"Ma France à moi, c'est pas la leur, celle qui vote extrême,
Celle qui bannit les jeunes, anti-rap sur la FM,
Celle qui s'croit au Texas, celle qui à peur de nos bandes,
Celle qui vénère Sarko, intolérante et gênante." -- Diam's: Ma France a moi
Newly elected right-wing French President Nicolas Sarkozy was born Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa to Hungarian immigrant parents. I first learned about then-Minister of Interior Sarko during my visit in the Fall of 2003: he was on the front page of some newspaper with some controversial comments. Then in my visit during the Fall 2005 riots, I was considering strategies how not to appear Hungarian, in order to dissociate myself from Sarko (and his new hot-headed comments). France has many problems: slow GDP growth, unemployment, integration of immigrants, high power of trade unions, strain of high social expenditure on the government budget, and a lack of entrepreneurial environment (Paris was the worst for "ease of doing business" among PwC's 11 cities)... while other regions of the world are moving forward fast. (At the same time, France seems to have political, economic and cultural respect from sub-Saharan Africa through Russia through Iran to China.) Let's hope, for all of Europe, that Sarkozy will bring some positive reforms!
Continuing in Paris... I went up the Tour Montparnasse for a view of the city. You can get a cool view of the Eiffel-tower, and the Défense (the business district with the skyscrapers).
You can go up to the very rooftop of the building, which is a flat helipad, so there is nothing but the sky above you. And you know what? It looks exactly like the first scene in Duke Nukem 3D! (This is an old first-person-shooter game; we played it on the LAN in high school about 10 years ago.) Let me demonstrate what I mean:
I was really amazed at the similarity, and started taking photos of the helipad for later comparison with the game. For some reason, this guy, who was sitting in the "box thing" didn't like this, and came out and started shouting at me in French to take photos of the Eiffel-tower instead. I told him (in French) that I didn't understand what his problem was with me taking photos, but he thought I was saying that I didn't understand him because of the language. Anyway... all he achieved was that I took a picture of him too, haha! :) He should have stayed inside his box instead of yelling at tourists! :) And look: the scene is almost identical to the scene in Duke3D: you have the railing; a corner with two big fire extinguishers is cordoned off (for no apparent reason). There is also a "box thing" (although on another side). And the nasty dude turns out to be an alien/monster from Duke Nukem!
In Duke, you have to shoot the cansiters, which blow up and destroy the "box thing", which reveals an air duct going down to the ground floor. Please do not try this on Tour Montparnasse, it will not work!!! :) Also, the nasty dude would throw you off the roof or something. And don't tell him about Google Maps either...
After this intermezzo, I rejoined our EU student group, and we went on a boat trip on the Seine. It was Armistice Day (end of WWI) on Friday, so the Arc de Triomphe still had a huge flag in its center...
... flapping around in the wind overhead, with a full moon in the background. Kitsch-alert!
And with this, I conclude the trip to France, but of course there are more photos in the Album.
You can go up to the very rooftop of the building, which is a flat helipad, so there is nothing but the sky above you. And you know what? It looks exactly like the first scene in Duke Nukem 3D! (This is an old first-person-shooter game; we played it on the LAN in high school about 10 years ago.) Let me demonstrate what I mean:
I was really amazed at the similarity, and started taking photos of the helipad for later comparison with the game. For some reason, this guy, who was sitting in the "box thing" didn't like this, and came out and started shouting at me in French to take photos of the Eiffel-tower instead. I told him (in French) that I didn't understand what his problem was with me taking photos, but he thought I was saying that I didn't understand him because of the language. Anyway... all he achieved was that I took a picture of him too, haha! :) He should have stayed inside his box instead of yelling at tourists! :) And look: the scene is almost identical to the scene in Duke3D: you have the railing; a corner with two big fire extinguishers is cordoned off (for no apparent reason). There is also a "box thing" (although on another side). And the nasty dude turns out to be an alien/monster from Duke Nukem!
In Duke, you have to shoot the cansiters, which blow up and destroy the "box thing", which reveals an air duct going down to the ground floor. Please do not try this on Tour Montparnasse, it will not work!!! :) Also, the nasty dude would throw you off the roof or something. And don't tell him about Google Maps either...
After this intermezzo, I rejoined our EU student group, and we went on a boat trip on the Seine. It was Armistice Day (end of WWI) on Friday, so the Arc de Triomphe still had a huge flag in its center...
... flapping around in the wind overhead, with a full moon in the background. Kitsch-alert!
And with this, I conclude the trip to France, but of course there are more photos in the Album.
Sunday was a full day for touristy stuff in Paris. And all touristy stuff begins in the metro...
I really like the Paris metro...
...actually, I really like all of Paris!
We visited the Sainte Chapelle with our EU student group. This is where the French kings were crowned. When you enter, it's just a small temple; but there are stairs leading up to... the main chapel!
You can see the chapel from the street too, but its entrance is quite hidden on a courtyard.
We also went to the Notre Dame, where...
... a ...
... mass ...
... was ...
... taking ...
... place. The Notre Dame is so overwhelmingly huge from the outside, that it's easy to overlook the details...
In typical Paris-style, on the banks of the Seine river bouqinistes are selling old prints (and of course, small Eiffel-towers)...
To be concluded...
I really like the Paris metro...
...actually, I really like all of Paris!
We visited the Sainte Chapelle with our EU student group. This is where the French kings were crowned. When you enter, it's just a small temple; but there are stairs leading up to... the main chapel!
You can see the chapel from the street too, but its entrance is quite hidden on a courtyard.
We also went to the Notre Dame, where...
... a ...
... mass ...
... was ...
... taking ...
... place. The Notre Dame is so overwhelmingly huge from the outside, that it's easy to overlook the details...
In typical Paris-style, on the banks of the Seine river bouqinistes are selling old prints (and of course, small Eiffel-towers)...
To be concluded...
Some more photos that haven't seen the light of day until now... about the short trip to France in November. I have written about the details at the time. I was going for an EU-sponsored short course to Paris... however, the GRE CS Subject Test was also at this time... Here is the test practice book visiting near the Eiffel-tower:
After flying in to Paris in the morning, and arranging a ton of stuff, I took the fast TGV train to Bordeaux in the evening... about 300 miles (500 km) straight-line-distance in 3 hours and 15 minutes. This was my first TGV ride...
I took the GRE next morning, and then checked out Bordeaux: with strong cold wind blowing, raining, an umbrella in one hand, and the camera in the other one :) Despite the terrible tourist weather, I remember Bordeaux as "une ville trés cool"... it's probably because of the vivid crowd of local people.
Bordeaux is building tram lines, and their trams are very nice. The trams somehow get the power from the "third track", and not from cables overhead. I guess the covers open and close before/after the train...
Bordeaux is on the banks of the wide Garonne river, much like Budapest is on the Danube. The bunds now are just vast deserted unfriendly parking spaces, but it seemed that a citywide reconstruction/redesign was taking place, and I saw the plans for a promenade-style walkway with trees, bike path, etc. Good stuff! This is how nasty the bund looked (the Garonne is on the right):
This is the Pont de Pierre; that is: Peter's Bridge.
It was a Saturday, and seemingly everybody from the region was in Bordeaux, taking a stroll on the city's main pedestrian shopping street (in the old city center), without regard for the bad weather:
More photos from the sights of Bordeaux are here. In the evening, I took the TGV back to Paris, where I will continue next time...
After flying in to Paris in the morning, and arranging a ton of stuff, I took the fast TGV train to Bordeaux in the evening... about 300 miles (500 km) straight-line-distance in 3 hours and 15 minutes. This was my first TGV ride...
I took the GRE next morning, and then checked out Bordeaux: with strong cold wind blowing, raining, an umbrella in one hand, and the camera in the other one :) Despite the terrible tourist weather, I remember Bordeaux as "une ville trés cool"... it's probably because of the vivid crowd of local people.
Bordeaux is building tram lines, and their trams are very nice. The trams somehow get the power from the "third track", and not from cables overhead. I guess the covers open and close before/after the train...
Bordeaux is on the banks of the wide Garonne river, much like Budapest is on the Danube. The bunds now are just vast deserted unfriendly parking spaces, but it seemed that a citywide reconstruction/redesign was taking place, and I saw the plans for a promenade-style walkway with trees, bike path, etc. Good stuff! This is how nasty the bund looked (the Garonne is on the right):
This is the Pont de Pierre; that is: Peter's Bridge.
It was a Saturday, and seemingly everybody from the region was in Bordeaux, taking a stroll on the city's main pedestrian shopping street (in the old city center), without regard for the bad weather:
More photos from the sights of Bordeaux are here. In the evening, I took the TGV back to Paris, where I will continue next time...
As I've written before, I went to France last Friday for 8 days -- or so were the plans...
The occasion on which I went to Paris was an ATHENS course, that I had applied for during the summer. As one of the only 3 GRE Subject tests per year was also during this time (on Saturday, Nov 12), I made my plans to take the test "near" Paris. The nearest places (in terms of cost to go there from Paris) to take the test were Geneva and Bordeaux, both about 3-3.5 hours from Paris by TGV, and I've finally decided on Bordeaux (570 km from Paris; see it marked on My Places) because the ticket price was cheapest there at the moment of purchase. To illustrate the logistics nightmare that this arrangement caused, here is what I did last Friday and Saturday:
On Sunday in Paris, we visited the Sainte Chapelle, the kings' crowning temple. Then I also went into the Notre Dame, where a mass was taking place, but the tourists can just walk around the cathedral as normal. I also went up the Tour Montparnasse, with the fastest elevator in Europe (38 seconds to the 56th floor). At 210 meters, it would only be 8th tallest in Atlanta (just a bit taller than the BellSouth Building) -- it's the 2nd tallest in Paris (after the Eiffel's 300 meters), so it's the highest place from where you can look at Paris with the Eiffel Tower in it. You can go up to the 59th floor, which is actually the open, flat top of the building (unlike in the Eiffel, the Space Needle or the Empire State, where there is always some structure above you), with a huge circle mark for helicopter landing! In the evening we went on a boat trip on the Seine; just as 2 years ago, it was very cold, but the view was great.
On Monday, classes started, but with some unpleasant surprises: our class would not end early in the afternoon, but at 5 pm, when it's already dark -- I've had late classes two years ago, and visited most of Paris in the dark, something I wanted to avoid this time. The presentations turned out to be boring, so I even started calculating: how much money does it cost me to listen to irrelevant topics, when I would have to work on my thesis, my PhD applications, a Spring internship, or anything that I actually want to do. I have since updated the calculations, so I'll write them here. There are 4 categories, with some assumptions about the salaries: IT guy in Hungary ("HU info", 250 000 HUF/month), consultant at McKinsey in Hungary (HU McK, 600 000 HUF/month), mediocre IT salary with a Georgia Tech MS (GT med, $60k/yr), mediocre CS salary with a Georgia Tech PhD (GT PhD, $100k/yr). The calculations assume that all minutes (including sleep, chit-chat etc.) of normal day-to-day living are necessary for success some way or other, so earnings are divided by all hours, not just working hours. The results:
No matter how I calculate, doing unnecessary work for 8 hours every day for 5 days is a lot of waste of money! I always try to find the cheapest deals (eg. in travel, hotel, etc.), and taking the cheap ATHENS course as a way to visit Paris was such a deal. Not counting the wasted 40 hours, a $274 value at GT MS rates! I had to realize, that taking the cheapest option is sometimes more expensive than paying a bit more. I had to realize that my time is not free; that I am actually worth a lot of money... Getting into an upset mindset already, I finally got to check my emails during the afternoon -- and that was like a cutpoint for me: I got an email from my advisor, whom I haven't met recently, that maybe I should consider finishing the thesis in June... As I usually only keep my "junior advisor" (a PhD student) up-to-date on progress (a bad move on my part), I could understand that he was worried if I would get to anything in this semester. And let me not calculate what a loss of 5 months costs in wasted time... (I will calculate: about $25k) I realized that I had two choices: step down or step it up. After a couple stressful hours of thinking, I've decided to step it up, and pushed the abort switch on my Paris trip, to save my thesis and PhD prospects. Ever saw a movie involving rapid change of travel plans as a result of conflict of what is expected of you and what is the right thing for you?... The next morning, I got on the 10am flight from Orly airport, took the airport shuttle bus from Ferihegy to Budapest U, and was in the lab at 1pm.
Now things are sorted out in the lab, and I'm making sure they see me every day, even if this means remote-desktopping into my home computer to be able to work... I've decided to get into the damn PhD, and I'll do it too.
So my Paris trip was cut rather short: flying in on Friday, spending Saturday in Bordeaux, the full Sunday in Paris (yay!), Monday in classes, and returning Tuesday morning. I don't wan't to travel anywere at all in the near future - I have to face it, that I have just too many things to do at home. Or... maybe a Graduation Tour '06 in Europe? :)
The occasion on which I went to Paris was an ATHENS course, that I had applied for during the summer. As one of the only 3 GRE Subject tests per year was also during this time (on Saturday, Nov 12), I made my plans to take the test "near" Paris. The nearest places (in terms of cost to go there from Paris) to take the test were Geneva and Bordeaux, both about 3-3.5 hours from Paris by TGV, and I've finally decided on Bordeaux (570 km from Paris; see it marked on My Places) because the ticket price was cheapest there at the moment of purchase. To illustrate the logistics nightmare that this arrangement caused, here is what I did last Friday and Saturday:
- 6:00 am: takeoff from Ferihegy 1, Budapest to Paris
- 8:30 am: arrival to Beauvais Airport, northeast of Paris
- take 1 hour airport shuttle to northeast perimeter of Paris (Porte Maillot)
- take metro (w/ 1 transfer) to housing, at the southwest perimeter of Paris (Porte d'Italie)
- eat, have a haircut, try to practice GRE but fall asleep
- 7:55 pm: take TGV from Gare Montparnasse, Paris to Bordeaux
- try to practice GRE on train but fall asleep
- 11:30 pm: arrive to Gare St. Jean in Bordeaux
- take tram (w/ 1 transfer) to hotel b/c it turns out to be a holiday, and buses are not running
- 0:30 am: get into the hotel via an ATM-like automatic check-in machine (no receptionist)
- try to practice GRE, but room is too freakin' cold
- 7:40 am: catch bus #4 to travel to GRE-writing place
- 8:30 am: register for GRE
- 9:00 am: start GRE
- 11:50 am: finish GRE
- take a look at Bordeaux
- 7:55 pm: take TGV from Bordeaux to Paris
- 11:30 pm: arrive to Gare Montparnasse, Paris
- finally arrive to the housing (near the Porte d'Italie)
On Sunday in Paris, we visited the Sainte Chapelle, the kings' crowning temple. Then I also went into the Notre Dame, where a mass was taking place, but the tourists can just walk around the cathedral as normal. I also went up the Tour Montparnasse, with the fastest elevator in Europe (38 seconds to the 56th floor). At 210 meters, it would only be 8th tallest in Atlanta (just a bit taller than the BellSouth Building) -- it's the 2nd tallest in Paris (after the Eiffel's 300 meters), so it's the highest place from where you can look at Paris with the Eiffel Tower in it. You can go up to the 59th floor, which is actually the open, flat top of the building (unlike in the Eiffel, the Space Needle or the Empire State, where there is always some structure above you), with a huge circle mark for helicopter landing! In the evening we went on a boat trip on the Seine; just as 2 years ago, it was very cold, but the view was great.
On Monday, classes started, but with some unpleasant surprises: our class would not end early in the afternoon, but at 5 pm, when it's already dark -- I've had late classes two years ago, and visited most of Paris in the dark, something I wanted to avoid this time. The presentations turned out to be boring, so I even started calculating: how much money does it cost me to listen to irrelevant topics, when I would have to work on my thesis, my PhD applications, a Spring internship, or anything that I actually want to do. I have since updated the calculations, so I'll write them here. There are 4 categories, with some assumptions about the salaries: IT guy in Hungary ("HU info", 250 000 HUF/month), consultant at McKinsey in Hungary (HU McK, 600 000 HUF/month), mediocre IT salary with a Georgia Tech MS (GT med, $60k/yr), mediocre CS salary with a Georgia Tech PhD (GT PhD, $100k/yr). The calculations assume that all minutes (including sleep, chit-chat etc.) of normal day-to-day living are necessary for success some way or other, so earnings are divided by all hours, not just working hours. The results:
| HU info | HU McK | GT med. | GT PhD | |
| $/minute | 0.0285 | 0.0685 | 0.1142 | 0.1903 |
No matter how I calculate, doing unnecessary work for 8 hours every day for 5 days is a lot of waste of money! I always try to find the cheapest deals (eg. in travel, hotel, etc.), and taking the cheap ATHENS course as a way to visit Paris was such a deal. Not counting the wasted 40 hours, a $274 value at GT MS rates! I had to realize, that taking the cheapest option is sometimes more expensive than paying a bit more. I had to realize that my time is not free; that I am actually worth a lot of money... Getting into an upset mindset already, I finally got to check my emails during the afternoon -- and that was like a cutpoint for me: I got an email from my advisor, whom I haven't met recently, that maybe I should consider finishing the thesis in June... As I usually only keep my "junior advisor" (a PhD student) up-to-date on progress (a bad move on my part), I could understand that he was worried if I would get to anything in this semester. And let me not calculate what a loss of 5 months costs in wasted time... (I will calculate: about $25k) I realized that I had two choices: step down or step it up. After a couple stressful hours of thinking, I've decided to step it up, and pushed the abort switch on my Paris trip, to save my thesis and PhD prospects. Ever saw a movie involving rapid change of travel plans as a result of conflict of what is expected of you and what is the right thing for you?... The next morning, I got on the 10am flight from Orly airport, took the airport shuttle bus from Ferihegy to Budapest U, and was in the lab at 1pm.
Now things are sorted out in the lab, and I'm making sure they see me every day, even if this means remote-desktopping into my home computer to be able to work... I've decided to get into the damn PhD, and I'll do it too.
So my Paris trip was cut rather short: flying in on Friday, spending Saturday in Bordeaux, the full Sunday in Paris (yay!), Monday in classes, and returning Tuesday morning. I don't wan't to travel anywere at all in the near future - I have to face it, that I have just too many things to do at home. Or... maybe a Graduation Tour '06 in Europe? :)
The riots in France are really starting to worry me. I'm flying into Paris on Friday morning, then going by train to Bordeaux in the evening, where I'll stay 1 night, and return to Paris the next (Saturday) night. Then I'll stay in Paris for one week. I hope there won't be a problem.
When I was in Paris in 2003, there was a major demonstration against the war in Iraq passing on the Place de la Concorde when I was walking there, and I couldn't cross the bridge because of them. But these riots are worse, though in the suburbs (yet). In addition, the rioters want revenge on Interior Minister Sarkozy for his harsh comments to break down the riots - and the guy is of Hungarian descent. I could pass as an American, but I'm not sure I'd be better off...