Normal Stuff

It is end of week 5 and the days are merging into a state of normalcy... like we are slowly settling into a Parisian pace and mood. We have mastered 'hello', 'thank you, good bye', 'good day', 'good evening', 'good weekend', 'see you tomorrow' and 'get out of my way' in a genuine french accent to con most folks. We learnt to avoid the 6pm to 7pm metro crush-o-rama. Also, we've established a routine of wake-eat-shower-eat-getout-before-2pm cycle to keep us going for the weekdays. Wednesdays are grocery days, church is on Sundays at 5pm, and laundry is every 2.5 to 3 weeks. We eat quite a bit at home coz 1 meal in a restaurant = 4 days of 3 meals at home. The chinese medicine from the sin-seh is doing wonders for Jo, she was very happy to do with just 1 layer in 24c yesterday.

On the work end, some of the leads are getting warmer. We'll see how that goes, might take a while to develop since meetings can take up to a week to schedule. The routine probably sounds boring but it's quite ok la, taking it one step at a time. We are generally happy.

Might cut down the writing a bit, see how first. If there's anything exciting to report, you guys will be the first to know.

Wes

Dans le Metro

Today, I saw a familiar face. This is not someone I know. This is a stranger, whom I have seen once, and for some reason, recognized this second time I see her. And she was with the same friend, at the same metro station I saw her the last time.

So there it is. The start to the end of an unfamiliar land.

Jo

Confirmation

Something curious happened. We got 2 signs about Air France. One happened 2 days ago, when we did a search on Air France service on Google. Turns out that Air France bought out airfrancesucks.com over a court case this year, hmmm...

Clincher sign was yesterday, it's long story but bear with me... We got up early at 830am (!!) to catch Corpse Bride (1030am) at a cinema next to our usual internet café. We got there at 10am, the cinema wasn't open so we thought of checking our emails but café was closed for maintenance. So, after we finished the show (was good, made us tear a bit), we got to the internet café about 12ish but all the computers in the front of the shop were occupied. So we went to use the PCs at the rear of the shop (it's a really big shop) instead. 15min later, we found a vacant PC in the front of the shop and promptly switched over coz we can't use the USB drive with the backroom PCs.

Less than 2 minutes later on the new PC, Jodie overheard one of the ladies next to her shouting 'No! No!' into her headset. This lady was REALLY upset and she kept shouting about being overcharged 2 or 3 times for her air ticket that was booked on the net... and guess what? She shouted that the tickets were from Air France!!

If that's not a sign, I don't know what is. Thank you God. We will be flying Malaysia Airlines.

Also learned new french word. We like bratwurst and were really happy to see a bratwurst-ish white-ish looking sausage at Monoprix supermarket. When we brought it back and started cooking it, Jo told me the texture was really strange. She then saw the package and asked me to check the dictionary for what 'boudin' meant. It means 'blood sausage'. We tried it and it was like blood cubes at yong tau foo stores. It was the slowest dinner we ever had... sighz, had to throw it out halfway, we not big fan of blood cubes.

As it turns out, Jo's sister will be coming over to visit us early November for about 11 days, woohoo!

Wes

Air France or Malaysia Air

Hey Guys,

Need your help. We are buying return tix *from* Paris and they are cheap. But also have heard that service not so happening. Anybody got advice? We can shave about 3 hours off Malaysia Airlines coz got no transfer. Thanks!!

Wes

End of Week 3

Really appreciate and want to thank our family (parents, siblings, siblings-in-laws, shane & qq), TBM, kat, aiks, jen, kheng hwa, kakis from church, kakis from Joo Chiat Place and fragging kakis for remembering us in prayer and support.

We've been dreaming lots, more than when we were in Singapore. One night a week ago, I had something like 6 dreams, after telling Jo about them, she said that the dreams meant the same thing; that I was struggling with leaving comfort zones. Also have been dreaming a lot about scenarios occurring at our parents' place and our house, haven't dreamt about Paris yet. But like what Jo said, week 3 is better, Paris is beginning to sink in.

Read 2 books this week, 'Eccentrics' by David Weeks & Jamie James and 'Guys, Germs And Steel' by Jared Diamond (really really good book, answered some latent questions I had since I was a kid). Again they were found on the bookshelf in our apartment, might take up Nardac's offer of english books soon. :-)

Haven't shot anything serious. I'm re-wiring the photography mindset that I grew up with at home, both in business and visioning aspects. It's taking a bit of time and I think it's no coincidence that we are doing it here. There are 2 major factors that helps, one is that we have ample/loads/tonnes of free time, the world seems to run a little slower here; the other is that the creative air is different here, it's hard to explain it but we get the feeling that art/photography is judged *differently* here... I feel freer to be me. So I won't shoot, I want to soak in that freedom first.

Wes

Our time here

There is a Catholic church down the street where we live. Every day when we wake up, we will cross our fingers and listen to the bells chime. And its the same story every day, the bells will go off 11 or 12 times and we will be amazed at how we manage to clock 11 or 12 hours of sleep every time.

Yesterday, the bells only rang once. This is not good.

The temperature seems to be going up these couple of days. Its about 24 deg on the average in the day and its pretty comfortable. Our days are not like filled with tons to do. Rather, we seem to be doing only one thing a day. Like yesterday, was laundry day.

Its funny how each time we come back to Paris we will find ourselves readjusting. The story is the same every time. We pack, leave home and come here, arrive, rest for a day and find ourselves waiting to go go go. But we can't, coz we have limited contacts and things to do here. So we wait. And in waiting, we lose hope and get depressed. And then, we ask ourselves, just what on earth are we doing here?

And then, interestingly enough, before we give up all hope, someone from home drops an email, or an sms to say bon courage! or that they are praying for us. And we remember why we are here. And we hang on.

In hanging on, we begin to see ourselves for who we are, and realise how little we know ourselves. That's when we start to let go of the rules and habits that we have become so accustomed to. And then we open our eyes to the space that we have here. And we stop doing, but start living and being.

This week has been that turning point for us.

Jo

2 weeks

We've been here for exactly 2 weeks now. Gotten used to the pace of things, like checking email and surfing twice a week instead of twice every hour, that was tough, that was partly why we felt cut off. Bedtime's also changed, we knock off about 12am and get up chirpy about 12pm. Jo says my eye bags are much better here. The mac powerbook is finding a new life as a jukebox, Corrine May, Tim Hughes, Matt Redman and Sarah McLachlan have been keeping us company every other day. Also, I got a french mobile line so keeping the M1 sim card out of out sight, if there's anything please sms Jodie. Also thought we found a great Pho place called Pho14 (it's very famous apparently and crowded) but woke up at night with super thirsty, no wonder it's good, got lots of msg. So skipping that.

And coz we have the kitchen, we spend less, buying provisions from G20 (more ex than Monop) and Monop (meat not as fresh as G20), saving tonnes. I also read Bill Bryson's 'Notes from a small island', 'Primary Colors' by Anonymous, 'Post Mortem' by Patricia Cornwell, the landlord left them here on a sitting on a bookshelf. Jo was amused to see me reading. We also don't have cable so no english channels, it's all french, and the news is all about france, so we missed the Bali news, it's terrible.

We met our contact this week and she turned out to be a really really nice lady, will have to see how it turns out. I've also made some decisions about photography direction after thinking and mulling for a while, see if God's ok with us going in that direction.

Jo's brother and sister sent a surprise package via DHL, reached us yesterday. It's got marmite, maggie porridge, black pepper sauce mix, thai curry mix, pocky, mos chicken cubes, hi-chew candy, letter and a CD filled with mini quicktime movies. Woohoo! Thanks guys!! And Shane's laugh sequence is such a hoot! Been watching the videos to no end. Congrats to you Teck Hua and Janis, your baby son looks like a potential lady-killer.

Btw, Battlefield 2 and some of the new games cost 50something euros here, crazy. But they do have Plantronics Gamecon 1 headset for 50 euros, we don't have them back home. Plantronics has some of the better headsets in the market but we don't see them at SLS, funny.

Also btw, saw a canon 5D and it's about S$5900+ here after minus-ing VAT. So Terz or Kelvin if you are reading this...

Love,
Wes