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Moving to the Southside

That's right folks, we're moving to south of the river. Our building is called County Hall because back in the 60's or 70's it was London's County Hall offices. Now, the building have been converted into nice living spaces. The places comes with an underground community pool and gym. Our flat is somewhat just below ground level. You'll see in the pictures that we get some decent natural light from the big windows looking into the central courtyard. The building is directly behind the London Aquarium, which is next to the London Eye.

Now for the best part... walking to work everday, we will cross the River Thames on the Hungerford Bridge (pedestrians only!) Here are a few pictures of the view.

Snowing in London

It's been snowing the past 4 days. The snowing comes in spurts. It's enough to cause attention and blur the skies, but it doesn't stick.

Two Parisian Observations

I've been working in Paris since the second week of January. I am at our customer's office during the week. One observation I just have to share with you. When you walk into your office/desk area in the morning, it is common practice to go and shake the hands of your coworkers. This is mostly a male thing. I have not seen women do this. If you are a visitor, like me, then they don't really shake your hands either.

I have to point this out because the act of shaking hands is something you normally do if you are meeting someone for the first time or if it is someone "important" or "high-up" in the company, basically, someone you don't see often. However, in Paris, it is a common practice that I witness every morning. By the way, people don't really show up until right before 10 AM. They leave around 5-ish. We are normally the first ones here and the last ones out. FILO!

Second observation pertains to the Metro. I love public transportation. They are so easy to get around with. The one thing that the safety police would not like is that the Metro trains' door are "unlocked" before it's completely stopped. You have to manually open the doors with a latch. If you try the latch while the train is moving, you'll see that the doors have been locked. But at some point the doors are unlocked, so before you are completely stopped, the doors can be opened. It's quite strange, and no one has complained.

Lastly and not a Parisian observation, I was walking down Grands Boulevards one night and saw this magnificient bulletin for the Bellydance Superstars show. They will not be going to London this Spring tour, so I will have to catch the show here.

Oui! Oui!

La Casbah

I'm in Paris for a few days this week...

Last night, some of my coworkers in Paris were having a end-of-project celebration and invited the rest of us who were in town for another project. We went a restaurant called "La Casbah". It's near the Bastille area. Check out their website: www.casbah.fr

To get in, you have to first ring an inconspicuous door bell. Then someone inside opens the big double wooden doors. You are first greeted with a bar area, then you step into Morocco. There were mostly big tables. This place is very popular for large group parties, booked in advance. The dining area looked like you were sitting outside of a Morrocan building. It was obviously themed, but somewhat close to being cheesey. The wait staff was dressed in black t-shirts. The service was slow, even for the French. This being a Tuesday night, I did not expect the place to be full. All tables were filled. Granted, it was a small place, but there was a big party there filling two long rows of tables. A round table of about 10, and our table of 10.

Another thing I didn't expect since it was Tuesday: There was bellydancing. Not just one, but two dancers. The first was a blonde girl with curly long hair. She wore a red Turkish costume, new flared skirt style. She also danced with snakes. She had two short sets. The first, she came out with two midsized snakes and her veil. She was obviously limited to what she could be doing while holding snakes. She would put one on her chest or shoulder, then dangle the other one in front of a guest's face. The second set, she came out with a veil and a big albino snake (boa?). It was of a yellow-ish color. So when the snake wrapped itself around her, she looked like she had some extra baggage on her torso.

The second dancer came out 30 minutes later. She was dark skinned and had long black hair. She had strong moves and was very charismatic. She would dance, move over to a table, see that they were not clapping, and then would stand there, give them a look like "why aren't you clapping?", and clap her hands. That really did the trick. She was very cheeky, as the British would say. I don't know if the crowd was just really into it or what, but they were all hollering and clapping. I guess it helps to have such big parties there. People were in especially high spirits and really enjoying the dancing. Later, she then found a chair that was empty, stood on it for a while doing her shimmies, then stood on top of the table and did her drum solo! How clever! The restaurant barely had room for the wait staff, so dancing on the table was probably the only way for every to see her dance. Then she did a saidi piece with a nice golden cane. She balanced it on her head and chest while dancing. Of all the dancers I've seen she has got to be one of the better ones. Not only were her moves good and solid, but her personality was just perfect. "I'm dancing and you better be looking at me."

Peace out.