Last day with K

Tuesday 3rd of February. We went to the Champs Elysees to check out the Adidas store. K was envious of my great Adidas shoes with the cute purple flowers. To think that anyone would be envious of my stuff! Yay. I can’t be completely oblivious stylewise ;-) No shoes found we hurried over to Virgin Megastore where K bought lots of gadget stuff and Yael Naims cd, which is sooo good. Then we proceeded to Publicis drugstore to grab a quick bite to eat on the go. Really odd to already be back in the drugstore so soon after I have stopped working just across the street from it. We then climbed the stairs to the top of the Arc de Triomph. The weather was exceptionally good. It was almost warm up there and oh so nice to soak up some rays of sun. And I just love the view from the top.

After that we walked all the way down the Champs Elysees and took great photos of each other at the fountain at the Place de la Concorde. Then it was onto the last stop for K’s Paris holiday: Angelina in the Rue de Rivoli for that famous chocolate. Angelina was very beautiful and we both decided to eat the chocolate cake instead of the chocolate drink which is famous all over the city. I have had chocolate con churros in Madrid and though it might not be the same I’m not that into fluid hot chocolate except if it is with lots of fruit – I am more of a hot cocoa person (and now only soy cocoa!). Lucky cause I can’t really eat chocolate. It is usually associated with very adverse reactions for me. However I decided to take the chance because how often do you get to eat such famous chocolatey-stuff?

The cake was absolutely delicious and even though it was quite small I had to leave some of it because the flavour was sooo intense and had I eaten anymore I would have ended up not enjoying it at all. It simply would have been overkill. The visit was great, only thing that detracted a bit was the fact that they put up a giant camera which was filming in our direction. However they then moved on and proceeded to film scenes in a corner towards the street so we could finally have our peace! After the lovely stop at Angelinas we walked back home, then uploaded the last photos and I put K on the train to the airport and already the holiday was over. It was great though and definetely worth repeating so we will have to do that again some day!

Montmartre and the islands

On Monday the 2nd of February it had become winter in Paris once more. It was slushy-icy-rainy and boring weather. K made up a good plan however and suggested we go for breakfast at Breakfast in America. That proved to be a very good plan indeed. Breakfast was sooo good and we both bought shoes in rue St. Antoine afterwards. What better way to start off the morning?

We dropped off the purchases at the appartment before venturing to Montmartre. They had actually closed the park where the very famous carrousel is placed beneath the Sacre Cour so we had to make our way up the straight stairs instead. Which actually just makes it easier to choose cause I always have a hard time making up my mind between the two possibilities. K being a climber was of course much faster up the stairs than me! Btw. I forgot to tell that she actually tried to climb the Eiffel Tower. I have photos to proove it ;-)

We took refuge in the Sacre Cour for a while. This is a church I just love. It is very beautiful. After that K was singing in the rain behind the church. And once she finished that performance we were on to try and find her a hat. Turned out she was just envious of mine – she ended up buying exactly the same as mine and in the same shop ;-) However to be fair hers is black whereas mine is green. We looked like such a cute pair when we sported the hats that night on our walk on Ile de la Cité and Ile St. Louis.
Our excursion to Montmartre included the obligatory visit to Antoine et Lili. I just love their clothes and accessories. And the store itself is so beautiful. Breaktime was spent at Amelie’s café les deux moulins which was fun to experience from the inside. And I honestly think we were the only tourists in there at that moment. I guess the Amelie hype has subsided a bit. Or it may just be the season. All the romantics think that Paris is only good in summertime. Though I could definetely have used a bit more warmth on that day I will say as the tough people from Scandinavia do, that it is not a question of bad weather but a question of dressing for the weather that happens to be.

We decided to go home and cook dinner at home. I made my famous veggie curry with rice. People who know me well know that this is what I pretty much always eat. I need to pull myself together and start experimenting again. Well in little more than a week I will be home and hopefully have a bit more time and energy to do exactly that!

After dinner we managed to drag each other out again to go and walk the islands as I mentioned above. We did some great photos in the dark. I am really happy that I got to spend four days with K here. Mainly for the nice company but definetely also for all the new ideas I got and new tricks I learned when it comes to photograpy.

Louvre & the Luxembourg garden

Sunday 1st of February. This was the day I was to guide K around the Louvre on my favorite tour for people who have never been. I have developed a three hour tour in which you see everything you have to see plus some miscellanious great stuff. However it took much longer than that because we did some great photo sessions in the museum. Especially in the Cour Marly which is my favorite place in the Louvre, maybe even in the entire city.

After the Louvre we went to St. Sulpice and did a short visit to the church on our way to the Luxembourg garden. When showing an almost luxemburger – hahaha ;-) – around Paris you have to go to the garden. Weather was very cold and windy but we still managed to have a great stroll through the park. After that we were desperately searching for a place to defrost and went to the Café de la Mairie which has a nice view of the St. Sulpice church. Tea was never this good! And I am not even a fan of tea if it’s not yogi tea!

We used the break time to make plans for the rest of the day. Realising it was just too cold to stay out for much longer we took the metro to St. Michel and walked to Ile de la Cité and visited Notre Dame. I love Notre Dame. It is a huge room though so they have tv-screens in the church where people who are sitting further back can still see the people doing the mass.

I guess I must be a pseudo American cause when dinner time arrived we made our way to one of my favorite places Le diable des Lombards which is very American. After dinner we walked home through the Marais and then we watched the first part of Anne of Green Gables, while uploading our photos to my laptop. Of course I’m talking about the Sullivan films starring Megan Follows as Anne. Any other version is just plain blasphemy! Another great and sunny day ended in Paris and I was very happy with all the great photos. K – thank you for making me look so good!

And finally Special K made it to Paris

K arrived around noon on the 31st of January and we went straight for the skies due to the perfectly sunny weather. That is the Eiffel Tower. But first we had to do a photo session in the Champ des Mars of course and the photos turned out lovely. K is a great photographer and one of my missions for the weekend was to be inspired by her! The hike up to the second floor was amazing as always and even more amazing: there was practically no line for the tickets. At the first floor there was actually still Christmas decorations made out of ice which prooved to be good as props in our photos. K actually made me eat a Christmas tree. Or almost eat it. It looks as if I am about to eat it in the picture. What one doesn’t do to get pictures!

One thing that is a bit odd about Paris is that they bring out the Christmas decorations quite late. Some shops don’t even decorate until 10 or more days into December. However once it’s there it stays there! It is not completely uncommon to still come across Christmas decorations now in February. I am totally against decorating in October but I find it worse to have to look at it after Christmas. And well into the new year!

We rode the elevator up to the third floor because you sort of should once you’re there, but we agreed that the second is much nicer. I find the view is better on the second floor and the space is a lot less cramped.

After the Eiffel tower we walked along the Quai Branly and the Quai D’Orsay to Place de la Concorde and on to Champs Elysees where we picked out a nice pink café for our break. I got the “Soy Delight” which was indeed delicious, bananas, strawberries, honey and of course soy milk. Yum indeed. Nice that someone thinks of the people who cannot tolerate dairy products!

After a bit of shopping/browsing we wanted to go and eat at the Comptoir de l’Arc in Avenue Marceau (right next to the Embassy and hence very nostalgic). I had just been there with the other interns before going to a very strange experimental concert at the Maison du Danemark at the Champs Elysees on Thursday night. Food at the Comptoir was great, Penne with tomato and basil, simple but oh so well made. The concert – which was more of a poetry recital in four languages – was mainly interesting as an intellectual concept not really that entertaining. But I was still happy that I was there and experienced it. Btw. the name of the performing group was Polyfonias.

Back to Saturday night: The Comptoir was sooo closed. How can a restaurant be closed on Saturday night? K was smart – she instantly scanned the area and saw a place 200 meters away in sidestreet and said: that looks nice. And she was right! In fact they had only one table left and it was sort of a crappy table but then they just did some magic and produced a table out of nowhere by moving some of their dessert display. Really nice! The name of the restaurant is Le Marfil, and it is located in rue Auguste Vacquerie. K chose a vegetarian omelet which had fries on the side. Why does everything in France have fries on the side? Even in the OECD headquarters I have seen people get lasagna with fries on the side. How odd is that? I know they’re called french fries, but isn’t that sort of just a name?

I had a Norwegian salad – everything in France which is called Norwegian has salmon in it – so I sort of compromised on the veggie thing. Again. This is something that happens to me all the time here in France. It is soooo difficult to be a vegetarian in France and even more so being a vegan so I have sort of put the 100 % on standby till I go home. For dessert K had the cheesecake and I had lemon sorbet with vodka which is one of my old faves. There was live music in the restaurant and it was all together really nice.

Goodbye Danish Delegation, MFA, OECD, DAC, DCD, INCAF, ExCom and Council!

Friday the 30th of January was my last day working at the Danish Delegation to the OECD. It was a really strange day. I had a lot to do in order to finish a report to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and when four interns stop at the same day it tends to be kind of an unproductive day. Everyone is just too chatty and of course that is really nice!

I now have to replace my entire mental dictionary! From acronyms such as DAC (Development Assistance Committee), DCD (Development Cooperation Directorate) WP-EEF (Working Party on Aid Effectivenees) and INCAF (International Network on Conflict and Fragility) to real, normal language when I return to Denmark to finish my thesis.

Actually the latter acronym was a fusion of two groups: FSG and CPDC, respectively Fragile States Group and Network on Peace, Conflict and Development Cooperation. I worked a lot with those. Very interesting themes and I was lucky enough to get some ideas for my thesis from this work.

However getting adjusted to “normal” academic language might only be for a short while. I am already scouting the opportunities for employment after the thesis. Which I have to give in on the 24th of April. Then I might be faced with another insider culture with yet another vocabulary of strange acronyms.

For now I’m still in an OECD mode languagewise. Other words that I have heard so often that I dream of them at night are: ODA (Official Development Assistance), OOF’s (other official flows). And that’s just the work on the development side of things. Then there was work in the ExCom (Executive Committee) as well as the Council, which is OECD’s governing body. Here phrases like renewal of mandate, evaluation of committee for this and that as well as ministerial council meeting (MCM) are some of the most common.

But of course there is more to the OECD than just pure language. Even though there are two official ones (that can become a problem for some people when the translators leave at 18 o’clock sharp regardless of whether or not the meeting itself continues!).

A lot of the things you learn by working in such a place is to small talk and you discover how political alliances are forged. An intercultural dialogue is necessary and lets just say I have discovered a lot of new things about the people from other countries! For instance that it is not the French or Italians who have the sexiest accent in English. Rather it is the Czechs. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that one Czech delegate bears a very strong resemblance to the lovely Russel Crowe. Also I have learned that the IMF must be a very boring organisation to work for as one IMF delegate always fell asleep in the meetings. These are all examples of very important intercultural lessons I bring back home with me ;-)

Pink & Purple in Paris

Get it? Two times Paris ;-) Funny. She is not my favorite person though, however I have one great memory with this song so I chose it anyway. Btw. the music selection is not that vast so that's another excuse :-)

January in Paris

Though the blog has been hibernating in January I haven’t. I have been at work to complete my tasks at the Danish Delegation to the OECD while also doing some other things such as wandering around unfamiliar neighbourhoods in Paris, which on one day lead my to find no less than four really nice churches that I took great pictures of. I also got a little insight into the anger of the Palestinians when I was out for a walk and met the demo at the Boulevard Beaumarchais on the 17th. There was police officers everywhere. When I got back from my walk the entire Place Bastille was occupied by people demonstrating. I guess I was lucky that I could even get to my appartment!

I have also been to Shakespeare and Co to buy a couple of more books which are going to be difficult to bring home with me! I hope I have room for everything. One thing I am very proud of is that I have completely avoided the January sales. I haven’t bought a single thing. Ok, well the books in Shakespeare and Co but they weren’t on sale and besides the soul needs nourishment! On the 24th I went to the Louvre and visited the entire section on French paintings from the 17th to the 19th century. I found some paintings I liked, I mostly do, but apart from them this section wasn’t my favorite one, but I still appreciated visiting it because you can also learn a lot from what you don’t like.