Final Entry

This is it. I had a crummy day at work, there are problems all over the place, but I'll have to deal with them remotely next week.

I'm in my room, eating Royales with Cheese and Pomme-Frites. It's 9:30 and I'm wiped.

I get pciked up tomorrow at 10 am (4 am EST) and fly out at 1:30 pm. If all goes according to plan, I'll be home at 3:30 pm EST.

Miss everyone, see you tomorrow!

Daytime in Paree

Got a good night sleep last night, woke up at 9 am. I walked about 1/4 mile to the Place de Charles de Gaulle (a big rotary) where the Arc d Triumph is.

Alex, these are the best pictures I could get of the Eiffel Tower. I'll see if I can get some closer ones later:

My room service breakfast:
Tower again. It looks different in person and from this view. I wasn't even sure this was it.

The Arc de Triumph. It sits in the middle of the rotary, and a tunnel runs underneath it to cross the street. Very dark in that tunnel. Very dark.

The Champs-Elysses runs away from the Arc.
The actual street

I'm off to the office in an hour to do my work. I'll update when I can.

One more day.

Free Man in Paris

OK, I just lost another hour (Paris is 6 hours ahead of EST.

Here's some pictures. I left the office at 2:15 pm today in the UK and took the train to Waterloo station. Here's a horrible picture of it as we approached:

This is the departure board for the Eurostar trains out of Waterloo:
Here's a Eurostar train. We had first class, so the seat were sort of like first class on a plane.
Typical row of English housing:
We started out trip with a bottle of wine (one of those half bottles or whatever):

Then we were served our first course, salmon, potatoes (I have 2 because Jay doesn't like salmon), Brie, and for some reason, pie. Also,another bottle of wine.
Second course came, it was haddock quiche (Jay liked his, hence only one for me). another bottle of wine.
I then crossed the chunnel, and after 3 hours or so, arrived in Paris. Here's me in the hotel room bathroom.
Here's what $300 will get you. This is from the front door. That's a glass enclosed shower in the middle of the room, which led lights that change color.
Bed and swanky chair. The windows have no screens as there seem to be no bugs in Europe.

Bed and shower. The LED lights have turned blue.
View outside my windows. Beats the old roof and pigeons like in the UK
Other way outside
And, in case you think I'm on vacation, this is what I look like after travelling all day and not getting any sleep this week.

I'm getting picked up tomorrow at noon, so I'll head out early and take pictures. I have to swap out some equipment in the office (the whole reason for my trip). Hopefuly it goes well.

I'll update in the morning. Good night

Football Update

I know that you've been waiting, I've found out what happens to teams that get relegated out of Second League. They end up playing in empty fields against other horrible teams, hoping to get invited back in.

Now you can sleep better.

Last Day in UK Office

Last night I had a real nice Italian dinner of rice balls and then spinach gnocchis. We then went to an Irish pub in which a couple of guys were singing songs like "My Father Is a Brakeman". On a whim, I played the only Pogues song on the jukebox, Faerytale of New York, to which people got up and danced, clapping and singing along.

Got back to the room at 11, fell asleep around 12:30, and woke up to screaming pigeons outside my window at 5 am. Took a shower, ate breakfast, walked to Starbucks, and then met up with the other 3 guys I'm with (it's 3 now, the VP of Australia is tagging along).

They have an honor system with the bar in the room. I had 3 bottled waters and told them, as I'm a nice guy.

I'm in the office until 2:30 (it's 9:30 am right now). I'm going out to lunch with my teammates at noon, and then get picked up at 2:30 and taken to the train station. I'll post some pictures later on.

Cheers!

More Pictures and First Day in the Office

Lobby of the hotel: This is the crooked house of Winsdor. You think water problems are bad? This place is ready to topple over.
The Winsdor Garden. A 3 mile path the goes from the Castle to a huge statue of King George on horseback. I walked it yesterday, it took be 90 minutes. Reminds me of Hyrule Field in Zelda.
View the other way, facing the Castle.

I'm in the office for the first time. Had breakfast at the hotel (coffee and cereal) and now I'm looking at equipment here. It's a holiday, so the only ones here are us 3 Americans. That's OK, I have a lot to look at....

Random Thoughts About England

The football season is ending here. How football works, is that that it's broken into 4 divisions, with between 20-30 teams in each. The best division is called the Premiership, the second is the Championship, the third is the First Division (!) and the fourth is the Second Division. The bottom 3 teams in each division gets sent down to the lower division ( I don't know what happens to the worst of the Second Division, perhaps they get taken out back and shot) and the top 2 finishing teams in each divsion get sent up. There is then a playoff between the next 4 teams to see who is the third team to get sent up. It's perfect, because at this time of year, teams are battling not to get sent down (they lose money and prestige) and of course get sent up.

When I was out here last year, a team called Whatley got promoted from the Championship League to the Preimership for like the first time in 20 years. They were all going crazy. I read the paper today, Whatley is dead last in the league, thereby getting sent back.


I also had bangers and mashed for lunch with two London Pride ales. Good stuff.

The VP is flying in tonight to stay in our hotel. Should be fun tomorrow, as we'll be the only 3 in the office as it's a bank holiday.....

More Pictures from Windsor

A LOT of swans in the Thames river:
Machine gun wearing policemen outside Windsor Castle. This is about 100 yards from my room:

Here's the view of the outside of my hotel:
A pub directly across from it. There's around 6 of them within a quarter mile of my room:
Windor Castle, with Queen Victoria outside.

More swans

I've Arrived in London!

I wanted to sleep on the plane, so prior to takeoff I had three gin and tonics and one little unisol. Slept the whole 6 hours (we landed a half an hour early). I've checked into my hotel now. I'm told that this hotel was actually the dungeon for the Windsor Castle, and it feels like it. Everything is small, the corridors are narrow, the room is tiny. At least the bathroom is big.
So, here's what a $396 a night hotel looks like:

Nice view:

Going to go find some breakfast. I'll update later....