10:20 AM - I can actually program the TV in your room as a wake-up call. A bit annoying to be awakened by it this morning, but it was very effective. A big clock comes on the screen and it rings and TV comes on. Very cool. Same kind of TV as I have, but it has a clock showing on front of it, and of course the alarm thing must be a built in hotel add-on.
I had a bit of that fluctuating hot water issue this morning that I read about in several reviews of the hotel, which was odd - showered last night with no trouble. Must be based on demand for hot water or something, like when we flush toilets and water gets cold or hot. No big deal but water does come out very hot - don't see that nearly as much in lawsuit-happy North America.
11:08 AM - thought I'd walk down to a pharmacy I saw on my night walk, to get insoles for my Mountie boots. I decided I might as well change in my room daily and just walk between hotel and Congress centre in uniform - it's 2 minutes and you don't go outside. These boots will kill me without insoles and forgot all about it previously. Sick of changing in bathroom stalls and hauling stuff around so glad to be so close to my hotel this time.
Met a friendly couple from CA in elevator who were here for a Congress and now vacation time just like I'll do. Said I must do the boat cruise that the hotel gives us at night - takes 1 hour and runs to 11 PM starting at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. They said everything is beautifully lit at night. They were going to Versailles today so I gave some tips and answered questions. Nice people.
Beautiful morning, though I needed a light jacket to walk down the street, it was probably about +14C and relatively sunny. I walked down a major street called Porte le Champerret, which starts in front of my hotel and leads - well, nowhere interesting I've learned. It's got lots of cute apartment and condo buildings (see picture right, click for larger), along with a lot of shops and restaurants. The drug stores here are very small - only the basics at the one i went to and the only insoles were 40€. I politely kept looking - they were very nice but seriously, give me a break. Walked across to the McDonald's, which during the day looks strangely like all the other cute little restaurants and coffee shops in the area. I know I know, that's several times in 2 days now I've been to the Golden Arches, but honestly I just can't quite get into ordering everything in French yet and taking so long for my food. Figured they were serving lunch now served - but this is Paris and (I've learned) it's full of pleasant surprises.
McDonald's sells brunch boxes that come with something like a Happy Meal container (see picture left, click for larger). Inside was a cappuccino or reg coffee (I picked a cappuccino), yogurt, apple or orange juice (apple here), Bacon and Egg McMuffin and two pancakes with jam that reminded me more of flat and bigger English muffins. Very filling for around 7€. Streets are extremely quiet this AM. Old men drinking coffee in animated conversation with their friends; some women riding bikes or shopping for vegetables on the street or carrying big loaves of bread from somewhere (didn't see a bakery and I looked!) and a few young people puttering around on their scooters. Stores are mostly closed Sunday and even on Monday, and many museums are closed Monday or Tuesday - the way a truly civilized people should be.
I'm starting to see already what the fuss is about - this city's best asset isn't buildings (though it apparently has 1,800 classified monuments, 157 museums, 145 theatres and 380 cinemas alone!), according to a message from Bertrand Delanoe, the Mayor of Paris, in a guidebook I got from the Congress site. It's the people and a way of life that makes Paris the envy of the world, and the people of Paris really own their city. The streets, parks, rivers, buildings, etc. are designed more for people - not cars. Hard to explain - you'd have to be here to see it. Everything is much slower, more thoughtful and maybe less stressed - it feels like moving from the stress of New York City to the relative serenity of Saskatoon - but in the case, Saskatoon being the much bigger city. People even speak much quieter here than at home for the most part, especially in public (trains, stores and restaurants).
11:40 AM - came back to room and ate. Just after noon the maid came and straightened the room up. Watched the news. There are 8 or 9 English (mostly news channels - you can only watch so much of that before you want to throw the TV out the window), 6 Arabic (there are lots of people from the Arab world in Paris) and a smattering of most other European and Asian major languages (mostly Chinese, Japanese and Korean) on the TV here - very UN of them.
Honestly if I hear one more time about Kennedy's burial on TV this morning I'll fly to Washington and dig the hole myself to speed it up. Ugh. Europe is just fascinated with Obama and the Kennedys. I personally don't get it.
12:00 PM - just learned via email about a big problem - the little Congress bears I'm handing out were delivered here on Saturday and refused by the Congress Centre because the Congress hadn't started yet, and they didn't know where they were supposed to go, and no one from our team was here to deliver them. So now they are somewhere in Paris at a brokerage. Sigh - I feel like chopping heads right now - when I ask someone to make sure it goes from A to B, I would assume "B" isn't a warehouse across town that I've never heard of, especially when I'm standing at "B" and getting higher blood pressure by the minute. Stress that again I have to resolve from 9 time zones away. Everyone in Canada is sleeping and we need the tracking number so they can find our boxes, but I didn't care - this is just plain incompetence so I started emailing and leaving voice mail for the company we hired in Vancouver to get their butts in gear. The day will be over before they get up on a lazy Vancouver Sunday. What a brutal waste of time today will be - 8 hours in a booth with nothing to give away.
Second piece of fun news - was talking to a few people about my cab adventure on the way in, and they were all shocked - I was apparently charged literally double what I should have paid (about 40€). They think the cabbie didn't bother to clear his fare and let it run again. I was tired, disoriented, new to the city and paying more attention to the scenery - though he sure pointed it out a lot. I hope, for that idiot's sake, that he never runs into me again. I also hope he ends up on the side of the road with a flat tire and no jack for that stunt. And to think, he made me feel so bad and so stressed, and he wasn't even being honest with me. No wonder the bell captain gave him the once over when he looked at him - I wish someone would have said something. I would have refused to pay altogether - go ahead and call the police and justify that kind of fare to them. Everyone in Paris would have known I was ripped off. Ugh, I wish I had never known that.
1:00 PM - just got to the Congress site, and it's going to be a looooooong day. The Transplantation Society, the people who technically 'own' our Congress, were understandably upset about the bears not being here, and of course, I'm the only one here at the moment who can answer for it or get it fixed. I also the only one who actually had nothing to do with the botched issue. I got furious myself, and sent off a few more unpleasant emails to the staff back home, telling them that this had better be resolved by the end of my day, or there would be "significant internal changes" the minute I get back to Vancouver. Amazingly enough, within 2 hours, the staff in Vancouver were on red alert (and I must add, they are not MY staff - it's the company we hire to run the Congress for us that blew this so badly) and started to make progress in finding out where things were and getting it fixed - even though it was a lazy Sunday in Paris now. Go figure.
I think our booth was quite nice. It has a space-age look and feel to it. The only downsize is the stupid barstool chairs they have around the table on the right (see picture left, click for larger). You slide off of them because, believe it or not, they are made of shiny plastic and tipped a bit forward. It's like you are supposed to bruise your butt on the floor! I couldn't stay on them unless I hook the heel of my Mountie boots in the bar thing near the bottom of the stool. What a retarded design - so impractical. Paris tends to be a bit of that as well.
2:30 PM - the President of TTS himself, who was the Chair of the Sydney Congress when I was there - and an overall good guy - bought each of the 4 of us at the booth (including himself) a beautiful pastry from a world-famous cafe, which is right by our Congress centre, called Charles Traiteur (see picture left, click for larger). I think he accurately sized up the mood in the booth not being so great, yet none of us caused the problem. He came to brighten the day - wow did he ever. Picture a cup of custard poured into a big tart shell and covered with 3 full strawberries cut in half on top, then glazed with sugar. If I put both my hands over it, I just barely covered it - the computer lock in the photo is longer than my hand is wide, to give perspective. I've never seen an individual pastry that big before, I don't think ever. Can't even imagine how much it cost, but I ate the whole thing - barely. I think that must be what food in Heaven will taste like.
3:00 PM - had some time to walk around and see the booths today. One had two kinds of fruit smoothies (Wyeth), another was handing out Italian coffee, a third (see picture right, click for larger) was actually handing out free sushi and had created a Japanese meditation garden, complete with bamboo fence around it. Yah, it stopped me in my tracks too - man, they get more creative every time.
One had nothing but TVs on it, with different things going on each one of them (see picture left, click for larger). And they don't rent those TVs in Paris - they buy the booth materials and ship it all in. One company (I'll leave nameless) in Sydney spent $200,000 on their booth, and it was 2 stories high with a coffee shop on top. When it was over, they tore it down - and threw everything in the garbage, because it cost too much to ship stuff home. Do you really still not understanding why health care is so expensive?5:00 PM - The booth is in a dead spot in exhibit areas. All the traffic is down by main pharmaceutical booths (we're in the non-profit area) or rushing by us to various symposia. Same thing in Boston. I don't pick the booth, but not a good scene. Will this day: 1) ever get better and 2) ever end? Sigh. When I get the bears (and must get them for tomorrow AM or I'm going to get more than a little cranky on the organizers at home) I'm going to have to do guerrilla marketing and wander around, no matter who's booth I'm in front of when I hand them out. All's fair. I'm hoping, however, that when I hand out a few at our booth, that we'll create the kind of traffic we had everywhere else, and maybe I'll be the hero to all the other booths on our row that our dying.
The only good thing about that story is that the our competitor Congress in May 2010 in San Diego (I know, they're even on the same Coast as us, and only 3 months apart) is hurting even more than we are - they are handing out pompoms with eyes on a surfboard with a San Diego sticker on them. Honestly, when I think of San Diego, I don't think of surfing, but Shamu the killer whale at Seaworld! They literally rushed out to get something in Boston when our Mountie bears were showing up everywhere - we made them nervous. You'd think they would come up with something better for another Congress, however - those things are just embarrassing. And the lady running the show is also manning the booth!
6:00 PM - Dr. Keown, my boss, met us at the booth. I told him the situation and he wasn't happy about it. Said that he and I would meet with the company next week to set them straight, and thanked me for my help. It's totally dead on this end of the convention exhibit area - so much so that some exhibitors are threatening to leave the Congress early to go back home if ESOT, the European Society of Transplantation (who runs this Congress) doesn't fix the problem quickly. I think, when we get the bears, that we'll start building traffic for everyone else - they are a hot commodity.
9:00 PM - Congress just ended and I walked back to the hotel with Dr. Keown, who's staying in Concorde too. I really like working with him, such a great guy. We talked about our game plan for tomorrow, and then I said goodnight and went to the room.
Quickly changed and called and called and called and called room service for a hamburger and a Coke - took forever to get in touch with someone. In fact, I never did - ended up calling concierge to complain that no one was answering at "24 hour" room service, and they gave me another number. No one answered there either. I was about to give up when room service called me - now that's a first. I ordered my food - and a hamburger, fries and coke came to....33€ with the delivery charge! That's about $45 Canadian! Did I mention that I got a 25% coupon for drinks at the bar on the roof of the building - at 22€ a drink, they should be giving away the entire bottle! Water and Coke are just fine thanks (though each Coke in the minibar, which I won't even touch, is 6€ - that's $9 Canadian for a can of Coke!
This is the largest and last dime the hotel is getting out of me, but I was so tired I didn't care. My feet are killing me and I don't want to walk anywhere to eat. Starving too - what a long day. The little goodies they handed out at the Reception at ESOT were just pathetic - cream cheese sandwiches about the size of your knuckle was all I could find, and cheese balls on a stick. I thought I was going to throw up. The neighbour booth to us pointed out that she's not yet seen a fat person in all of Paris, and I realized she was right! If this is all these people eat, I'm surprised anyone's left alive to turn out the lights here at night.
10:00 PM - hamburger came (see picture right, click for larger), and appetite went. It was fancy alright - and disgusting. One bite and I was just about ill - they put blue cheese on it! Could you possibly do more damage to a hamburger than that? Why not just throw up on it - seriously, that's what it smelled and tasted like. Ugh. I pulled the cheese off and ate the rest. it was too thick and the meat was weird tasting. I was not impressed. For 33€ I should have gotten a tap-dancing cow in my room. I liked the little bottles of ketchup, mustard (Dijon? good grief, why not just poison me) and mayonnaise - though Boston had them as well. The one cool thing was Coke in a real glass bottle - I felt like I was 12 again. I kept the bottle.11:13 PM - My body soon reminded me, however, that I was 42, going on 70. I hit the sack (and I mean hit it) right after I ate. My mind and body just couldn't function anymore. Is it possible to go into a coma and still be standing?
Good night for now from the eternal City of Lights! Now can someone please turn them out for me (thank God for black-out curtains).
No comments:
Post a Comment