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Paris Vacation - Day 3
Today is the day that I must
put in some work at our Paris office.
Of course, I wake up with one of my amazingly sore throats, which if
it takes its usual course, will make me miserable for three days and then
turn into a differently miserable head cold.
Just great. Demo and training
will be so much more fun with a scratchy throat.
Beth
has more meetings at the Hôtel du Louvre today and we are moving to
another hotel. So first thing, we
check out of the Marriott Champs-Elysées and ask them to hold our
luggage. I anticipate being done by
3:00 and Beth and I plan to meet back at the Marriott at 3:30. Fortuitously,  our Paris office is only
two blocks up on the Champs-Elysées.
This isn't good planning, just dumb luck. Beth's association with Renaissance Hotels gets a room-rate
break at Marriott so that’s why were here…and why we are now changing hotels
as we can no longer get the great rate as the Marriott's high season in Paris
kicks in.
My only contact with the Paris office is Daniel C., the local LAN
administrator. When I arrive he informs me that I'll be training Arnaud B.
and Carlos M., two of his staff members and they will then train any others
that will need access to the software. Arnaud and Carlos are great students
and speak
terrific English (lucky for me) and the early morning session goes
flawlessly. At about 1:00, I let them know that we have about 1/2 hour of
material left and suggest a break. They both think lunch would be appropriate
and ask me to join them so we adjourned to a small place called Le Liteau
where I had a terrific lunch of escargot en croûte in a white sauce
and great fish dish. And, of course, some wine. The lunch took over two
hours. We could learn something from the French in this regard. Later, in the
afternoon I finished the training and met Beth at the Marriott where we
proceeded to get a cab and move to our final residence for the trip, the Relais
Saint-Sulpice in Saint-Germain des-Pres.
Relais Saint-Sulpice is charming and our room is garret-like small,
but it is the real Paris experience that we want and it is in the center of
Left Bank activity. Beth had a dinner to attend at the Sol Melia
restaurant. So I wondered the area acquainting myself with the interesting
back streets. And it was, of course, still raining.
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