My first paycheck

Went to pick up my bank card today, and in the process found out that my first paycheck had come in! Good thing too because the money I had since coming out here was on its last legs (i.e. had no legs left at all). Also I now have 4 bank accounts, check me out. Becoming a proper businessman - the suits, the bank accounts, all I need now is a cape and fangs.

Artist's representation of how much I earned

I've found out it's also much easier to spend money in a currency you're not familiar with. You sort of think "these sheets of paper and lumps of metal can buy me things?!" and not "holy crap, I have no money left to eat now". I'm slowly starting to appreciate the value of the Euro though, even if Greece and Spain may soon make that a pointless endeavour (ooh topical).

My new favourite word

Apologies to the supporteurs of "pardon" but I've made room in my coeur for another word. Are you ready? It's the humble, unassuming "d'accord". For non French-speakers, it means...er it means... well it can mean a huge variety of things, which is one of the main reasons I love it so much! Meanings vary from "alright" to "sounds good" to "yes, I'll do that 3000 word translation for you, you lazy...". 

It's the standard "smile, nod and hope it wasn't a question" but you have a word in your arsenal that makes this approche even more effective. And you thought it wasn't possible!

The only downfall of this approach is if it actually was a question and you didn't clock on. The French have a bad habit of not intoning the end of their sentences to make it a question. So quelquefois that leads to situations like:

Me: "So how was your weekend?"

Them: "Yeah pretty good actually, just lounged around. What did you do?"

Me: "Yeah, right."

Update - My experiment on the Paris metro

If you haven't read my earlier post (go read it right now), this experiment consisted of trying to bring cheer to the metro by looking as cheerful as possible when I'm on it. I can tell you that it's going pretty well so far. It gives you a surprising amount of courage knowing that you won't ever see any of the people on the train again. However, I have decided to lose the manic smile and have settled for a conservative half-smile instead.

For the miserable French though, I'm practically Santa Claus.

On a side-note:

"A single step can change your life"

Step Up 4 is called "Sexy Dance 4" in France. Make of that what you will.

Peace from Paris.

My first time making a fool out of myself (not)

Encounter with a tramp

So there I am, sitting on a bench near where I live eating a fruit salad just minding my own business. This tramp emerges from nowhere and sits next to me - no big deal, maybe he just craves human contact. Then he starts talking to me, in some dialect I could barely understand (Hobo-ish), so in a flash of genius I decide to pretend I'm German. A gruff "Entschuldigung, ich bin Deutsch" manages to ward him off. Crisis averted.

There's a positive correlation between the amount of sun in a park and the number of attractive girls in said park

A false friend

For a bunch of French words, you can get away with just saying the English word in a French accent. 

Example: "Competition" -> "Compeetiizition" (That's my poor representation of a written French accent).

There's others you'd think you can do the same with but mean radically different things. I found this out the hard way in my local branch of Franprix. Again feeling quite confident for some reason, I decided to ask one of the stackers why the bread lasts so long: 

"Y a t-il beaucoup de préservatifs dans le pain ici?". If you don't study French, this might seem alright to you. But preservative/préservatif is one of those false friends you can't Frenchify. 

So basically, I asked her "Are there many condoms in the bread here?". Not exactly what I meant... There seems to be a trend emerging between me feeling confident in my language skills and making a fool out of myself in supermarkets - awesome.

Interesting day at work

I went out with a few fellow Nottingham Parisians yesterday for more than a few drinks yesterday night (nice meeting y'all). Had the worst gueule de bois (hangover) this morning and faced a 9-6 day - nightmare. The fact there was a random dog on the metro should have warned me today was not gonna be a normal day. Literally just got on the train without a care in the world.

Dog chilling on the train - casual.

After a beautiful typical Parisian lunch, I literally fell asleep at my desk for 5 minutes. I was tempted to go to the toilet just to take a powernap but then one of the most surreal things that I've ever seen happened.

Imagine waking up to 5 people randomly dancing in the middle of the office. I know, pretty surreal eh. Apparently, they were watching some flashmob video on YouTube and decided to join in.

I like it here!

Peace from Paris.

My first Tour de France

What a weekend.

In total contrast to last weekend, this one was hectic - I actually stepped out of the house (I know, but it gets even better).

Friday - dinner on the Champs Elysées

Friday it was time to meet up with an old friend - of which there seem to be plenty floating around, weirdly.

So I'm standing on the platform, waiting for the train that will take me to the restaurant (on the Champs Elysées no less), when a timid-looking girl sidles up to me and awkwardly gestures at the tracks "Eiffel Tower"? Seeing as she clearly wasn't sure if I spoke English, I was tempted to shrug (in a convincingly French way - maybe with a little "putain" for credibility) and say something like: "Désolé mais je parle pas anglais". Realising it wasn't a big deal being able to convince a foreigner I was a native speaker, and slightly taking pity on her, I summoned my most reassuring British accent. Turns out Diane's Australian and left to live the dream in Europe. Respect. Totally should have got her "06".

The restaurant we ate at served a combination of French and German food, and was pretty good if pretty expensive. €22ish euros got me 2 courses which ain't bad at all for the Champs. The food was pretty good but the wine left something to be desired - a "vintage" 2009 just won't cut it. Food - the kraut was pretty damn sauer and the crème pretty damn brûlée (I could be a food critic), but that didn't stop it being demolished in a minute flat.

Objects in image taste better than they appear

Saturday - Friends made, Money lost

Nothing much happened on the Saturday, apart from a poker game with the flatmates where I met my first real live French stereotype (minus beret). The less said about the poker game the better. Went from being chip leader to losing all my significant stake of 7 euros with 2 pair (Aces and 10s), and on a bad beat. So that was Saturday.

Sunday - Tour de France

Man did I regret going to bed at 4am on Sunday morning. First, I overslept and thought I'd missed the Tour de France (missing Bastille day still haunts me) and then was halfway to the station before I realised my camera was uncharacteristically light. Apparently, you need batteries.


After navigating my way out of the metro station, which took about as long as the actual metro trip, I met up with a certain co-Parisian and we headed off to the Champs to catch some cycling action. Easier said than done - the roads were packed and it didn't help the gendarmes had closed half of said roads. 


After hunting for a spot, we found one that was poifect but it wasn't long before we were under attack...two diminutive Vietnamese women's blitzkrieg caught us by surprise. I bend over to tie my shoelace and by the time I've straightened up they have me surrounded. Pincer movement - oldest trick in the  book. Being a fiercely territorial creature, I held my ground and saw out their offensive until they eventually backed down. Victory.


They may take our personal space, but they'll never take..our freedom!

Sergeant Green calling in reinforcements

I took my camera in the hope of getting some awesome photos but the place was infested with other photographers and it was near impossible to get good shots. By the end I was just rapid-firing above my head - the 'shoot and hope' manoeuvre. Managed to get a few passable ones, check my Facebook over the next few days.

If I ever find out whose head this is, they won't have one left after I'm done with 'em

So a pretty sweet weekend all in all! Roll on the rest of the year abroad.


Peace from Paris.

My first drinks in Paris

So I went out for the first time in Paris today. The term might conjure images of...well it might not conjure any images at all if a certain substance features heavily. Binge-drinking aside, the French (unfortunately or fortunately) seem to have a much more reserved and cultured idea of sortir. That being said, all I did was grab a few drinks at a bar so I might be being unfair to French night-life, we'll see.

Cheering up a cashier

So after having a few drinks with an old friend, I made my way home but not before stopping at the local supermarché to pick up some dinner. Perhaps it was the fact that I'd had a pretty good day or maybe the cocktails were catching up to me (more probable), but I was feeling rather buoyant as I strolled in so I thought I'd strike up a conversation with the miserable-looking cashier. She didn't seem impressed as I greeted her with 'Bonjour Monsieur' then proceeded to forget all my pre-constructed 'spontaneous' small talk. Time to retreat - some battles are best fought another time, and also in a language you know.

The pot de départ

Three of the five interns at the company are leaving this week so we had a little farewell party at the office today. 

Free food, drink and forced conversation

After a few short speeches, people started trickling out until it was pretty much the youngest five in the office left. When the adults are away, the interns will play; most of the two bottles of champagne was consumed by our generation today. Stereotypes are a wonderful thing. This was also the first time I'd properly socialised with the colleagues, and they're not so bad after all (despite the Frenchness). The French are people too, who knew?

Otto's leaving means I'll have more work to do but on the plus side, I get a sweet desk out of it. Like I said, life's a game of give and take.

Monsieur Badrinath can't take your call right now, he's busy posing for a photo

My Metro experiment

Yes, it's another paragraph on the metro. Not a critique today but just an experiment I'm going to try out. Since everyone on the metro looks like they're at a funeral (maybe one for personal space), I've decided I'm going to try and look as cheerful as I possibly can  when I'm on the train from now on. My own little rebellion against miserability.

The face that will bring cheer to the metro/get me arrested

A note on awkwardness

I thought I should quickly address the issue since our generation seems obsessed with the term. If you think you know awkward, think again. There's nothing worse than an awkward situation in another language. Not only can you barely make conversation but you can't pre-empt any awkwardness because you don't have the linguistic skill. This was painfully obvious at the leaving party; if you're me you just point out the closest thing you know the French word for. 

So in a lull in converation, I randomly blurted out "tomate".

Peace from Paris.

My first proper weekend in Paris

Completely forgot it was Bastille day ce weekend. The biggest holiday in the French calendrier and fwit, right over my head. That would explain the signs advertising "BASTILLE DAY" offers outside shops and restaurants. The main reason I didn't realise is because apparently the French don't get a day off when a public holiday falls on a weekend. Not so lazy after all.

Saturday

In other news my flatmate's phone was almost stolen at a metro station today!

Apparently he ran after the guy and after a few minutes the thrilling chase culminated with a rather anticlimactic "I found your phone on the floor mate". In French of course, not the aggressive Cockney brogue I translated it into in my head. No-one better pull that stuff with me or they'll face the full force of my poorly conjugated insults and tame French swear words.

Then that night, me and my flatmates got takeaway. It's Domino's so I was a bit cautious having been told it's nothing compared to its British contrepartie. One of them innocently suggests the 'Indienne' one for me - what a stereotype, unbelievably offensant. 


(...It does sound awesome though, so I go for it). 

Someone at Domino's is a stickler for French grammar

After we've polished off the pizza, the poker set comes out. It starts off fairly casual, but as the others are knocked out one by one, it ends up being an intense heads-up between me and a guy who's been playing in casinos for years. A few hands later, I'm surprised I'm up on him. Apparently I have an uncanny ability to unsettle opponents that throws 'em off their game. Something about unpredictability and playing hands fast and loose. Don't know if that's exactly something to be proud of but at the very least, I have a bright career in professional poker if the whole graduation thing doesn't work out!

Stop me, I'm a madman

Sunday

While making a sandwich for dinner (nothing wrong with that), I discovered bread lasts a lot longer here in Paris. A loaf I bought all the way back on my first day is still in date. Probably some unholy French process that's illegal elsewhere.

Went roaming for a bit to make up for missing Bastille Day but this city is a ghost town (/city) on Sundays. So I came back to watch TV (Suits is awesome). I've started assigning the characters to people in my office. This should make things interesting, especially as I have  Donna, the receptionist with an attitude, down (with the lady who answered the phone "Oui boii").


The year abroad dream will have to wait till next week but all in all, not a bad weekend.

Peace from Paris.

My first pizza in Paris

OK so the title isn't as catchy as the others but I had to complete the Holy Trinity of "My First..." posts, this is probably the last you'll hear of them (ha).

Day 3 of my working life

My third jour of life as an intern (pronounced: errand boy) and things are going pretty well. Apart from the fact I had to wait 20 minutes for someone to let me into the office, goddamn lazy French. But something me and Otto translated from English -> French yesterday was published by a bunch of media outlets today so that's pretty cool!

Being a working man, It's good not having to worry whether there's any work in the next day (and doing it the morning it's due if you're me), but you do have to sell your soul to the rat race. Ah well, life's a trade-off.

Life (n.): The art of substituting one set of problems for another.

Déjeuner

For lunch we went to a nice pizza place, which are apparently rare in Paris, just around the corner. I order a calzone and it looks delish but after some preliminary excavations, under the disapproving gaze of the old guy next to me, I found the meat to cheese ratio was disappointingly low. I'd put a photo of it here but it was devoured (by me, in case you're wondering) before I got the chance. So here's a picture of what I had yesterday.

Handily comes to  €8.30, my daily allowance exactly

After the massive lunch things began to go downhill as I started dozing off (as lions do after a meal). The emails began to pour in and by the end of the day I was burnt out good and proper.

But as soon as I put on some Coldplay on the way to the metro station, a nice calm settled over me, blocking out the bustle of the city.

...Promptly and resoundingly shattered by the Paris metro.

Let me give you a visual of what riding the Paris metro is like: think suit-wearing sardines in a rectanguloid can, accompanied occasionally by the odd sardine tramp. Doesn't help that the aforementioned sardines are starting to slowly melt in the heat.

I've also found out that the only French word you really need in Paris is "pardon". 

Bumped into someone? "Pardon"

Want to get through a crowd? "Pardon"

Need to have an in-depth discussion on the Higgs Boson? "Pardon" (+ hasty exit)

Navigating the way through your fellow travellers to the train door is almost as compliqué as the metro system itself

Now for dinner, a turkey sandwich. Yes I still can't cook.

Peace from Paris.

My first day at work

I just got home from work (7.45pm).


As expected, my year abroad is full of firsts. And today was my first day as a proper grown-up. I commuted, sat at a desk, got bored - the whole deal!

First off, I have to say I'd forgotten how good it is to wear a suit! You can walk around like you own the place and no-one seems to mind - comes with the territoire of being a young man looking dapper in a suit I guess.

Who's that handsome S.O.B?

My day started at 7.45 (and not 7 as I planned thanks to the damn snooze button) and I found myself running late for the metro at 8.52 avec a train in front of me. I jumped on not knowing if it was headed in the right direction; luckily that gamble worked out and meant I was only 12 minutes en retard.

Now when I say late, I mean by British standards. I end up being the second personne into the office, the French aren't doing much to bust the whole lazy stereotype so far... I'm directed to the sofa and wait patiently to hear my fate. A youngish looking guy walks past and I give him a hopeful "Bonjour". Turns out he's the current stagiaire from Nottingham - bingo!


Side-note: I've found a pretty useful way of introducing myself. "Pratheek - comme le mot" (Pratheek - like the word). The French pronounce me 'pratique', their word for practical. Not as cool as "Bond, James Bond" but cool enough. For now.


I get my own laptop and after running me through the daily routine (cheers Otto), my mentor for the day and I head off for lunch. A Subway's right around the corner and I'm on it like Sonic. I bet they wouldn't be as receptive to my banter as the guys at my local Notts branch (mainly because it'll be in broken and mispronounced French). Big up Travis, Nasser and the rest of the crew. Yes I'm on first name terms with them, got a problem? 

Looks like lunch from now till January is sorted

The view from the park we had lunch at

One of the highlights of the day has to be one of my colleagues answering the phone with "Oui boii". I think I'm gonna like it here.

Peace from Paris.

My first post from Paris

And that's it. I'm on my own in Paris and the adventure begins.

En fait, I should say the adventure continues because yesterday's hunt for accomodation was a mad dash across Paris to keep all our appointments. At least I'm well acquainted with the metro now, helped a few beggars and saw some interesting graffiti - "Too drunk to f**k!". Apparently not to spray-paint though.

The logement

The room I'm typing from isn't ideal but it's by far the best out of the ones we saw. C'est dommage that the bedroom in the indoor-swimming-pool house turned out to be just a converted conservatory. It was too hot for even a tropical man such as moi-meme.

Anyhow, I don't plan to spend much time in my room and am gonna use the hell out of my monthly metro pass to explore la Ville Lumière/D'Amour/De la Tour Eiffel (delete as appropriate).

The plan for tomorrow

So tomorrow I'm completely libre to roam around, practise my commute to work and find a bar/café in this damn city that's showing the Wimbledon final (allez Roger)!

For those of you heading out to Paris soon, depechez-vous! There's only so long I can stand French-only company and it would be good to know there's some familiar faces floating around this lovely city.

As the year abroad lady said "Don't say no to any opportunity". And I don't plan to.

Peace From Paris.