{"id":1380,"date":"2015-04-05T16:58:21","date_gmt":"2015-04-05T15:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=1380"},"modified":"2015-04-05T16:58:21","modified_gmt":"2015-04-05T15:58:21","slug":"week-15-visiting-francis-in-paris","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=1380","title":{"rendered":"Week 15: visiting Francis in Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had an all-day meeting at the OECD on Tuesday, so I had to travel to Paris on Monday. I took advantage and chose a morning flight so as to have a free afternoon and evening to visit my cousin Francis (brother of my cousin Nicole in Brussels) whom I had not seen for five years. So most of the pictures this week are from that visit and from a bit of a walk around Paris.<\/p>\n

15_1<\/strong>
\nI landed at Orly, made my way to the hotel on a side street of Avenue Kl\u00c3\u00a9ber, checked in, and then walked to the RER station to catch the train to my cousin’s place. It was pretty easy to figure which way to walk, given that I had this landmark to follow:
\n\"DSF5936\"<\/p>\n

15_2<\/strong>
\nAs is my habit when walking around any city, I looked not just at the grand sights but also at little details:
\n\"DSF5929\"<\/p>\n

15_3<\/strong>
\n\"DSF5933\"<\/p>\n

15_4<\/strong>
\nModern street light design on Avenue Kl\u00c3\u00a9ber:
\n\"DSF5935\"<\/p>\n

15_5<\/strong>
\nBecause I knew that I would be passing the Place Charles de Gaulle, I took the fisheye lens with me. And it worked as I hoped:
\n\"DSF5940\"<\/p>\n

15_6<\/strong>
\nInside the Charles de Gaulle-Etoile metro station. There were some funny advertisements for a “Culture for Dummies” book:
\n\"DSF5944\"<\/p>\n

15_7<\/strong>
\nI took the RER to the suburb Reuil-Malmaison; Francis picked me up at the station, we drove to his house, and then did a leisurely bicycle ride along the Seine:
\n\"R001284\"<\/p>\n

15_8<\/strong>
\n\"R001292\"<\/p>\n

15_9<\/strong>
\nThe obligatory selfie:
\n\"R001287\"<\/p>\n

15_10<\/strong>
\nBack at Francis’s house, his white kitty came to greet me:
\n\"DSF5945\"<\/p>\n

15_11<\/strong>
\nFrancis and his wife V\u00c3\u00a9ronique set about preparing dinner:
\n\"DSF5947\"<\/p>\n

15_12<\/strong>
\nAn essential ingredient:
\n\"DSF5948\"<\/p>\n

15_13<\/strong>
\nDecanting the wine–a task a Frenchman takes very seriously:
\n\"DSF5950\"<\/p>\n

15_14<\/strong>
\nTheir daughter Iris came home in time for dinner; she was a 13-year old little girl last time I saw her. Now she is in her first year of law school:
\n\"DSF5952\"<\/p>\n

15_15<\/strong>
\nAfterwards, Francis dropped me off near the Eiffel tower, from where there was a 1\/2 hour walk to my hotel:
\n\"DSF5953\"<\/p>\n

15_16<\/strong>
\nI tried my luck with the fisheye here too, but it was not as successful as the earlier shot:
\n\"DSF5959\"<\/p>\n

15_17<\/strong>
\nI walked around under the tower a bit, exploring various viewpoints:
\n\"DSF5964\"<\/p>\n

15_18<\/strong>
\nMr. Eiffel himself:
\n\"DSF5963\"<\/p>\n

15_19<\/strong>
\nTuesday I took very few pictures since I spent most of the day being serious and diplomatic at the OECD. But during the 20-minute walk from my hotel, I did snap a few scenes. OECD is located in the 16th arrondissement with lots of former grand residences like this one (nowadays many of them serve as embassies and the like):
\n\"DSF5966\"<\/p>\n

15_20<\/strong>
\nSpring in full bloom, near the OECD:
\n\"DSF5968\"<\/p>\n

15_21<\/strong>
\nAfter the meeting, my OECD host Piotr (a Polish economist) and I went for a beer at one of the standard OECD staff watering holes:
\n\"DSF5969\"<\/p>\n

I came home late Tuesday night, and had an incredibly busy couple of days at work. Fortunately, a long weekend was in sight–both Good Friday and Easter Monday are days off here in Spain.<\/p>\n

15_22<\/strong>
\nI started the long weekend by walking Cheeta on Friday morning and feeding “my” cats:
\n\"DSF5973\"<\/p>\n

15_23<\/strong>
\nThen on my bike, and up to the hills:
\n\"R001300\"<\/p>\n

15_24<\/strong>
\nA look into Aig\u00c3\u00bces priest Paco’s residence (I am assuming that it is his residence as it is located in the church:
\n\"R001296\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had an all-day meeting at the OECD on Tuesday, so I had to travel to Paris on Monday. I took advantage and chose a morning flight so as to have a free afternoon and evening to visit my cousin Francis (brother of my cousin Nicole in Brussels) whom I had not seen for five […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1321,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1380"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1381,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1380\/revisions\/1381"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}