The heart of Paris

I have not celebrated United Germany this year. My train arrived at 6:58 in Paris l’est train station where I took the underground to Madeleine to go to work. I guess I know now why France is a young city. Old people simply move to the countryside or die as there are no escalators or elevators in the underground. I don’t know how many stairs I had to take while changing trains twice – having a rolling piece of heavy luggage it wasn’t the best trip I had.

In the end I arrived at around 7:30 at the Rue Godot de Mauroy in heavy rain – only to be greeted by the cleaning lady as there was no one else there. French people seem to be taking life easier and go to work later I guess. So I ended up having a nice breakfast at a nearby place. Sorry to say that my assimilation has not started at this point as I enjoyed a non-French breakfast consisting of an omelette with bacon and cheese, some toast and marmalade, an orange juice and some cold milk on the side. It was excellent nevertheless. And to round it up, I read through my first French lesson (Salut, Je m’appelle Gabor, Bon jour, Bon Soir, …)

Working at this location totally reminded me of working in Vienna in the good old days. The office is in the heart of town, just a jump away from the Place Vendome, the Gucci store, Ritz, etc. We had some sandwiches from a nearby store for lunch – a very cool day all in all.

After work I took the metro to the hotel – this time my trip got optimized to minimize the number of changes to avoid the stair climbing exercises in the underground. The hotel was great, on the Rue de Rennes, not exactly central, but I could walk down to the city in about 45 minutes, which I actually did. I went to the Notre Dame and walked around for a while in the city discovering some nice places like the Rue Saint-André des Arts with small artistic and weird shops, the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in the Rue Bonaparte and the Shakespeare and Company book store.


Check out the pictures for some more impressions (among others a frog restaurant – hmm, I wonder if they serve frog legs inside and a venting machine for books ...)