Hi - so far this blog has been dedicated to my sight-seeing adventures while living in Paris. Rightly so. But I thought I'd focus on the more routine events of my week in this posting. Be forewarned (in case you prefer to just skip it). But I will say that without the people I work with, being in Paris would get old very quickly.A little background. When I arrived in June, there was a team of about 6 IFS consultants, mostly from the UK, whom I joined. They all would come each Monday and leave Thursday night or Friday morning. So I knew there would be others to dine and do things with. Also, I had friends from the customer project team from my previous time here. We would get together periodically also. All of this changed when the project was re-organized. IFS involvement was reduced, and I moved from the customer site to our nearby IFS office in Courbevoie. As a result, my work on the project changed from actively working with a team to working on my own helping with modifications and testing. Not so exciting, I must say. However, the silver lining was getting to know the people in the IFS France office. The group was very welcoming, and they take care of me (just like my French colleagues from the customer).
My normal day starts with the commute: walk from the apartment up to Place Victor Hugo. Take the #2 metro to Charles de Gaulle Etoile and switch to the #1 to la Defense. Usually it is not too crowded because a leave around 8am. If I left half an hour later, it would probably be a different story. Since daylight savings went off, it's light in the morning if it isn't too cloudy. If weather is OK, I walk by the Grand Arch, then down to Courbevoie, and then to the IFS office.
Generally, I'll work on my own or with some of the IFS UK team over the phone. Since I'm on my own I can set my own hours pretty much. As mentioned, I come in a bit early so I also tend to leave a bit early. General thought in France is that you MUST be at work from 9am to 6 pm. It's OK to arrive early, but no leaving early (unless you are like me...). France is not comfortable with the idea of flex time. It's a bit more relaxed at the IFS office. Also, I will typically have lunch with some of my friends from our customer once a week or so. The flexibility I have is nice, but I'd prefer a more solid assignment working with other people.
As far as evenings go, Debbie and I typically eat at home. Maybe there will be one night that we will go out with some colleagues from work if anyone is in town, and we may go out ourselves once or twice more a week. At home, we'll either get something from the nearby Casino (grocery store), or pick up Chinese or Pizza for take away. I stop on the way home to pick up a baguette and maybe dessert. It's pretty routine. With no daylight savings time, it's dark now when I'm coming home - I'm missing summer where it stays light until 10pm. Dinner time for us is usually around 7:30 to 8pm (early by French standards). Earlier in the year when it was light, we might go for a long walk after dinner. Now that it's cold and dark, we stay in. We have to wait until 8:50 to watch TV - at that time, you can find reruns of various American TV shows (NCIS, Without a Trace, Desperate Housewives, Bones, and others that we never heard of before). The Freebox setup we have allows you to change the language (on some shows) to the original. For every show you can do that with, there are more that you cannot. Other interesting aspects of French TV include 1) commercials only about once or twice an hour; 2) multiple episodes of the shows are shown one right after another (but not at all consecutive - maybe even from different years).
We do stay up until maybe even 11pm before going to bed (late for AZ, but early in France). There you have it - a normal day/week of my life in Paris.
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