Letters from France - 2008

Hullo!!

I hope you are well. This will probably be my last email to most of you from this side of the planet. It's been an interesting 3 months. I'm especially grateful to all of you for allowing me to share it with you and for sharing your stories of home and the festive season. I think I managed quite well for a first Christmas away from home and family :-) 

I moved offices at the beginning of the year. I was in the University's research office, now I've moved downstairs to the headquarters for PE International. If you have no idea what I'm taking about, please re-read the first email I sent . I have a proper office, before I was sharing a common area with the other students. My officemate is an Australian who works in the Sales Dept-it's completely random. The project I'm working on is about the dairy system i. e. cows, milk, milk products, cow-feed and the by-products of the system. 

Random fact: did you know that a large portion of emission of green house gases (the ones that cause global warming) is due to the cattle farms? Cows (and all ruminants) emit methane as well as carbondioxide! Methane is a more deadly gas than carbondioxide. In other words, we are dying, our climate is changing because of cows (and, in a sense, milk)! Clearly, I've been thinking about milk a lot. I like this project more than the first. Plus I think it's more relevant for me  since it's a lot closer to home than the other. The people here are really cool. Most of them are a lot older and have done a couple of masters and PhDs. It's a bit daunting to work with them, knowing that they are so far ahead but they are really nice about it. It's a totally international crowd, so I can survive with my broken German and English! 

Outside work, I haven't done much since the last time I emailed except for this past weekend. I spent most of the time working or watching movies or browsing in shops for souvenirs  I've decided that Seven Pounds (Will Smith) and Australia (Hugh Jackman - Wolverine in XMEN and Nicole Kidman) are good movies. If you can you definitely should go see them. They are very different movies but they both have a good storyline, in my opinion. They reminded me a lot of the things that make us who we are (family, friends, health etc) yet we take them for granted until it's too late. I hear Slumdog Millionaire is a good one too. But I'm yet to test that theory.  If a bollywood movie wins 4 golden globe awards, there must be more to it than singing and dancing, although that can be quite entertaining too. 

I also managed to find AIESEC in Stuttgart. If you have no idea what I'm talking about check out www.aiesec.org!! The AIESECers here are uber cool guys. I was at their last meeting for the semester which also happened to be a global village day. I tasted Turkish delights-straight from Turkey, Tequila from Mexico, some sweet Russian cookie-like stuff and Champagne from France. They even had South African house music! In 2008 alone, they've managed to raise opportunities for 14 foreign students/recent graduates to come and work in Stuttgart, successfully run a conference for AIESEC in Germany and completed a project with partners like Bosch and BMW. Surprisingly, 2 years ago, there was no AIESEC in Stuttgart. It makes me think about the influence I have on people and the achievements I've made so far. Most of these guys are undergrad students like myself...

So what was I up to last weekend? Well, I re-visited the Eiffel Tower, saw the Mona Lisa up close, well as close as you can get-which is about 5 metres, I saw most of the locations for the Da Vinci Code (movie and book) i.e the Louvre, the inverted Pyramids, walked in on a mass at La Notre Dame de Paris (cathedral from the story of the Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo and, later, Walt Disney!), walked under L'Arc de Triomphe which happens to be at a cross-section for 12 roads, I went to the Champs Elysees (Right in front, well almost, of Nikolas Sarkozy's home), went to the burial place of the great Napoleon Bonaparte, strolled along La Seine- infront of L'Ile de Cite and Jacques Chirac's home, visited at least 10 souvenir shops, learnt a whole lot about European history, esp about the French Monarchy and Marie Antoinette, and got sore feet from all that walking!

 I spent the weekend with Irish, Chinese (they are everywhere!!!), Brasilians, Belgians, Brits, Australians, Americans (from USA and Israel), met a random Dutch dude at breakfast on Sunday, watched world #1 Jelena lose to some French girl in the Australian Open, picked and dropped a Congolese/Sudanese boyfriend on Sunday afternoon (don't remember the details- it happened too quickly ), met a Mexican who lived in Canada and moved to Paris! I was in Paris for my birthday! To all of you who remembered, thanks for the love and warm thoughts. To the rest of you, I love you nonetheless. 

Paris is a dream. There's something to do around every corner, you can never tire of it. I was skeptical about coming back, but I think I appreciated it a lot more the 2nd time round. And of course, Mummy they still have MonoPrix!!! There was one very close to the hostel I was living in. Paris is a lot older than most of the German cities, it survived the 2nd World War drama (that's part of the history that I learnt). It's a beautiful place to live and be in. I loved the bridges and parks with the artists everywhere. Apparently, you can have a party on the bridges just come with your wine, cheese and baguettes!! It was a wonderful way to end this season. If you ever happen to be blessed with the gift of a Schengen visa, you have to see Munich (#1) and Paris (#2)!!!!!!!

I have one more week of work. By this time next week (yay!) I'll be in Berlin preparing to leave for Cape Town. So I best get back to work or I'll be in trouble. I haven't got any sensible photos nearby. Tracey was the photographer of the weekend. So you can either facebook, or wait till I can send them. 

For now, I pray that you all stay well. 

love you

toodles! adios! Ciao! Aufwiedersehen! Tschüß! Au reviour! Chao! Adieu! À la prochaine!