First Week

Unbelievable, but I've already been here for more than a week! And there a plein de choses to tell.

Not exactly in terms of work, though. One had warned me that the mice for my experiments wouldn't arrive before the beginning of September, but as I have to be back in Munich by early October, I had no choice but to start a week earlier. Therefore, I've spent most of my time in the lab writing my report in advance. Today I was finally allowed to test the technique I'm gonna use on some old samples, so that makes for a change.

But outside the lab, I did have a great time discovering the different quartiers of Paris. I'm not normally the kind of person who likes wandering nilly-willy through the streets, but Paris is something different. Everything looks so inviting and the weather ist great, too, so that I've taken it as a habit to get off at different stations on my way home and just explore whatever is on the surface. Besides J took me on another little tour (and a lovely pique-nique right at the point of the Ile de la Cité) and I visited an open-air concert on Saturday with one of the girls from the lab.

On Sunday, however, I decided to be a big girl and do something on my own. In order to boost my number of visited World Heritage Sites, I went to Amiens and visited its magnificent cathedrale. Getting train tickets in France is fairly simple in comparison with China - the SNCF does have a website similar to the DB site (www.voyages-sncf.com) (if the link doesn't take you to the right site, try googling - don't know what Mauritus Yellow Pages have to do with French railways). You can buy tickets and pay via your credit card - the tricky part is when you actually try to get them. The ones for the TGV are fine because you can print them yourself. But the ones for Corail (more destinations, but slower than TGV) are issued at vending machines. In theory you simply have to insert the credit card you paid with and then you get your tickets. However, the French seem to use a different kind of credit cards with a chip on them. As my credit card doesn't feature a chip, it was simply not accepted by the machine. And even if you have the code of your reservation - you still need your credit card for proper identification. So after all I still had to queue up at the counter and have the lady there print my ticket - not exactly time-efficient.
And then, if you have your ticket, you shouldn't forget to stamp it before entering the train. At least that's what it says on the ticket. As I was daring (or stupid) enough not to stamp mine on the way back, I discovered that you simply have to see the controller who will sign the ticket to make up for the missing stamp. Easy does it, as a French proverb goes ;-).

Okay, so much for the French trains, but what I actually wanted to tell you is how lovely Amiens is - and how not you should not go on Sundays. Everything is closed down so that my only cheap option for lunch was a French variety of McDo (which I do not recommend). But as I just said, the cathedral was well worth the trip:

Does it look familiar? Yes, right, it is a lot like Notre Dame. But then, Amiens also have so cute little canals with a lot of multi-coloured houses which you definitely cannot find in Paris. Adorable!

Altogether, it was a very pleasant Sunday. And next weekend is gonna be just as good since I'm going to Strasbourg!

Paris - Last day off and first day in the lab

Okay, I guess time's overdue for an update ... Sunday was very relaxed indeed. I got some baguette first and later, J made me some Croq Monsieur for lunch. Croq Monsieur is the French term for sandwiches made with a sandwich maker, you basically just add cheese and ham and that's it. But it tastes good and with 42 evenings in which I'll have to cook for myself ahead of me, I'm grateful for any tips on simple meals. After a shopping stop at the Chinese-French supermarket (in which all the fruits are labeled in Chinese and where they have a huge variety of 水饺- yummie!), we went for a little walk which lead us through the non-touristic sites of Montmartre over to Gare du Nord. There we got my Passe Navigo which relieves me of all the single tickets in my pockets (even if it was probably cheaper to continue on Carnets) and ultimately made it to Paris Mondial, by walking through the African, Indian and Chinese streets in our arrondissement. It's really amazing - there's one street where there are only Sari-Shops, jewelers and Indish restaurants and in the next one, you feel as if you warped to Nairobi, with a lively outdoor market going on and everyone looking funny at you because you're white. I mean it's not that there aren't any "coloured" people in Germany, but over here it's le bled (very cool word that originally meant home country, but is used nowadays for French quarters in which you don't feel like being in France anymore). They dress differently (not all of them are wearing multi-coloured tunics, but they have their own style) and they seem to spend a good time of the day just hanging out in groups on the street and drinking tea. It's fascinating just to watch them, so my way to and from the metro never will be boring.

If only the same was true for my work ... my first day in the lab passed fairly well, everyone seems to be nice, lab is clean and tidy and my French is getting back by the minute, but you know how first days are: they give you a pile of papers to read and if you're really lucky, you might start mixing buffers. Well, I wasn't lucky, so all I did was making lists of the antibodies we still have *yawn*. But on the other hand, work is sure to come, so I'd better not complain now ;-).

Paris - Journée 1

Travellers' stories are always the most interesting ones and so I'm not to blame for keeping my blog only up to date when travelling or about to do so. As my latest journey somewhat doesn't fit within the China-range of my usual blog, I've decided to transform this old one from a book blog into a travel blog. Hope you'll enjoy it!

So we'll start with the first day of a trip d'une Allemande (qui confond toujours le français avec le chinois) à Paris ...

With a tiny little delay of only one hour and 20 minutes (bomb warning between Ulm and Stuttgart - live coverage on FB) I arrived at Gare de l'Est this noon, where my patient flat mate was still waiting for me (just kidding - of course I told him in advance that I'd arrive late. Honestly, what do you think of me??). The flat is really part of Little Africa and there are some streets I being a woman would not walk through on my own, but besides living in this quarter (18. arrondissement) is quite inspiring. As a special welcome I was greeted by a colorful demonstration parade of sans-papiers (illegal immigrants) - if my flat mate hadn't told me I'd really have thought it to be some late version of carnival. The flat itself is chaotic, but rather clean and I'll be definitely able to call it home for the next six weeks (watch the countdown!)
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After I had settled in, J took me for an outing with his brother, his brother's wife and his cousin - pour profiter de la bonne journée. So we spent a really French evening: first we watched the crowd around Centre Pompidou while eating some flower ice-cream (okay, it really was Italian ice-cream advertised in English, but yummie nonetheless). The scoops are called parfums here which I personally find rather interesting. Then we went for a free view of the skyline up on the roof of Centre Pompidou - you just have to tell the guy on the left that you want to visit the restaurant up there and he'll give you a piece of paper you can use as a ticket. Superb!

After a walk over the Ile St Louis, we got some food in a small épicerie and had a picknick at the bank of the Seine. Obviously French people are fed up with their delicious baguette because we had American sandwich toast instead, but otherwise it was a very French thing to do and great fun, too. And last but not least we hit one of the open-air dance floors along the Seine for a few steps of Salsa (I'll spare you any videos, but a Salsa class is definitely one of my top priorities once I'm back to Munich).

Well, it doesn't sound like much, but I really enjoyed myself and it looks as though I've get to know some French life style outside the lab, too! And now, considering that I woke up at 4 am today, you might excuse me ...*zzz*

All the photos ...