Paris sucks.

Actually, Paris is a wonderful city. Expensive, but still a nice city. Unless of course you are sent there at two days notice, on your own, to run a job that you have no idea about and don't really want to do. Add to that the fact that I was staying on the site in a small campbed, with a kettle and microwave for company, no internet, no twitter, no chat, and you can see how boring it was. Although on the bright side, I managed to get quite a bit done on my nanowrimo story.

I hate working away and this was no exception. I was taken away from the people I cared about, to work in a foreign country with foreign workers and very, very little knowledge of the language. This is the time I wish I'd paid more attention to my French teacher, Caterine and less attention to her wonderful cleavage. But hey, I was a young teenage boy and those hormones are a bitch to ignore. Well, mine were.

Anyway, back to Paris. The city of lovers, the city of romance. All well and good but when you're on your own and working with a load of hairy arsed Frenchmen, trust me, romance is the furthest thing from your mind. Well from my mind anyway. I had my doubts about Francois. A nice, hard working young man who seemed a little too keen to kiss me on both cheeks every time we met and delighted in calling me “English”. “Allo English!”

But to be fair to Francois, he had a wicked motorbike, A yamaha Superbike. I asked if I could have a go and he laughed. Tuesday night he came back to the job in his leathers and threw the keys at me. 10 minutes later I took it for a gentle ride down the street and back again. Christ knows how I didn't have an accident, seeing as I'm used to driving on the left side of the road, not like these French and Americans who drive on the wrong side!

We had just over a week here to get the job done, we were on a bonus to get it brought in on time and a further bonus if we came in early. There are paying customers waiting to get into this office and every day it's unoccupied, tens of thousands of Euros are lost. So I arrived on a Sunday and wasn't expecting to leave till the Monday after. But I asked the guys to work 12 hour shifts instead of 8, with the result that we finished before the weekend! 

I'd love to fill this blog with adventures of boozy late nights. But we were on a deadline and as much as I wanted to go out and get drunk, I really didn't have the time. Although I did have a day to myself. (well a half day. I was going to run the Wednesday evening shift, but got told to go home early!) I had agreed before going that I would take a day off midweek whether the job was ahead or not, so Wednesday arrived and the best I could do was a little shopping and to take a few pics to send on to a friend, who wanted me to take pictures of anything 'nifty'. (I think 'nifty' in this context meant statues with willies)

So, as far as I'm concerned, Paris was not a fun place to be. Maybe if I'd been there with someone, taking a walk along the restaurants on the Champs Elysees, taking a boat along the Seine, or standing in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, things might have been different, in fact I know they would have been. But as it was, I worked hard took the money and saw little of Paris. But from the little I did see, Paris is a lovely city. It's only 2 hours and twenty minutes from London and the train costs about £70/$100. So I definitely think that the next time I visit France (charity bike ride not included :P ) I'l make sure to take someone with me. :)