Freude, schöner Götterfunken

So, earlier this week I was in Strasbourg for work. It seemed a pretty town, although I didn't get to see much of it as my new boss is a bit of a workaholic. But I like her anyway, because she doesn't pull any punches. And she seems to think I'm doing a good job, so it's all good.

Strasbourg is where the European Parliament sits when it's not in Brussels, and so work was a model of European harmony and I felt no guilt whatsoever about only using 10 words of French whilst I was there. ( I was not as bad as an American at breakfast who, after looking at the waiter's badge, said 'M-a-r-c. How do you pronounce that? Oh, Mark?'. What do they feed them??!!)

I did draw the line at telling a colleague I was having difficulty understanding him because of his heavily accented French though. I'm not that insensitive. I also love a French accent, so tried not to stare dreamily at him too much. It was quite ironic to be working with some Russians, a Pole, some Germans, a Japanese and some French, especially considering just over 60 years ago we would have been tearing each other limb from limb.

One of the differences I did notice was absolutely no-one was in the office before 9:00 and everyone left at 17:00. (except for me and my boss of course - I had to drag her out at 18:30, after a 10.5 hour day) And everyone had lunch in the (delicious and heavily-subsidised) canteen for an hour. Which is a million miles away from the eat-lunch-at-your-desk and maybe take 30 minutes for it culture here. And don't start me on the coffee breaks.....

My self-control went out the window, it was all french pastries for breakfast and wine (Pinot! Shiraz! Syrah!) and steak at dinner. I even ate at a cheese restaurant one night (La Cloche à Fromages), where, as you'd expect, cheese featured heavily on the menu and I could feel myself piling on the weight with every mouthful.

I had to fly into and out of Stuttgart airport (look at this - why can't Heathrow be like this?). The taxi to Strasbourg sped down the autobahn at 180kmh in driving rain. Even though I was safely ensconced in the back of a big Mercedes, it didn't stop me praying all the way to St Diana of Windsor.

My train to Heathrow took 50 minutes instead of 15, because someone had jumped at Southall... people nowadays are so inconsiderate. I blame Tony Blair.

I had a little time to spare at Stuttgart Airport, so took the opportunity to have a nice cold German lager in the cockpit bar. It was nice.

Nothing to see here

Today was such a lovely day that Paul and I decided to go for a walk on Hampstead Heath, and even though it felt like we spent the best part of the afternoon waiting for the bus over, it was beautiful once we got there. Euan McGregor plays a gay man in a new film shot on Hampstead Heath - 'Scenes of A Sexual Nature', but we didn't see him anywhere. :(




I had had a force 10 hangover, but running to the gym and back had reduced that to a force 8 - too much beer and red wine last night with Louise, Jo, Clayton, Jari, Lucy, Brock and Jason. We had been at Islington's cool-ish 'The Green', then had tapas and some lovely tempranillo from Ribera Del Duero. I had planned to have a quiet weekend on the alcohol front, but fortunately events conspired against me.

Paul arrived home Friday night with champagne to celebrate my new job. It looks like I've landed another job with our main client, but at this point in time I'm not really sure what it is. I was rung the other day to ask if I would put myself forward for it. The job was with a few agencies as well, but as it was so great it seems I was the only applicant. Hmmm. I'm not too sure what that means at this point in time. I think it's more a of project management role, and the project runs until June next year, so I'm hoping it will all work out and it's a permanent way out of my current role. I'm pretty excited by it, but a bit nervous too.

Anyway, my lovely boyfriend bought champagne for that, and then we had steak with garlic and rosemary potatoes, so some Yarra Valley red was consumed with that....add last night's drinks in and the plans for a light weekend went out the window......there's always next weekend I suppose.