The Battle of Paris...

Paris 029, originally uploaded by impactmatt.

.... you i wont do what you tell me!!! .... you I wont do what you tell me!!!

If you like Rage or know the song, you know what word I am leaving out. Sometimes I sing the unedited version in the car when I am fending off erratic drivers and my own road rage!

So yeah... we went to Paris because my wife wanted to go to the RATM concert. We went for a total of four days. Now before you think we are loaded with cash, we are most definitely not... by North American standards anyways. We do not walk around with money bags with dollar signs on them, but we do live comfortably when I think about those who do not have. Please remember that I work for Air Canada (and with current cutbacks, who knows how long that will last!!!) and flying cheaply is a huge perk of the job.

So we get to Paris, with carryon's and Fenix in tow and we take public transport to get to our hotel. Paris is a beautiful city and I will not go into describing all the old buildings and all the monuments but focus on a couple of things that stood out to me.

- Cafe's
I had a great time sitting at cafe's. It is the ultimate Parisian thing to do. You have your cafe au lait and a croissant, take out a loan to pay for it, and just people watch. All the chairs that our outside face out into the street. You are not supposed to have deep conversations with the people you are with but watch the world go by and enjoy it! We had one bad experience at a late night cafe coming back from the eiffel tower. Paris does have a reputation of being snobby and providing poor customer service. We walked up and sat down and made our order. It was about a quarter past midnight so my wife was not interested in alcohol and caffeine and ordered "un the glace." The waiter looks at her and in a snooty accent asks "Hiced Tea?????" I am fairly certain that we were speaking French and why he replied in English is beyond me. We confirmed her order and that his mastery of the English language in the area of beverages was solid. I then ordered a moccachino. Now I thought this was a fairly common coffee beverage. He looked at me as if I was crazy. He had no clue what that was. He was insulted that I asked him. I explained that it was a mix of a cafe moccha and a cappucino. No dice... this was beyond him. So I ordered a cappucino which I thought he understood.

We waited about 45 minutes... people next to us were served, people came and went, our waiter had many long conversations with his coworkers, and also seemed to take his coffee break(which ironically seemed to be a moccachino). So we left. Just so weird...

Seeing that this has gone on for a bit and I am sure that you are tuning out I will just skip right to the concert.

The buildup was amazing. We got there ridiculously early and I am fairly certain that we beat all 100,000+ concert goers. So we sat in this enormous park waiting for the show to start. Baby Fenix was by far the youngest Rage fan in attendance... and at 3 months we werent surprised. We had agreed that I would stay with him a long ways away from the main area and Clo would try and work her way up close. She ended up heading toward the mosh pit not realizing what was awaiting her. I hung back and when the music started my three month old's eyes bugged out of his head. He couldn't figure out what was happening! He had a little smile on his face though. I think he recognized the music as we had been playing a lot of rage leading up to our departure. He and I eventually left after a few songs due to the fact that i couldn't see anything being so far back and Fenix had had his fill. It was all right though because on the 20 minute walk back to the metro we pretty much heard the rest of the set and beat the traffic.

So yeah... a quick couple of stories about our trip. Stay tuned for next time when we discuss hurricane Ike!

where is the creativity?

Paris 062, originally uploaded by impactmatt.

Where have I been???? All my subscribers and loyal readers, I apologize... to both of you! How could you have lived without this blog?

Just kidding!!!

I am sure that you have survived well without me! Although I do notice that during the summer blogging does take a significant nose-dive. Regardless I am back and I am going to try and keep this thing up-to-date and interesting.

So where have I been? All over the place... I have had the chance to travel to Vancouver, Victoria, Chilliwack, Paris, London (Ontario), Cayo Coco, and back to London (Ontario). I have had the opportunity to travel with my family (including my little Fenix... now 4 months old) to all parts of the world and experience things like the beauty of a BC Ferry ride, a Rage Against the Machine concert with 100,000 other people, and a hurricane in a tropical paradise!

It has been exciting to say the least! So if you are interested in all these adventures tune in tomorrow when we will start with Rage Against the Machine in Paris!... or I may become impatient and write today! Who knows!!!!

So in closing, here is a little quote that I read in a book: "God is a comedian with an audience that is afraid to laugh!