La Defense

Back from a day trip to Paris to meet with the people who - as Nick put it - have taken over my workplace. They reside in La Defense; the building is huge, I am duly impressed immediately after our arrival.

I am not impressed however that they seem to have the same embarrassing hygiene problems like we have in our office. There is a sign inside the womens' loo:

Ours is in German of course, but it is saying the same thing. It's bad that signs like that are necessary, but it makes them more human at the same time.

The view from the meeting room on the 11th floor is brilliant:

From the other side of the building you can see the Tour Eiffel, but there was too much smog, so I couldn't take a picture. Lunch in their restaurant was also very impressive apart from the red wine, which was not very good. We did get some work done, but there are very busy times ahead of us. It's worse than I thought.

One of the company's drivers took us to the airport. Imagine that... they have chauffeurs. No wonder their cost ratio is worse than ours.

The plane back home was delayed, so there was time for a superb dinner.

Charle de Gaulle is probably the worst airport I ever used. There was only one announcement over the loudspeaker when the plane was finally ready for departure. All we understood was "... Cologne... Cologne". The gate did not appear on the screens and it was luck that we found out it was 64. Otherwise we would still be sitting there waiting.