Some years ago my great friend , Phil Gregory, was assigned to work in Paris and I asked him to write a blog about his experiences. Then this year when Chester decided to re release my Recipe calendar he asked for a blog to link to for each Recipe form around the world. As you can imagine with my love for Asia we had many blogs on the Philippines and Thailand but nothing on Paris ( the original blog by Phil was destroyed along with 499 others when I was forced to delete my old blog)
Luckily Phil kept a copy. I know many of my readers have a trip to Paris on their bucket list , so please enjoy his take on the two years he spent in Paris before COV 19 and Brexit forced him back to his family in the UK!
Over to Phil...
Good morrow to all of Neil’s blog readers.
Some of you may remember that I wrote a blog a couple of years ago on my time based out of Germany and the thrills and spills of my experiences there.
Neil has once again asked that I update you with my own ‘travels’ since leaving Cologne at the end of August 2016.
It goes like this…. Picture the seine, scene sorry.
After 16 years with SUEZ, I was enjoying my final day (for those who know football, it was Transfer Deadline Day) with a lovely leaving party organised by my German colleagues. Gifts included a barrel of beer (yes) and some Kolsch glasses alongside a beautiful piece of art representing the Cologne landscape.
With no job available, on returning to the UK post secondment, I was expecting to go back to a redundancy situation and to seek pastures new in our green and pleasant land.
But wait, pray tell, what is this: a phone call during my leaving speech (literally)!
“Bonjour Monsieur Gregory, Je am calling vous aujourd hui à Paris.
Nous sommes le grand news pour you. I comprend that vous quittez
Germany et you avez no travail.
Nous avons une formidable opportunity pour vous here à Paris que
vous devez take immédiatement tomorrow. Venez venir dans un
apartment typiquement français à Montmartre et drink du vin et eat du
fromage et dites «oh la la» chaq
ue fois that vous tenez au poo de
chien dans la street.
A job! How could I possibly turn this opportunity down? A chance to not learn another language again, even if I did do some study at school a trillion years ago.
So here I am. Living in an apartment in Montmartre (a village don’t you know), a stone’s throw from the Sacre Coeur and Place du Tertre. The heart of Paris and a magnet for tourists from all over the world. 500 restaurants on a hill. Did I mention I live at the top of said hill, by a windmill?
Moulin de la Galette (Renoir…)
Every morning I take the Metro to work, or on good days, I cycle the 7.5 kms on my little fold up bike (I unfold it first). 30 minutes there and back and I see the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and cross the River Seine every day. Magical.
You may all be aware that I am also living during a time when terrorism is rife here and the French are in a current State of Emergency (since the Bataclan attack). Soldiers and police are plainly visible on the streets here in groups of four and have become part of the scenery along with the more recent addition of ‘Les Gilet Jaunes’, which is confusing to say the least as I have worked alongside people wearing these jackets for nigh on 20 years. I was thinking yesterday that if being back in operational HR, what a nightmare it would be to see the crews from Doncaster bin lorries scaling the Arc de Triomphe shouting “We want new boots”. It worries me not. I ride the Metro, I walk and cycle the streets and I will continue to enjoy my time here no matter what the circumstances are.
If you’re are interested (and have Spotify), my son Zak wrote and recorded a song about the Bataclan attack within twenty minutes of it occurring, called ‘United’ - United, Zak Gregory Working in La Defense (the Canary Wharf of Paris), I am still doing project management but this time implementing an IT HR software system across the globe. That’s the boring bit but it keeps me here in Paris until, hopefully August 2019.
Whilst here, I am attempting to experience the things that people have to do once in Paris. Living in Montmartre (street art everywhere, examples below) gives you a unique opportunity to do this as it is the heart of the tourist district and you can get anywhere around the city via the very efficient transport network here.
I live on Rue Lepic, toujours un film location (Amelie was filmed here), which was also home to Van Gogh and near to Picasso. I am a completely different type of artist! The streets of this part of the world are fantastically old fashioned due to the fact that Malls (although Paris has them) have really not taken off and the High Street is thriving with a cacophony of local shops selling everything. My street is no different with a Fromagerie, Poissonnerie, Vin, Fleurs, Chocolat, Boulangerie, Charcuterie and many other European offerings from Italy to Greece too. The walk home from the Metro is a wonderful experience and a baguette (always fresh and warm) is never whole by the time it reaches the apartment.
The Moulin Rouge is a few metres away, which is one of those places you have to go to, iconic and therefore expensive, only to wonder at how many thousands of people they can get into a small Victorian theatre for each show. With snakes and costumes, the cabaret feel is beyond bizarre yet somehow nostalgic (hearing Ewan McGregor singing now).
Walks (or rides) along the Seine from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower are something to behold. Iconic destinations aplenty welcome you with their splendour and accessibility. I won’t list them all but needless to say, I think that I have been to almost all of them these last two years. A few pictures give you some idea.
I will perhaps save my final year for another guest blog but will recommend one last place to visit whilst in Paris – Versailles. If anyone is watching or has watched the TV series, it is quite close to the historical truth and gives you a distinct flavour of the place and how it grew up from a humble hunting lodge to the seat of Louis Quatorze (Warning – contains rumpy pumpy). I have been a few times, having purchase an annual pass, giving you the valuable element of jumping the huge queues and free entry to the gardens during the fountain nights of the summer. The music and firework evenings are a stunning display of new and old. The France we know today was born of the influence of Louis and his remarkable reign.
I will leave you with a few quotes to whet your appetite if you ever wish to visit this fair city. Tu es plus que bienvenue.
“Paris is always a good idea.” – Audrey Hepburn
“A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life.” – Thomas Jefferson
“We’ll always have Paris.” – Howard Koch
“When good Americans die, they go to Paris.” – Oscar Wilde
“An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
“In Paris, they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never
did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language!” –
Mark Twain
Cheers!
Next week we have Chicken , Honey and Date Tagine from Morocco!
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Hello, I am The British Kabayan! Feel free to read my stories.
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