Paris

Patrick and I went last weekend to Paris. We had both been there before seperately, but this is the first time that we've been back since living in Strasbourg. Last time Patrick was there was about 10 years ago, and it was about ... a little bit longer for me. Suffice it to say that we had to redo all the touristy places since we had not been there in a long time.

Turns out that France was celebrating another one of their holidays (Ascension) - not quite sure how a country who only has 5% of their population actually attending Church get so many religious holidays, but I'm sure if they tried to go Atheist and take them away, there would be a general strike in someone's political future, but I digress.

Took the train instead of flying or driving. Far more civilized than the two hours of security that you are subjected to at the airport or the 90 euros in tolls you pay to drive out and back (I'm not kidding). Plus you have way more room.

Oh and the little quiz up above on what everything is (from left to right): Eiffel Tower, Roman Statue in the Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Les Invalides, I.M. Pei's Pyramid entrance for the Louvre, Notre Dame, and 5% of Versailles.

Paris: The Star Wars Exhibit

OK, we're geeks.

We had about three hours to kill on Sunday before we took the train back to Strasbourg, so we decided to go to the Star Wars exhibit at the Paris equivalent of Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. There was a bit of concern (mine) that we would get back in time and it wouldn't be some cheesy tourist thing (got the info from one of those brochure stands at the hotel) - but it turned out to be really cool.

There was actually the real characters, costumes, models, and drawings from the trilogy - as evidenced by Patrick standing in front of Yoda.

We also went around to the other exhibits and saw an interesting section of bio-identity projects. The fingerprint and iris readers were pretty cool - wouldn't be surprised if France has them all over the place (like Tram stations) in the next 10 years.

Paris: Pigalle

In case you are not familiar with Paris history, the original red light district of Paris was called 'Pigalle', it's a contraction of the words 'pig' and 'alley' - and it was made famous when the WWII American soldiers had leave in Paris. Even before that it was made famous by Toulouse Lautrec (sp?) in his paintings of Moulin Rouge in the early 1900's. Now . . . it's basically a tourist destination.

There's really something wrong, when you walk by a shop like this one - and there's a 75 year old American tourist taking a picture in front of it...OK, so we did the same thing (obviously). But I hope you get my point.

Paris: The Eiffel Tower

Not sure why this tower of steel is the symbol of Paris, but it is; and you all probably know the story by now. They built it for the World's Fair, the French hated it, almost tore it down, and the only reason it is standing today is that they needed it as a radio tower. The radio tower excuse went away about 50 years ago, but by then every single American tourist couldn't get around Paris without it.

Paris: Versailles

Home to the last great Kings and Queens of France - walking around this place which is about 40 miles outside of Paris helps you understand why the last ones lost their heads. The place is absolutely huge - like, three times the size of the finance center at Fort Benjamin Harrison - crazy. And that's just the main building.

Took a short train out there one afternoon and walked around. We skipped going inside, since we knew that future visitors would want to do that. They are also cleaning the outside similar to what they are doing for Notre Dame, so half of it is clean and white - while the other half is under scaffolding. Oh well, it was still impressive.

Paris: Versailles, The Gardens

Probably more impressive than the actual palace would have to be the gardens themselves. There are more places to have your own little trist than you could accomplish in your lifetime. Essentially everywhere you turn there is another fountain, alleyway, or garden - again, another reason they lost their heads.

Since we didn't have much time at Versailles, we didn't even make it to 80% of the place.

Paris: Versailles, The King's Potager

Favorite part of the whole trip to Paris would probably have been the Potager du Roi. Apparently Kings needed to eat too, and it was before the invention of Wal-Mart - so one of the Louis commissioned a kitchen garden. It was pretty huge, and one of its claims to fame was that they were able to grow figs year round.

The french are still more accomplished in the kitchen garden thing than most others that I've met (sorry, Hilary) - since they are constantly having something come up for almost every month of the year. Needless to say I took a lot of notes.

Paris: Les Invalides

Again, it was a walk by. Les Invalides is where Napolean's tomb is - kind of a monstrous thing, so we didn't really go in. Dome is one of the highest points in Paris proper, and they had just redone the gold leaf for the bicentennial of the french revolutino - so it looked pretty good.

Paris: Arc de Triomphe

Big tourist attraction - not that really interesting once you get there.

I do remember the first time I visited this thing a long time ago, I didn't realize that there was actually an underground passageway to get to the arc (instead we kind of did the Frogger thing and avoided 8 lanes of french driving). It's purpose, you ask, political propoganda for good ole Napolean.

Paris: A Cool New Car

While walking on the Champs Elysses (think Indy Fashion Mall outside - just more expensive), we stopped by the Peugot (sp?) dealership. Cool car (only had one wheel in the back, and it wasn't because someone stole it). For more info, you know where to go . . . Patrick.

Paris: Place de la Concorde

Excited to see this after being in Luxor, Egypt and seeing the obelisks twin. I think it was cooler in Egypt, but they did have some interesting schematics on how they moved it and put it up 100 years ago. The only thing was that they were so proud of being able to put it up 100 years ago, they forgot that the Egyptians did it 4000 years ago (without unions).

Oh yes, and in case you're into the history thing - this is where Marie Antionette baby lost her head.

Paris: The Louvre

Next to the Hermitage, this has got to be one of the greater museums around. Patrick had never been there, so we had to do the highlight tour - Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Winged Vistory, Michelangelo's Slaves, etc. before lunch.

We did spend a lot of time in the Egyptian section in order to see all the stuff they mentionned in Egypt. We figure if we go to the British Museum, we'll pretty much see all the known Egyptian stuff. The place was packed, the DaVinci code spent most of their time there, so we took some photos - but that needs to wait until later.

Paris: Notre Dame

They cleaned the thing - it looks great. So good that we didn't even recognize it. Granted we were a little disoriented after our Metro ride, but it was white - instead of black.

Didn't go inside (Patrick doesn't really do the Church thing), and it was a bit busy; but when we go back we could see spending some more time there just to see where Quasimodo lived.

Flowers of the Week

You thought I forgot didn't you. Alas no. Continuing the tradition of there actually being some warmth in Alsace and therefore more produce, here is this week's flowers of the week - gerber daisies.

Technically they were not from the market, but they lasted forever.

Sunday Lunch at Faubert's

It's official - I'm a loser. Not only have we been invited twice to Philippe and Suzanna's for Sunday lunch - we've also not reciprocated.

Not sure if you can tell from the photo but Suzanna is pretty pregnant already (she's due any day now), so we will probably not be able to reciprocate for several months. Reason #413 why we need to stay longer. Lunch was great (joined by the Weber's and the Raulin's) - probably the best part was the cheese, with one being particularly memorable with walnuts. And the dessert wasn't too bad either - unlike German desserts, french desserts taste even better than they look.

Dinner with Joe's Parents

Joe's parents were in town this week, so we invited them all over for dinner at our place. Great people, actually - still not sure how they ended up with Joe. They're here a short time until they take off on a whirlwind tour of Europe - something like 40 countries in 3 days.

Did the classic Alsatian dishes - onion tart, baeckoffe, and chocolate fondant. Fun was had by all - except probably Joe, who had all his embarrassing childhood secrets revealed.

Bonnie's Birthday Card

The picture doesn't do the card justice, but I thought I would try anyway. Here's the birthday card that my sister-in-law, Bonnie, made for me. This is the third or fourth birthday card, and I've saved everyone. Thought I would just post it to show how talented she is.

Kelly wins City !!!

My niece, Kelly Fritz, won the Indianapolis High School Tennis Tournament! Got a call last night around 1AM from her, when she won - so after a few minutes of total confusion, I was able to piece it all together.

In case you don't follow the sport, here's the local article when they thought she could win it, and here's the next article when she actually did.

Not to sound like a too proud Uncle, but the short of it is...it's a big deal. Kelly chose Arsenal over several private schools because of diversity and academics (don't hear that too often). And no one knows the last time someone from a public high school won the city tournament over the dominant private schools (the records don't seem to go back that far). Oh yeah, and she's a freshman.

Sorry we missed it Kelly, sending something from afar.

And this later addition, a new article to read (and yes, I'm the uncle).

Chris is in town

Chris Glitzer, a colleague of Patrick's, is in town. They headed off to Giessen for training on Sunday afternoon after spending sometime on the wine route and going to Baden-Baden.

It was nice for Patrick to have someone from his project come over that he could show around town after so many visits with GBIP people. His project, CAPA, is pretty big too.

In search of Spider

After having Armagnac from my birth year - a mere 27 years ago . . . Patrick and I (along with Chris) went out with Laurence and Richard Ciravegna to the Restaurant a l'abbatoir (Or roughly translated: The Slaughterhouse Restaurant).

As you can suspect, the vegetarian offerings were not the best. But what do you really expect from a restaurant that was founded because the city butcher would go there everyday for lunch? Regardless, the purpose of our visit was to try araignée which is a specific cut of meat from the cow, which translates to 'spider' in french. It is considered by the french to be one of the best cuts of meat, and it was definitely enjoyed by all (well, except the vegetarian - I had mushrooms with a creme sauce).

Birthday Breakfast

I realize that I didn't take too many pictures of my birthday, it was a quiet day at home because of the holiday. But I did get a picture of an interesting tradition in France . . .

Basically if it's your birthday, you get to bring in pastries for everyone - not sure how that tradition started. They have this other tradition too of the person who has the birthday needs to take people out for dinner - again, I think the reverve option is better. Anyway, here are some of the leftovers (well, the leftovers as of 11AM).

Flowers of the Week

The Cathedral market has an amazing flower booth every Saturday - not like there are tons of flowers yet, but just two or three varieties that are very nice. The week before we had tulips, and this week was Lilacs (they lasted a lot longer than I would have expected, quite frankly).

Mindy is back

Yeah, Mindy Beigle is back. After being in Indy for IIT and staying a little bit before FIT was closer - she's now back in Strasbourg. Out of the hotel and in a new apartment (which I have not yet seen - ahem), the woman seems to have closet space. Oh yeah, she also got an automatic SUV - which is just a total contradiction in terms as far as car rentals go over here.

Lucia is getting married

Congratulations to Lucia - Alberto proposed and she accepted. They met each other when she was part of the Sesto implementation in Italy.

He's now around Geneva doing consulting, and Lucia is doing the inter-company long distance relationship for awhile. For me the best part is that his current assignment is with Nestle, which means I can get cheap Nespresso capsules . . . but enough about me. Congratulations to Lucia and Alberto.

Egypt

OK, I'm finally done. It took me awhile to get all the posts done on the Flat Stanley website, and all the other posts done (might even have a surprise video later) . . .

As some of you already know, Patrick and I went to Egypt for 8 days with Joe Moeddel. It was a tour that we had already arranged beforehand - and that was a REALLY good idea. Since everything was taken care of, we didn't have to waste any time running around looking/finding hotels, museums, or restaurants - so we could really spend our time seeing as much of Egypt as possible.

Egypt: Where Did We Go?

As some of you know, Patrick and I have been hosting my nephew's Flat Stanley for the last couple of months. So to make sure that I wasn't being redundant, I updated his blog with all the places we actually went in Egypt - so you can go there, or click on one of the individual sites we visited:

The Great Pyramids (Giza)
The Sphinx (Giza)
Mohamed Ali Mosque (Cairo)
The Jewish Synagogue (Cairo)
The Hanging Church (Cairo)
The Antiquity Museum (Cairo)
The Unfinished Obelisk (Aswan)
The Aswan High Dam (Aswan)
Temple of Philae (Aswan)
Temple of Sobek and Haroeris (Kom Ombo)
Temple of Horus (Edfu)
Cruising Down the Nile
Valley of the Kings (Luxor)
Valley of the Queens (Luxor)
Queen Hatshepsut Temple (Luxor)
Temple of Karnack (Luxor)
Luxor Temple (Luxor)
Scuba Diving in the Red Sea (Hurghada)

Egypt: The People

Here's a composite of the people we ran across in Egypt - sorry about not spelling the names correctly, everyone.

From left to right: Roz, our scuba instructor; unknown soldier guy at some unknown monument; our guide in Aswan; our guide in Luxor; Joe Moeddel, OK we knew him before; and Bishoy, our guide in Cairo.

Egypt: The animals we saw

Having fun with photo editors. I actually saw this done by a graphic designer, and I thought it was really cool. Here's a composite picture of all the animals that we saw in our visit. And yes, I don't know what they all are (except for the cow)

Egypt: So who got sick?

Alas, travelling to a country in Africa is not without its potential pitfalls. We were warned about not drinking the water, so we took about 3 gallons of bottled water with us. Unfortunately vegetables and fruits are rinsed at some point (and then get eaten), so it's kind of hard to totally avoid the bugs than run amok through the country.

I don't think Joe ever blew chunks, and Patrick did only after he got home (so he thinks it could have been the tarte flambee from Monday in Strasbourg). The only problem that I had was the night before scuba diving, I had a real bad stomach, fever, and couldn't sleep. Needless to say I was about 10 minutes from cancelling (they don't really train how to breathe underwater AND vomit), but things kind of settled down eventually - and I survived. So if you look at the scuba video, you'll see me sleeping A LOT.

Egypt: Scuba Diving - The Dive

Egypt: So what's it like to visit a military dictatorship

Sorry Hosni, but I thought I should point out that Egypt is still a military dictatorship. Not like we had long political discussions with our tour guides, but it was interesting to visit one after a long break. I think the last one I was in would have been Morocco 20 years ago.

Basically I think Mubarak is a little more photgenic than Chirac, but it's hard to tell, since we don't have any political posters up in France right now. I suppose if your not really running in an election, you kind of have to campaign all year round.

Egypt: Tipping

Tipping in Egypt has been raised to a new art form. We're not sure if it's just an ancient Arabian culture thing, or the fact that they just don't pay people enough - but you basically need to tip someone, something, for everything. They call it baksheesh, which translates to "you can't have enough egyptian pound notes in your pocket."

Fortunately they're only worth about 20 cents a piece, but since you have to tip to even get the parking attendant in the garage to take your money - you end up running out of them pretty quickly.

In one particularly good example, Patrick and I bought some postcards in a gift shop on our last day, and the total bill was 16 pounds. I gave the cashier a 20 (wanting the 4 one pound notes), but she quickly asked, "Do you have a 1 pound note, so I can just give you a 5er?" I, of course, said, "No" - Patrick didn't catch on at first and said, "Yes" (He knew that I had about 40 in my pocket). Basically we went back and forth until Patrick acted like he was looking for some and come up empty. Finally the woman reaches in the back of her drawer for a wad of about 300 one pound notes and painfully gives us our change of 4 pounds.

Egypt: Scuba Diving - The Wildlife

Egypt: What about all those bombs?

I suppose we can make a comment now that we are safely back in the US. As some of you may remember, there were a couple of bombs that went off on the Sinai Peninsula the week before we left for Egypt. Although we suppose a bomb could go off anywhere in Egypt, we were probably closest to the area when we were in Hurghada on the Red Sea - Dahab was about 200 kilometers away and on the other side of the Sinai Peninsula.

This is not the first time that Egypt has had problems (and from the number of people standing around with nothing to do in Cairo), it will probably not be the last; but we felt safe the entire time we were in Egypt.

Cairo (and apparently other Middle Eastern countries like Israel) do take security for their visitors very seriously. Pretty much every place we went (e.g. hotel, museum, temple, restaurant) had a metal detector (now, it may not have been turned on or made an American go through, but they had one). We also had a security follow us when we went to the Pyramids by ourselves the last day; and when we went through Luxor we had our own security guard. But that was not a result of the recent bombings, but have been put in place over time.

Not to be a bunch of heroes and/or idiots, but I think our attitude was that if we cancelled our trip to a place that we had wanted to visit for decades, because of the unfortunate events in the Sinai - then I guess the bombers really were winning.

Egypt: What surprised you the most?

Biggest surprise of the entire trip . . . the Pyramids are in the middle of the city. Technically it's between two cities - Cairo and Giza, but it's basically the equivalent of having them in Nora Plaza. There were some Doctor's offices that we no more than 500 yards from one pyramid, and there's a Kentucky Fired Chicken about 1000 yards away from the Sphinx. Is that urban planning at its finest or what?

Actually it was a good thing that the KFC was there - the water they were selling close to the pyramids wasn't the most reliable - and we were thirsty after a couple of hours out there.

Oh yeah, and I figured out how to add video easily to my website - check out the video I took.