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I had been looking forward to a quiet september but as it often happens in my life suddenly everything changes. I had to go to Paris for work twice in the past two weeks and I wasn’t too happy about it. But I do what I have to do – part of my understanding of doing my job. Last week it was just an overnighter but this week I had two nights so on the second night I went geo-caching around the Eiffeltower. When it started to get dark I had enough and was thinking about taking the metro back but then decided to walkRead More →

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I know that I usually post some pics from carnival but it is mostly always the same and I was just too busy to upload them… a week after carnival I had to go back to Paris for several days. I wanted to take pictures with the Eiffeltower at sunrise but unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate. The sun probably did rise but not anywhere were I could see it. 😉 But I played around a bit in the evening…  Read More →

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So I had to go back to Paris this week and on thursday I was finally lucky because the weather was cooperating (not that I had seen any daylight all day since the meeting room didn’t have any windows) so I left the office early (meaning 6 PM) and together with one of my colleagues from Dublin took the metro over to the Montparnasse Tower. Going there had been on my bucket list for a while but something or the other always made me not go. The only regret I have is that I didn’t stop at my hotel to get my tripod but IRead More →

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Well, I wasn’t really happy about it but this week I had to go to Paris for 3.5 days. If work needs to be done, work needs to be done. Nothing I can do about it. I was lucky to get a room in my favorite hotel again, which is not really a hotel, but a ’serviced residence‘. Meaning that nobody makes my bed, I have to clean up after myself BUT I have a kitchen with water cooker, toaster, microwave and dishwasher. In addition these appartments are usually bigger than the hotel rooms in Paris AND they are cheaper. And this specific one doesRead More →

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Since I am still a bit jet-lagged I went to sleep early yesterday evening. When I got up this morning I had some concerned messages on Facebook but at first I had no idea what was going in. When I read the news I was a total mess. I sent a message to my manager and one hour later I heard that he is OK. As for the rest of our team – we will have to wait till monday. In the meantime we got an email that until further notice all business trips to Paris have to be cancelled and our co-workers in ParisRead More →

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This week I had to go back to Paris again. But this time it coincided with a stay of my friends Jack and Linda from North-Carolina who are on a trip across Europe. Originally the plan had been to meet last weekend in Belgium but I had to cancel that. So I was happy that we would have one evening in Paris together. They came to meet me at the office at 6 PM when it was time for me to finish work. While catching up on our lives (I hadn’t seen them since 2008 in North Carolina) we walked over to the Trocadero whereRead More →

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So, my first trip to Paris was a bit uncomfortable. I had a headache the night before leaving and I took the headache with me. Unfortunately it didn’t wanna leave me so the first evening in Paris I went to sleep early. The second day I intended to leave the office at a reasonable time but then suddenly it was late again so I just passed at the hotel to leave my laptop there and went on Champs Elysees to take some pics of the christmas decoration. Here is my favourite pic from that evening… Now I am getting ready to leave again for ParisRead More →

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I am a sucker for christmas markets. Today the ones here in Cologne opened and as it has become my own personal tradition I went to eat a ham-sandwich on the one close to where I live. The next two weeks I will be mostly in Paris though. I love the Christmas Markets in Paris too and although I wasn’t too happy when I found that I had to go twice in a row I will take the occasion to visit two smaller christmas markets that I haven’t been to before. Here is a pic from La Defense two years ago…Read More →

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Last week my favourite hotel gave me the best room ever… had a great view over Paris (but didn’t bring the right lense to zoom in closer 🙁 ). I took time to enjoy the view every day. I knew it was limited to three nights.Read More →

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I went to Paris thinking I could spend my evenings taking pics of the christmas decoration. I should have known better. Ever since May the weather got bad as soon as I arrived in Paris and would clear up only on my departure. This time was not different. Mornings of clear blue skies (when I was working). Lunch break was already grey skies and the evenings were bad. I did manage to get couple of pics on the first evening though. Hope it’ll get better next year… *sigh*Read More →

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Yeah, I admit it: I abolutely LOVE Creme brulee…. 🙂 And as far as this is concerned Paris is creme brulee-heaven. Whenever I am here I eat creme brulee at least once. Last time I was in a brasserie where it was set on fire in front of me so it was more creme flambee instead of creme brulee. Just had one again and the creme was heaven… yesterday I did have a new creme brulee experience though. We were in a restaurant where I read on the menue that is was ‚custard cream on spices‘. Didn’t know what it meant but ordered it anyway.Read More →

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Fortunately the days are getting longer so today after work I took the RER for a photo-session at the Pantheon again…. was there at sunset (which was in the opposite direction) but the light was great anyway…. Not sure I can go anywhere tomorrow night since tomorrow there will be a general strike in France so I don’t know if I’ll be able to escape La Defense in the evening.Read More →

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… and important as well. This was my first week with the people of my department and nobody needed to ask if I am happy in that department. I am afraid a lot of people couldn’t work as we were giggling a lot… 😉 Here are a couple of pics I shot during the days there…. You wouldn’t think this is Paris, wouldn’t you? 😉 When you come to Place de la Bastille you expect very old buildings with lots of history. What you find there is this though: Walking towards the Louvre again you find some older buildings though. This here was built inRead More →

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Well, still not well again and I hope this nightmare will end soon… it’s just as it is right now. Can’t change it although I tried. Here are some pics from last week in Paris. On sunday I went to Moulin Rouge and Montmartre with Sacre Coeur. Loved that Carroussel on MontMarte View over Paris When I got back to the hotel a thunderstorm was coming… The next day after work I went for dinner near Centre Pompidou (had a Croque madame again) . I’ve always loved that fountain with sculptures of Nicky de Saint Phalle.Read More →

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Well, when I was in Paris on tuesday it turned out that I had to be there again on thursday. Since I was still there and had planned to go home I was thinking about not going home but to extend my stay by two days. I couldn’t get a flight for thursday morning but the hotel wanted 600 Euro per night for the additional two nights I didn’t stay (it was not MY money but just the thought of this made me say ’no‘). Didn’t want to spend too much time looking for alternatives either so I came back home tuesday and took theRead More →

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Was lazy when I wasn’t traveling but yesterday the blog seems to have had technical difficulties so I couldn’t upload any pics…. so here are a couple… Don’t have to say what this is, do I? 😉 Likeed this canon because it was smiling so nicely at me… 😀 I always liked this church (Dome des Invalides) Yeah, I know I somehow played ‚tourist‘. Didn’t have much time though… So here are some completely different pics… while going to Paris I could see that the canola fields are in full bloom. So on sunday I went to the countryside for a fotosession…. Yesterday I spentRead More →

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I have been lazy the last two weeks since it was tooooo heavenly to be at home… now that I have to think about the next trip (going to Paris on sunday and on monday from there to Zurich) I finally downloaded the pics from the last trip. Will take more on sunday since I will have part of the afternoon for sightseeing before I have to be in the office on monday morning. *sigh* Never had so many cushions in my bed in France (first time I stayed in that hotel): View from my room the next morning: The lobby…. Liked the mirror ofRead More →

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This time when I arrived I heard that the taxis were on strike. A swiss colleague joint me at my terminal and told me. We didn’t have any problems though and were in La Defense within 25 minutes. 🙂 Since we always arrive late in Paris we didn’t go to the city any more that evening. Just met with my boss and that was it. In the mornings we always meet in a bar close to the office for a coffee and croissants. Having breakfast at the hotels is incredibly expensive (and usually I don’t eat anything in the morning, I just need my coffee).Read More →

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Okay, here some of our stories to the pics… on tuesday evening I arrived at the airport Charles de Gaulle in time. No problem there. Then we went to get our trolleys which we had checked in. We looked up the belt where our luggage was supposed to arrive and waited. Three flights were delivered there and we saw the status ‚delivery in progress‘ for another flight and waited for ours. Suddenly below our flight we only saw ‚Delivery over‘ What the heck…. We waited some more but no more luggage arrived. Of course we started to get mad and were already thinking about howRead More →

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Well, Paris was …. I don’t know. Nice and not so nice at the same time. We had to work MUCH more than I had expected so these again were very long days. I was able to take a few pics though when we went from one place to another or from the meeting room we spent the two days in. The one in the subway was taken while I was moving on the escalater… 😉Read More →