The Inauguration of President Hollande

Kathy and I were disappointed that the Pompidou was closed on Tuesday.  So we wandered down to L'Hotel de Ville.  A large crowd was gathering.  Incroyable, it was the inauguration of President Hollande.  A large crowd was gathered outside.  Inside, Hollande was giving a rousing speech about the special place of Paris in the Republic de France.  This was explained to me by a bystander in the crowd.  He said that all new Presidents were obligated to come and thank the people of Paris for their support.  As everyone knows, Paris is a special place.

I told my new friend that some Americans believed that Sarko was their only hope.  He said to me, "I was very against Sarko.  Next week Hollande will visit Obama.  I think they have very much in common."  

I told him that Angela Merkel - was their only hope now!

It was pretty fun.  Big crowd, lots of cheering, they sang the Marseille, waving flags.  It rained hard and the wind blew.  But just in time, the sun came out

We will post 2 videos on the blog ... in the first, Kathy demonstrates her tolerance for cold rainy weather (ne pas).  In the second, the President emerges to the People of France.  His wife has the white suit on.  He worked the crowd and jumped in the motorcade to the Palace.

I loved the African guy with the poster.  He was running all over.

Our Apartment in Paris

We rented an apartment in the Marais on the Place de Sainte Catherine.  It's a great location and has several restaurants within steps.  It's very comfortable and has everything we need.   It does get a little noisy at night because the people at the restaurants are a little rowdy and there's young people drinking and carrying-on on the Place.  This morning they're drilling and doing construction at the restaurant outside our window.  But such is life in the city.  Here's a link to the apartment.

www.vrbo.com/148105

Here are a few photos.

The door to our building, right outside one restaurant.

"Au Bistro de la Place", right on our Place.  We had a very nice lunch here.

This is our building.  We're on the 2nd floor corner as you're looking at it.

The view of the Place from our window.

Photos from Amsterdam

Here are a few photos from Amsterdam.  I now have fast Wifi so it's easy to upload them.

Reich Museum

Our Hotel

Botanical Garden

Houseboats are all over Ams (3000 in all)

Canal Ride

Nemo Museum designed by the architect of the Pompidou
It's out in the Main Harbor, clever, isn't it?

Bikes are all over Ams, it's the main mode of transportation.
It reduces cars in the city and makes it very livable.
But watch out when you cross the street!

Nous Parlons Francais

We arrived at our little apartment late last night.  Madalene greeted us.  She only spoke French.  So, of course, we started speaking French too.  On my previous trips to France, I had studied and reviewed with a tutor, first Maria Girsch, a friend and French teacher, who many of you know.  And then, most recently, with Francoise, my neighbor.  So when we made plans so suddenly to come to Paris, I was a little worried but I had heard that they speak much more English and also knew that to be so from our last trip to Paris.  So I was not really worried.  But when faced with someone who spoke only French, my brain had to kick in.  And, it did.  She told me I spoke quite well and she seemed to understand everything I said and we understood most of what she told us.  Mark better than I.  But he even told her it was our 25th wedding anniversary, in French.  So he did quite well.  All in all, it was a good kickoff to our first few minutes in Paris.  We are totally immersed now.  Off to the supermarche!

Nice trip so far, vacation starts today

While Kathy was enjoying Amsterdam at a leisurely pace, I went to the suburbs every day to the IBM office for training.  Although this was occurring in the Netherlands, it was an interesting reminder of how small the world is when you work for a global enterprise.  The Europeans are also frequently locked in conference rooms all day just like in the Midwest.  Curiously, the cafeteria does not accept cash.  For no reason I could discern, you are issued an employee badge (temporary in my case) that is based on standard smart credit card chip technology.  Before entering the cafe, one inserts your employee card in a machine that then sends money to your employee card from your credit card.  It seems like it would be simpler to avoid this step.  At the end our your visit, you go back to the machine and hit the refund button.  Coins flow into a little bowl.  Understanding how to use this process, not why, took 2 days since all of the instructions are only in Dutch and the German guy in the class dismissed the idea that he could puzzle out the Dutch instructions.  Like a small village, many very highly paid sales reps, spent time sharing this knowledge with each other.  There were nuances like -- not all credit cards worked.  The folks from Japan were the worse off given that knowledge of Japanese doesn't help much when trying to figure our what Dutch phrases meant.   Fueled by lots of "kafee groot" (that's, a large coffee, don't ask for decaf they think you are crazy and respond with a emphatic - "We don't have that") I got through the training which included how to closely read the IBM contracts - line by line.

Off we went.  I collected Kathy at the hotel in my cab - we loaded up and headed to the train station.  We acquired some snacks for the ride and are about 1 1/2 hours out from the Gare du Nord.  I think I will sleep late tomorrow, find a croissant and coffee, read my book and leisurely plan our next move.

The French at the training session suggested L'Ambroise on the Place du Voges for an elegant dinner and also recommended the Jules Verne on the deuxieme etage of the Tour Eiffel.  Our 25th anniversary celebration has finally begun.  I like to think that it will be worth the wait !!

Amsterdam

We arrived on Monday morning.  Easy flight.  The hotel let us in early so we had a nice nap before we took off for the day.  One of Mark's colleagues, Carla, met us and after lunch, we set off on a walking tour of Amsterdam.  This place walks your feet off.  The day was nice which I guess is unusual during this season in Amsterdam.  Lots of picturesque canals and buildings.  It reminds me of Venice a bit.  We stopped for a happy hour right on the canal.  It was cold but we toughed it out.  We had a bite to eat and I returned to the hotel via tram.  Lots of great public transportation here.  Mark stayed out late with Carla and they met some of the other IBM people.  I was glad to opt out of that.

Tuesday morning, Mark left for his class.  I spent almost the entire day at the Van Gogh museum.  They pronounce it "van guck".  So that must be the true pronunciation, who knew?  He was Dutch after all.  It's a great museum.  I like smallish museums like that because you can really get a picture of the artist's work when you concentrate on only one person.  Ask me anything about Van Guck and I can tell you.  At least until tomorrow and something else fills up those brain cells.

I then went to the Anne Franck house.  My granddaughter, Julia, 8 years old, just finished a report all about Anne.  She reminded me of all the details of Anne's Diary and inspired me to get the book and reread it.  So my visit was much more meaningful than it would have been otherwise.  Thanks, Julia, you are the greatest, teaching an old grandma new tricks.  They wouldn't let me take pictures so I had to get Julia a book with the pictures of the house in it.  I'm sure she will love it.  I've only just started to reread the book, but I'm certain I will finish during this trip.  A typical rainy day today but a bit warmer so it was a great day to do museums.

How about an apartment in Paris?

We've always been jealous of our friends, Lyle and Penny, who had a great experience living in Paris for two years.  So maybe we could rent an apartment, after retirement, for awhile in Paris.  Why don't we try it out for a very short time?  IBM cooperated last week by sending Mark to a training class for his new job in Amsterdam, just a short 3 hour train ride from Paris.  We had one week's notice.  But we're spontaneous people, some of the time.  So off we go, tomorrow, to Amsterdam and then to Paris.  Wish us "bon voyage".