The street leading to the office.
Just the usual working day. Other than a lady being electrocuted at her desk after someone pulled the cord out of the plug of some electronic device and didn't remove the plug. She went to plug in her laptop and was out cold. Luckily she was fine and returned to work. If it would have been me, I doubt I'd be back at the desk by afternoon. Abder took us to lunch at a restaurant the French loosely see as American food. It's called Cafe Indiana and the logo is a big, almost offensive Native American effigy.
Cafe Indiana. Not sure why the menu says "club".
The menu is hamburgers and "Tex-Mex" food. What the hell. I got the chicken enchiladas.
My enchiladas.
I have to say, they were better than I expected. After work, Vincent drove us to the LaFayette Galleries to shop. It's a fashionista's dream. Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Dior. They even charged 5 euro per minute to window shop. Not wanting to spend my cats inheritence, I opted for some Chanel cologne that was a bargain at slightly less than my car payment. It was worth the feeling of superiority walking the streets of Paris with a Chanel bag in hand. By the end of the night I was swinging it at unattractive people and yelling at them to get out of my way because Ms. Coco was about to meet me at a restaurant. I think they know she's dead, but it still made me feel better about myself.
The three of us wandered our way past the shops for our reservation at En Vue, a modern French restaurant. Modern = expensive. French = expensive with attitude. Actually the staff was very nice and the food/wine incredible. Young and hip crowd. We were sore thumbs. Post-dinner drinks at Buddha Bar, a hip bar/restaurant that has a few locations around the world. Typically hard to get into without connections but being a Tuesday night, we didn't have any problems. The place is two levels, with the upper looking down into the restaurant. A two story wooden Buddha oversees the revelers. We sat down in a small cove and I noticed a large wooden bowl of shrimp chips at the table. Yum, I love those things. I offered my two companions a chip but they declined. Fine, more for me. Delicious. As I put the last bite in my mouth, I had a sudden realization that no other tables had shrimp chips. I looked at Sue just as we both said "I think those were left here by the last people..." I looked up only to see the other patrons stare at me, frozen, mid-drink. I can only imagine the horror they expressed to their guests of the overbearing American plopping himself down and eating everyone's leftovers. Sue and I couldn't contain ourselves and made the situation even worse by laughing ourselves to tears. After paying $75 for three drinks (yes, three total drinks, not three drinks each), we walked to the Champs-Élysées, past the American embassy, and admired the beautiful lights.
About 11:45, we got back in the car and drove to the Trocadero, just across the river from the Eiffel Tower. It was stunning to walk around the corner and see the tower lit up in blue lights. We took a few pictures and at midnight, the whole tower began flashing in millions of white lights. It was quite a sight.
Sue and Vincent.
The Eiffel Tower at night.
The Eiffel Tower at midnight with all the lights flashing.
We finally piled home by 12:30. We finished our work that was supposed to go through Wednesday early so we decided we'd have an easier day tomorrow
Today (Wednesday), we met my colleague Cyril in the lobby for a lunch meeting. We went to a cafe in the area of the hotel. I ordered what was translated as "pork roast". Out comes this pig's leg, complete with skin. The waiter carved it up and served it with sauerkraut and potatoes. One of the best things I've eaten here. Tomorrow is another round of meetings in another office. These meetings have potential to be a little stressful as they involve the global team of a pharmaceutical company. But of course afterward we have arranged for another colleague to take us out for dinner and drinks.
