Paris

Took a cab to FNAC, spent the day there. For lunch, the FNAC team took me to lunch at a place on a side street — a house that had been converted to a restaurant — where we enjoyed a multi-course meal with wine, cheese, and coffee (what we Americans would call espresso). In the evening, I went out on another walk, eating at a brasserie on Boulevard St. Germain. The area was still teeming with people at eleven o’clock at night (in midweek!).

Paris

Arrived at DeGaulle airport in Paris at about noon, and took a taxi to the SeeBeyond office in the city. After an hour or so meeting and talking with the people there, I took another taxi to the customer site, in Clichy. FNAC is the largest consumer electronics chain in France, with great book and music departments as well — the equivalent of Circuit City plus Borders — and they want to use our CICS e*Way and Cobol API. I’m responsible for both products, and wrote the latter.

Didier Houselle, the SeeBeyond Sales Manager for western Europe, met me there and introduced me to the people I’ll be working with at the customer site. They were mostly IBM employees, on-site consultants. Contrary to many stories I’d heard about the French, there were no language problems: everyone spoke at least some English, and all were good natured about my attempts to speak French. And of course, we all spoke Cobol and IBM JCL.

Leaving FNAC at six, I took a cab to my hotel, the Hotel de l’Academie, 32 rue de St. Peres, in the St. Germain (Left Bank) district. My room was tiny, but I didn’t care, because the place was located in an incredibly picturesque area — and despite my lack of sleep, I went out on an evening walk to the Seine, and across to take pictures of the Louvre.

Off to Europe

Just as I was about to leave for work, at 9 AM, I got a phone call from my boss, Fred Aabedi. He said I needed to be on a 3PM United Airlines flight for Paris, to do a "proof of concept" (POC) of my Cobol API program for a potentially major customer. This had been looming as a possibility for some time, and I'd gotten a passport so I'd be ready to make trips such as this - but I hadn't expected to be given so little notice. And Fred said that I should pack for two weeks, because after the week in Paris, I might be going to England for a second POC. So I spent the morning in a rush, packing and driving to Monrovia to get my plane ticket and other stuff I needed to take along (manuals, extra batteries for my laptop, etc.), and made it to the airport with little time to spare (half an hour early for an international flight).

But soon after three, I was on my way to Europe for the first time in my life. I had a business class window seat, and passed the time reading and watching our progress on my video map display.