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!