29/4 - The Da ADFA Connection

This was the day for meeting Adam and Pete - two ex-students who I like to consider very good mates. Both had done their honours with me in 2001 and it was the best year at ADFA I've ever had. Adam went onto win a Rhodes scholarship and is nearing the completion of his phd at Oxford - I hadn't seen him for 4 or maybe 5 years. Pete is closer to home as lead developer on VBS2 and until a year or 2 ago was in Canberra and a regular in my lab. This coming together again after such a long time apart, and in the "exotic" locale of Paris to reminisce but also possibly plan possible future ventures was something I'd been eagerly anticipating since before the trip began.

The meeting had been set for 12:20 in front of the Louvre pyramid -the main entrance. As such, in the morning we had the opportunity to say goodbye to Flora (too short a meeting) before catching the trainin to St Lazarre and then the metro to Pyramide. Arriving at the Louvre entrance exactly on time (perhaps a first for us but something we have been working on due to the deadlines associated with a trip like ours) we found Pete waiting coolly. It was good seeing him again. We waited 15 or 20 minutes with no show from Adam. We then decided to call Adam - which resulted in a humorous technology-overkill-dance which roused the interest of many tourists (perhaps they thought we part of some Da Vinci Code conspiracy). Pete had Adam's number on his laptop - which is a flash, large-screen Dell number. However his battery was flat, so I was pulled in to act as "laptop holder" (a position I've always aspired to), then it turned out the email was on an external hard-drive which had to get connected (Grant as holder) and decrypted. Of course, just as all this was completed, Adam showed up.

First we had drinks in the nearby gardens - with a very interesting waiter. Lots of catching up. Then we went in search of lunch(eventually at a Parisian Café - what else?) - all the while heading along the Seinne in the direction of the Eiffel Tower and theTrocadero - which was where Adam's hotel was, and where Pete also hoped/planned to stay for the evening.

We ended up performing a bit of a dance with the hotel, when the original hotel had no spare rooms - eventually heading over to a"sister" hotel halfway up to the Arch de Triump. By then it was late afternoon and there was still "business" to talk. Maria and the kids decided to head back to Sannois, while with Pete's generosity I stayed in the same hotel, with a separate room. Business was concluded relatively quickly in the hotel and it was decided to go "out on the town", travelling about Paris and drinking at different locations - I came to think of it as a Metro pub crawl.

First we headed over to Montmarche only to find it raining and quite cold (I'd headed into a sunny Paris that morning in shorts and polo-shirt, so I was soon cold and wet), we eventually took cover in an Irish pub (the only thing Irish being that they served Guiness) for our first beer. Then down-hill and along to see the Moulon Rougue - a very seedy district with adult shows all along that area. We ended up in a bar run by Vietnamese women where a 3-piece male French band sang 70s American songs in English while European soccer was shown on TVs about the room. Viva la difference. Quite an atmosphere and the beers were cheap too. Then it was time to move again - this time down to St Michelle (across from Notre Dame). It was a lot of fun and a heady atmosphere, rushing through the evening streets and metro tunnels with the guys. We found a fixed-price 3-course meal restaurant (15 Euros - great value) and I got to try Escargot - not bad at all. Just as I feared a night with no sleep - indeed waking up in an unknown part of Paris, Pete and Adam seemd to "hit the wall" (ahh, how they have aged, lol) and decided to call it a night. So it was one last metro ride across town and we were back to the hotel by midnightish, with the knowledge that Pete was leaving early in the morning, but that Adam's return train wasn't till after 5pm the nextday.