Paris

The last two days I was in Paris for visiting Joomla! Day France. I took the TGV from Perpignan to Paris. The trainride is amazing. Behind Perpignan until Bezier (around an 1 hour) only Etangs. On the right and the left side you see many different birds (Red Flamingos), old french houses and vineyards.

Behind Nimes the TGV reaches 250 km/h and after 3 hours I arrived in Paris. The train ends at Gare de Lyon. One of the nicer train stations in the world with the restaurant Train Bleue. It was sunny and warm in Paris.

In the afternoon I relaxed together with Isa at the canal Martin near her flat. We watched people & planned the future.

After 6 pm I worked on the french translation of my german Joomla! book.
Two new chapters are now on line readable.

Sunday morning at 7:30 (I love Paris at 7:30) I took the Metro to Bagnolet. When I left the station there was a flea market which started slowly (Place Edith Piaf).

The Joomla! Day France was fully booked (around 200 people). I have talked to several people (may be we will get the Joomla book in spanisch on line ) and Patricia from Pearson France. She gave two books as a gift for the organizers.
At Joomla! Day I only joined the lunch und one workshop, both were very interesting. At the Workshop, Valérie Isaksen (alatak) introduced Virtuemart 1.1. It runs with Joomla! 1.5 and seems to be a good piece of software.

After the workshop I was a bit in a hurry to get my TGV.
In the meantime it was very pleasent, warm & sunny and it ist a good feeling  driving with the Metro to Gare de Lyon with its palm trees, drink a Café Créme at Train Bleue, buy something to eat & drink for the journey and enter the TGV to Perpignan.

Now, I am working since three hours on the translation and Dreamweaver is crashed (with around 30 Minutes unsaved changings ... *grmpf*). So I thought - write a blog entry
(Oh, by the way - the Cube has reached 151 Euros!)

The New York Giants wrote history on Sunday, Feb. 3rd. It was Super Bowl time and like last year, I watched it. Though, compared to last year, I actually understood the rules and by the fourth quarter I was really getting in to the game and concentrated. The rules were patiently, and after a little arguing about the senses of this game, explained half an hour before start of the game, as can be seen on the picture.
On the other end, I did not get to see the all so famous and mostly paid for U.S. advertising, as the game was transmitted by Sky Sports UK. Instead of seeing Budweiser, I saw Honda.

On Saturday night, I went to a little concert by the Ziveli Orkestar, who do "fanfare balkanique".

Here some tiny extracts

After an amazing week in Fitou at my parents', I am now back in the city of love (even more more more love... ) and spend New Year's Eve with loads of international students somewhere outside Paris.

October 6th, 2007: Rugby World Cup Quarter Finals (France vs. New Zealand) + Nuit Blanche in Paris.

When Virginie and I got out of the Metro at the Hôtel de Ville, it was absolutely packed. There was a huge screen in front of the City Hall and loads of people passionately watching the game.

For the Nuit Blanche, we went to see videos from Michel Gondry in the Théâtre du Châtelet. He worked with Björk, The Chemincal Brothers, Daft Punk and did the film "Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind" (very very good film and can only recommend it).

On our way to the Jardin des Tuileries, we stopped at Palais Royal to see La Comédie Française perform pieces (improvised and rehearsed) in the street.

Right next to it, was an installation called Triptych from the United Visual Artists. Three screens reacted to movements from the crowd as soon as they approached.

The Jardin des Tuileries was beautiful. The Compagnie Carabosse put up 2,000 "fire points" throughout the garden to create a magical night.

Yesterday, I went to the Techno Parade taking place in Paris. It started from Bastille, continued past the Hôtel de Ville, République and back to Place de la Bastille.

I met Estelle there (my San Francisco roomie) and she knows someone, that knows someone, who was on one of those music trucks on which we could climb. We basically stayed there all afternoon, dancing in the summer sun.

I was at the Convention E-commerce Paris.

A couple of years ago, an American needed American food; that is a real American Breakfast.

But where can you find that in Paris?

In a country that we praise for its wine, bread and cheese?

Yes I am back in Paris after a wonderful, exhausting, thrilling, exciting and instructive summer.

The train was late, had to wait 1 1/2 hours for a taxi and finally was in bed by 2am...Now it's grey and "cold" here in Paris and I am noticing a constant hissing noise that would most likely come from the cars.

Guess it will take a bit to adapt from yellow to grey and hot to cold...

I'd like to let you know that we organize a meeting in Camp Darfur next monday (June 25th) in order to show our support to the key meeting of the International Contact Group on Sudan/Darfur.

The idea is to welcome visitors (avatars) from different countries and languages. We will propose a visit of Camp Darfur and some information about the current situation in Sudan and the high stakes of the meeting of monday.
Visitors will find all the ressources available, and they will also find people who can answer their questions and who can tell them how they can help in solving this crisis with different ways: writing letters to governments, signing petition, giving money, organizing meetings IRL and/or in SL, spreading on their blog etc.
There are still some interested and "SL skilled" people for French, English and German speaking.
I'm new on SL and can't build anything nor deal with bringing some videos and/or podcasts in-world. e. g. I'd love to find a way to show some of the i-Act movies, and there are also some interesting movies in French (I think of one the UN refugee agency gave me for the Sudan Vigil in Dijon in 2005) and i'm sure there are some in German. So, if any onet SLer want to give a hand you are welcome!