You did what?

This is the start of the long weekend here. Note: that means nothing much is open, so I needed to go shopping, and buy some essentials. Naturally things are really crowded as everyone tries to buy stuff on the way home from work. This would always be a test of my minimal French vocab. Problem…

I’m getting used to some of the French work customs slowly. I had not realised that when you arrive for work you should visit the office of everyone already there, shake hands and greet them. I’ve shaken more hands in the last couple of days than in the last year in Australia. I guess the…

It should be obvious, but it isn’t. If future exchange happens, think about how you will handle non-qwerty keyboards. I nearly touch type. I can’t tell you how much pain I’m in right now. At least I’ve managed to get the default locale to not be in French (try working out what compiler error messages…

Lots of hanging around waiting for my train, but TGV is a great way to travel. It really does leave on time within a second or two of schedule. It stayed slow through Paris, then it really opens it up outside. There is no sensation of speed since you travel through endless fields, everything is…

Thanks to everyone who came to lunch today. I’m off on my French adventure starting tomorrow. New contacts, opportunities and hopefully some good work. Not that I’m going to miss the STI rush season too much! In any case, with the time differences, real time contact is going to be a little difficult while I’m…

Ok, for the benefit of my extended family, this is probably a bit of a surprise. Obviously a work trip takes time to organise and you are wondering why I didn’t tell anyone till now…. Well, this one took a while to get off the ground. A fair bit of back and forth firstly to…