Museum and Lunch with the Big Boss

Hi there,

Let's see. Tuesday, I sent a quick email to my boss in Paris to let him know that I had arrived, found my apartment, etc. and then Hubbiekins and I went to the Musée d'Orsay, which is probably my favorite museum in Paris. This statement does not mean much, as I've only been to Paris once before and I think I've only been to two museums. So, I guess I mean, d'Orsay > Louvre because, although the Louvre is très cool on the outside and has many of the world's masterpieces, it's SO freaking huge that I get the illness my family affectionately calls "museum head" very quickly after entering. Also, I'm not so much into antiquities and the Louvre has quite the collection of that stuff. So, d'Orsay it is.

We had to stand outside in line for 20ish minutes to get in and buy our tickets, and it was COLD. And started to rain, and neither of us had brought rain gear. But we made it inside to the ticketing area before the heavens really let go. I got us the reduced rate for being youngins under 25, so that was a nice use of my French as I like saving money.

We were kind of already a little worn out and frozen by this point from walking to the museum and standing in line, so we stopped at the cafe on the ground floor of the museum and took a little break with some water, Fanta and 2 "petits pains" or little breads, otherwise known as dinner rolls.

After our snack break, we started on the ground floor and worked our way up to the top of the museum. In hindsight, the opposite path might have been the better choice because by the time we got to the fifth floor -- which is room after room of Impressionist masters, we were kind of done. Anyways, I was particularly excited about a painting my Millet (another greatest hit is "The Gleaners") called L'Angelus, or I think something like "morning prayer" in English. It depicts two farm workers in the field gleaning after the harvest (I think) and they pause as the sun rises and the church bells ring for morning prayer. The map of the d'Orsay has a convenient legend of where to find its most renowned pieces, and Angelus is on the Millet hallway. Husbie and I walk the Millet hallway. Spot the Gleaners, but I can spy no Angelus. So, I go to information and (in French) say how we have just walked the length of the hallway, no Angelus, what's up. Response: it's on exhibition in Moscow and won't be back for two months. So I didn't get to see it this time, but the good thing about my extended stay is that I will still be here in two months, so hopefully I will see it when it returns.

After heading through the rest of the galleries that I was interested in, we walked to Les Invalides, the site of Napoleon's burial because I was under the impression that it was free. Wrong. The burial site in the church, and the entire church itself, has been incorporated into the Musée de l'Armée (Army Museum) and entrance to the whole museum was included in the fare. I may be completely wrong about this, but I thought that the last time I came to Paris (2004) it was free because it's a church and churches are free. That is no longer the case and Husband and I decided that we didn't really care about Napoleon that much. So, we took the metro home.

At home, I checked my email again only to discover that my boss had emailed me not 20 minutes after we left that morning asking me to call him so that we could set up a time to meet this week to go over my internly duties as he will be traveling for most of my first week of work. Problem: I didn't have a phone and the Skype test call I did over the 3G on my iPad didn't go so well, so we ventured back down the many stairs to the SFR store where I acquired a cheapo pre-pay phone. Then we tromped back up the stairs so that I could make my phone call. Set up lunch for the following day.

Wednesday, May 16 -- Lunch with the big boss

I am a little fish in this office that I will soon call my workplace, so boss is an unclear term because apart from the other interns, everyone is in some degree my boss. So by lunch with boss, I mean big boss, and by big boss I mean managing partner of the Paris office of the law firm. Husband and I took the metro out to my workplace, which was good to do because I have to change trains twice and this lunch presented a good opportunity to practice. We practiced a little too well and arrived an hour early, so we stopped into a restaurant so that Husband could eat as he would not be joining me for my work lunch. After a quick lunch for him, I headed to the office and he set up shop in a little ice cream cafe nearby.

The office is very very nice and it's in a very stately building with quite an impressive door. The firm has the entire second floor for its office suite. I introduced myself at reception and sat down to wait for lunch. I ended up going with both the big boss and a senior associate to lunch at a nice restaurant. I had the seared sesame soy tuna --yum! We had a good chat, and I got the new intern spiel over lunch. The three biggest points were to ask questions about anything at all that's unclear, to integrate myself with the firm, and to ride herd on my time sheets (which I will have to fill out to keep track of what time I am spending on which projects, etc.). After lunch, I got a quick tour of the office and was introduced to everyone who happened to be there, so several attorneys, some support staff, and a fellow intern.

After the tour, I wrestled with the stately door. It said to "ring and push hard." My apartment door is like that too -- there's a button that you push to unlock and then you shove on the door and out you go. Problem was, I could not f or the life of me find what I was supposed to ring/push. So I tried the other door with a big turns handle. I opened it, sort of, and shimmied out throught the crack. I discovered Hubbie turning the corner to come and find me. While we were chatting about what to do next, the building manager came over and fixed the door that I had opened incorrectly. So oops. I will have to figure that one out quickly. We ended up just heading home so that I could change out of mu suit. Did not end up going to church because by the time I got changed we would have been late to the English service and H didn't seem all that keen on going to the later French service.