.... and I was not on the Land of the Long White Cloud anymore! (Aotearoa- or New Zealand). No, I have traveled one humongous odyssey to Paris to attend the International Conference on Information Systems.
This is not the Sunshine coast of QLD (yes that is a real place in AU). This is not even the Land of Sunshine (the motto on our QLD liscence plate). It is Europe, it is winter, it is about 3 degrees C, overcast and damp. The city seems tired, no one is smiling, and the wrinkles are more pronounced (though maybe I am projecting!). The contrast with NZ is striking - major traffic (you step into ANY street with your life in the balance!), the marvelous architecture reeks ancient history (Except for La Defence - more on that another time). It is a big city - there are more people crammed in here as live in all of the S Island of NZ.! Culture shock in a big way.
I have had half a day to tear about the city - the great live-aboard barges (with the fancy on-deck gardens, great subshades - these things are palacial), have all been put to bed for the winter, the fountains by the Louve are encrusted in ice, X-mas decorations are going up all over. There are gun toking armed service chaps patrolling about in the big tourist spots (The Eiffel Toer, the la Louve etc). There are quite a few tourists about as evidenced by the number of people standing in front of monuments to get their pictures taken (you can tell the locals because they don't even LOOK down the alley to see the Eiffel Tower shining across the Seine. Sort of like having the Grand Canyon in your back yard - after a while you forget to see it)
They really don't want you wlking in the street here. These signs are all over. The Ozzies think they have roundabouts - hey, they got nothing on this place. AU roundabouts have lines painted on them, arrows, signage. Here - its a free for all, roundabouts about 10 lanes wide, no signs, no lanes - cars cut across all the lanes of traffic from the inside lane -- eveyone stops, honks loudly, yells complimentary things (it's French - I assume they are saying nice things!)
as the hapless driver creeps to some exit.
Much drama!
Message -- don't walk in the street. Ever.
The next few blogs will be a bit a temporal - I don't have good edit software here and less time. So There will be some more Paris shots, then more scenes from NZ and AU. Nancy didn't make this sojurn - the AU dollar has fallen so far that we realized she could spend a week in Paris in winter... or... for the same amount.. we could spend 3 weeks in Tas and NZ in summer.
No contest.
No comments:
Post a Comment