Paris

We arrived in Paris this morning to a little bit of drama.

Having opted to be a little frugal and take the RER rather than a taxi, at least to the Gare du Nord, we purchased our tickets without incident and then had to ask the information person where exactly to go.

That's when the drama arrived: a suspicious package that kept us out of the train area for a while and treated us to the sight of soldiers with machine guns and police bomb specialists who were much less well armed, but much more snappily dressed. Not to say I didn't find the camouflage (or what was under it) interesting…. No bomb went off and we took the train.

On the train, a little entertainment from a guy who sang his own karaoke – portable sound system, the first part of a number of songs of different styles – and then asked for contributions. A few of us gave a few coins.

Taxi, then, to the Hotel IBIS La Villette. The hotel is nice, of a different style than the North American hotels I usually stay in for meetings. Here, for Bob, a hotel bed shot…

…and a shot of the view from the window of my room.

Not a typical Paris scene, but we are practically at the wall in the 19e arrondissement. The thing with the bubbly top is actually a covered play area and there are a bunch of kids playing soccer in it, which is a lovely and lively sound.

Another all-important view for me, given my varied experiences of showers in different hotels in France, is the bathroom. First the toilet and sink area:

…and then two views of the shower itself, base and a vertical shot:

It is not much bigger than a phone booth (certainly not bigger than a phone booth here – they are larger here), so I will probably have to get out to pick up the soap if I drop it, but at least the two doors open, so that action will not be a struggle.

I still need a bit of sleep, so will get to that now.

Oh, the Humanity!

Just back from a one-day trip to Ottawa for a meeting and I thought I would write a brief note about the travel experience, rather than the meeting.

First big surprise: I got to the train station with very little time to spare on Sunday only to discover that the travel agency used to book my travel and/or Via Rail had mistakenly booked me for Monday! Some tense moments on my cell phone to the emergency line of the travel agency got me onto the right train with several minutes to spare.

Second big surprise: there was no Via1 car on this particular train, so no lovely free lunch for me! No complimentary drinks either! :-(

The hotel was lovely, and I'll show you what it looked like in this Bob-esque view of the bed:

It was a sleep number bed, meaning that the remote you see on the bed was there to control the firmness by inflating or deflating each side of the bed. A first experience for me, but I won't be rushing out to buy one.

The real tragedies come with the trip home: brace yourself for bourgeois spoiled-bratness!

No problems with the ticket, but what is with this long, long walk to the Via1 car? I mean I – or someone anyway – has paid much more for this ticket, yet I am forced to walk way further than the economy class passengers to get to my car! The world is surely out to get me!!

And then on the way home, neither of the electrical outlets at my seat worked, so I used up 40% of my laptop battery watching two episodes of Justified. (Timothy Olyphant is pretty, cool, and wears his Stetson well.) And, thanks for asking, I am now completely recharged!

I'm just bracing myself for my Air France experience tomorrow. Can things right themselves? ;-)

Resting Place

One of the objectives of our recent family gathering in BC was to come together to spread my Mum's ashes. She asked to have her ashes spread in a place where she would have been afraid to go in life, and we chose the beautiful Helmcken Falls, iconic image of the region she and Dad have called home since 1969.

Interestingly, the area reaches much further back in Mum and Dad's history, as we found out on the drive to the falls. One of Dad's early jobs was in the park – the cabin he stayed in is clinging to the bank of a creek visible from the road, threatening to fall in as the bank erodes. Closer to town, another auspicious spot: the little inn where Mum and Dad went to dinner on one of her visits to him, the place where Dad proposed and Mum accepted.

You might think that a waterfall with a viewing platform and accessible by road would not be the type of place where Mum would have been afraid to go. You would be right on that count, as Mum really loved this spot. We did take care, however, to place her ashes beyond the security fence on the slope leading to the precipice, and we can all be sure that she would never have ventured there.

It felt good to carry out this wish, and not like a sad occasion at all. Now we know that Mum's remains will contribute to plant growth in this beautiful spot with so many ties to her past, and we can only be glad about that.

Glad, too, to have been able to spend some time all together – Dad and all of us siblings and assorted siblings-in-law – which is always a pleasure above all. I did have to realize that I have some points of divergence on issues quite central to my work with some of my siblings, but the important part is that we all love and like each other, which continues to be a testament to what a great job Mum and Dad did with us.