The Arc de Triomphe, the catacombs

Today began with something of a late start, since we were all rather tired from Marnnie’s late arrival and initial catch-up talk. We went to the same café down the street as yesterday for breakfast and decided on our plans for the day.

We began with the Arc de Triomphe, which honors those who fought for France, particularly during the Napoleonic wars. Underneath is the tomb if the unknown soldier from World War I . The monument stands 162 ft in height, 150 ft wide and 72 ft deep. Its arch is 95.8 ft high and 48 ft wide. It is the second largest triumphal arch in existence, since North Korea built a slightly larger one in 1982 for the 70th birthday of Kim Il-Sung.

We climbed the 284 steps to the top, which offered an amazing view of the city. Atop the monument, we met two young women from the University of Cincinnati who are spending 10 weeks in Europe. We took some great pictures, and enjoyed most of the morning here.

We then took the Metro over to visit the catacombs of Paris. Most of Paris' larger churches once had their own cemeteries, but city growth and generations of dead began to overwhelm them. From the late seventeenth century, Paris' largest cemetery was saturated to a point where its neighbours were suffering from disease, due to contamination caused by improper burials, open mass graves, and earth charged with decomposing organic matter.

After almost a century of ineffective decrees condemning the cemetery, it was finally decided to move the remains of all condemned cemeteries to a renovated section of Paris' abandoned limestone quarries.

During World War II, Parisian members of the French Resistance used the tunnel system. Also during this period, German soldiers established an underground bunker in the catacombs.

They were fascinating to walk through, and Marnnie thinks they could make a mint by renting them out for Halloween.

This evening we cleaned up and went down the street for salads and wine. It’s been very hot here and the evening air felt wonderful, the conversation with Kim and my daughter, even better.

The Louvre, Notre Dame and Paris cafe's

Today was our first full day in Paris, which we started with a breakfast outside at a little cafe' down the street. We walked up to the Champs-Elysees to find a place to get cash to pay for the apartment, along the way crossing Pont de l'Alma, where Princess Diana's crash took place.

From there, we walked down the Champs-Elysees to the worlds most famous art museum, the Louvre. Knowing it's impossible to see everything in the Louvre in just a few hours, we selected key displays including the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, Aphrodite (Venus de Milo), Napoleon's apartment, and a few others, catching the other thousands and thousands of items along the way.

Our visit to the Louvre was followed by lunch at a cafe' at Pont Neuf (where Kim enjoyed the flirtations of our waiter) and then on to Notre Dame.

Visiting Notre Dame, where Napoleon was coronated, where Joan of Arc was tried the second time and Sainted, where Jesus' crown of thorns is displayed each Good Friday, doesn't require one to be Catholic to be moved by seeing mass in such a place.

We enjoyed the atmosphere and history, then headed back to the apartment to get cleaned up.

After making ourselves presentable, we walked the short distance to the Metro station to await Marnnie's arrival. Since we were a little early (and we came to find out she was running a little late) we sat across the street at a cafe' and nibbled a cheese platter and drank wine, finishing with chocolate mousse and coffee (espresso) for dessert.

Kim mentioned that she's feeling very comfortable here and enjoying the trip, despite her initial apprehension and concerns about understanding the language and getting around the city. Of course, there's nothing quite like having cheese and wine at a cafe' in Paris to ease the nerves.

Marnnie arrived safe and sound, and at the moment she is getting cleaned up after her trip, and we've been discussing tomorrow's plans.

(Incidentally, if you click on the pictures in this blog they will expand to full size.)

Arrival in Paris

We’ve arrived safely in Paris. Though we have a minor issue with payment for the apartment (cash only, so I need to find a bank tomorrow) we had a good day.

We arrived here about 11:30 AM local time, and by the time we got through customs and took the train into Paris we got to the apartment at about 2:30 PM, where we discovered our little issue with payment, which we plan to resolve tomorrow.

En route to the apartment, as we emerged from the Metro, Kim got her first view of Paris. Being able to see the Eiffel Tower, Lez Invalides, and the ornate bridge at Pont Alexandre, her first comment was “I just got goosebumps.”

Once we got some initial unpacking done, we went on walkabout. Walking initially down the left bank, but crossing back and forth as the mood hit us.

We went down to the Latin Quarter for dinner. We were seated by the window, and people walking by naturally looked in at the table. Kim had to look twice when Mary-Kate Olson walked by. We watched as some young women going the opposite direction recognized her, and one grabbed paper and pen and headed after her for an autograph. We think she came back with something since they were looking at the paper when she returned.

We then walked back up past Notre Dame, the Concierge, Pont Neuf, and the Louvre, where we rested as the sun went down and the lights of the city came up, and we watched the Eiffel Tower light up her searchlights and put on her evening light show.

We then walked up the right bank as night fell, looking for a market (which we did not find) and making our way back to the apartment.

Kim says her initial day in Paris has been almost overwhelming… I hope tomorrow brings more amazement as we visit the Louvre and hopefully get into Notre Dame.

Preparing for Paris and Ireland

Well, we’re now trying to learn a little French using Rosetta Stone. We don’t expect to become fluent with just Level 1, but it would be nice to learn enough to understand some of the conversation around us and improve our enunciation. French is difficult for us as it’s not phonetic at all, so reading phrases and words may only serve to make us sound like imbeciles.

I’ve used the Rosetta Stone Spanish software and like it. It includes the computer software, a headset to work on enunciation, and a CD to listen to and practice in your car or on your iPod. Right now, if someone around us is discussing a “boy drinking water”… by god we’ll know it!

I usually just try to learn the essentials… greetings, please and thank you, requests for menus and such, but if we can learn a little more it will undoubtedly make the trip more enjoyable.

We had a little mishap regarding lodging this week. The place we initially booked had already been spoken for, so we (we meaning Kim) had to scramble to find another place. She did find a great place in the 7th arrondissment located between the Eiffel Tower and Les Invalides. If you look at the photo, Les Invalides is the golden dome toward the right. It was originally built as a solidier's hospital but today houses Napolean's Tomb and a military museum. Our apartment is located just to the left of it, which is an excellent location, and it provides room for all of us to stay together when Marnnie arrives.

We’ve put together a general daily itinerary to see the things we’re interested in. We’re also going through the guides and maps I brought back from my first trip to Paris to see if there’s anything else we’d like to see and to make sure our itinerary fits.

It seems that my sister Brenda and her family are headed to my favorite place on the planet… Kauai (see the picture of the Kalalau Valley rainbow I took there in the blog entry below this one). They visited Hawaii for their honeymoon, with every intention of spending time on Kauai, but that was the exact time that Hurricane Iniki struck, forcing them to stay on the big island (if memory serves). I hope they have as great a time as Kim and I did when we were there in 2007. We’re somewhat jealous, even though we’re about to go on a great trip of our own.

I’m so looking forward to seeing Marnnie (and Travis), sharing Paris with her and Kim, and to my first visit to Ireland. My only exposure to Ireland has been in movies, news and in what I’ve read. Now I’ll get personal exposure to the land from which my Great Grandparents came.

How risk averse are we?

As I scheduled our flights this time I, for the first time, paid attention to the type of plane we'll be on based on safety rather than simple comfort. Following the crash of Air France 447 I noticed that a number of the Airbus A-330 problems happened in the air, while most of the Boeing problems were problems of a more human nature like crashes on the ground. Mechanical failures have certainly happened on 747's as well (like engines falling off in the early '90's) but recent history made me a little more cautious about flying Airbus.

There are certainly risks associated with travel of any kind. If we never took risks we'd miss out on so many incredible sights and experiences. I love riding my motorcycle for example, and frequently going sans helmet. I'm generally more prone to take and enjoy risk than many people I know, but like any reasonable person I prefer to minimize them where it's practical or at least simple to do so. So... I chose flights using Boeing aircraft rather than Airbus for our flights.

I read an interesting article on the human vs. machine topic that was passed along on Twitter. If you're interested: http://trueslant.com/milesobrien/2009/06/10/the-paradox-of-simplicity/.

That aside, we're very much looking forward to our trip to see Marnnie and Travis. I'm probably more pumped about seeing Paris again and this time being able to share it with Marnnie and Kim, while Kim is more pumped about the Ireland leg of the trip, but it will be nice to share some time and create some new memories throughout.

Work-wise I've been experimenting with more and more of the social media use for marketing. I'm active on Twitter, with two accounts (work and personal), LinkedIn and we have our Rockwell Autmation portal. It's interesting to see how they work in concert. This week I joined Facebook. I'm not a big fan of all the trash that seems to happen on Facebook... getting strange requests to be friends with people I don't know, etc., but it's part of the mix so I want to see more of what it's all about.

I sent out a Twitter that our LinkedIn Safety Automation Forum group had reached 100 members after being about a month old. The next 24 hours saw a big increase in requests to join, with 14 requests in the following 24 hours and several more since. Of additional interest was where the requests were coming from, with the immediate requests coming from the U.S., then overnight requests coming from India and other parts of Asia as they got into their work days. I'm keeping a log of what type of requests garner the best results and thoughts on how to use these new tools in the future.

How risk averse are you? What risks do you take that you think are reasonable that others might find unreasonable? Most importantly, what would you like to do or achieve that you don't or won't because you feel the risk is too great?

Vacations... and health

Well, we got our plane and lodging settled for our trip to Europe. Four days in Paris where we’ll meet up with Marnnie, then on to Ireland where we join Travis for four days there before returning to Cleveland.

We’re renting an apartment in the Latin Quarter in Paris, so named because it is part of the city developed when the Romans were there. It’s a very active, fun section of the city and in great walking distance from the areas we want to see. I’ll play tour guide in Paris since I’ve been there.

In Ireland we’re putting ourselves in Marnnie and Travis’ capable hands, having simply stated that we’d like to see how they live, and know something of genuine Irish life when we leave.

We’ve also set some tentative dates in late August for the four day motorcycle trip through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky. Of course I’m looking forward to that one.

Lots going on in our health arena:

Kim’s been feeling a bit under the weather the past couple of weeks. Nothing incredibly serious, but it seems she either contracted food poisoning or got a gastrointestinal virus of some kind and she’s gotten to deal with all the fun things that go along with that for almost two weeks now. She seems to be on the tail end of whatever it is.

I went to the Dr. today as a follow-up to my check-up a few weeks ago. Cholesterol is high at 257 and he wanted to discuss it (HDL 76/LDL 164). Since everything else is in good shape he’s not overly concerned even though it’s high. It was at 193 just a few years ago, but he says it can rise over time like this… most likely reason is genetic (thanks Mom!). We went through the numbers and he asked how I’d like to approach it. I told him I prefer to treat it as naturally as possible, so he recommends fish oil and niacin and we’ll follow up with another check in November. If it continues to climb and we see any other indicators move in a bad direction then we’ll consider meds, but if not we’ll deal with it this way.

We sound old don’t we!

Work is going well. Like all businesses, and in particular those manufacturing related, the numbers are still not good, but I am still gainfully employed as of this writing and enjoying some of the things we’re doing. We’re experimenting with use of social networking tools for communications, so it’s interesting to figure out how to use Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and such to inform potential customers and move them to our corner.

Well, off to bed…