with people in the line, but he was far ahead of where we were at the time. The line progressed slowly and we were finally able to make it in by 12:20 pm, after a 4 hour wait! When we got home we saw on the news that people had been waiting as long as 6 hours to get in!
It’s not much compared to Versailles but it was interesting none-the-less, as we got to see something that the general viewing public only occasionally has access to. We saw rooms where the cabinet ministers meet, where the president works, and where foreign ambassadors are received. After the Palais de l’Elysée, we saw where foreign heads of state stay when they visit, and the Interior Ministry (whose primary duty is the direction of the national police force). With only a few weeks left in Paris, we were determined to see as much as we could before we collapsed in exhaustion!
Our second bag!
It arrived today. Finally! After more than three weeks and more than 30 calls to the Air France baggage service. What a loss of time! The next step is to demand compensation for their incompetence. That starts with a letter avec avis de reception, as with anything in France. Thus the story is not finished!
Friendster
Friendster. What a useful way to find lost friends, if they keep their profiles up to date. I haven’t used it in quite a while, so my profile hasn’t been updated recently. However, it is apparently recent enough. Earlier this week I got a message through Friendster from an old friend who happens to be stopping through Paris. We’ll meet up Friday night. Chouette!
９月なら大相撲。
今朝、起きてから朝ご飯をのんびり食べたりした。そうすると「あ、しまった！今日は９月場所の初日だ！」と思い出した。そうして、大相撲協会の映像配信のサイトに行った。まだ時間があったんだ！つながれたよかった。最終の三役勝負が全部見れた。横綱白鵬が小結安馬にやぶれた！
さて、横綱朝青龍が大相撲協会に休所させられて、この場所はちょっと変だけど。朝青龍が休場していなくても機嫌とか態度とか色んな問題でなかなか応援難しくなった。横綱朝青龍にしっかり体を休んだり態度をよくなったりしてほしいね。
というわけで今度だれに応援しようかね（高見盛以外だね）。新大関琴光喜頑張れ！
Rugby world cup!
It’s Rugby World Cup time! Flags of the 20 nations competing are strung up all over la rue Mouffetard. This year it’s being hosted in France, and the French national team, ranked 3rd world wide, is considered one of the favorites to wind up in the finals, so there’s a lot of excitement on the streets.
