France

The past couple of weekends, I was in France. One of the projects I am involved with at work required a weeklong visit to a client's site in Grenoble, France. Travel is one of the perks I have in my job, but the chance to travel internationally has been unfortunately rare as of late. So, I jumped at this chance, even taking my wife along for some vacation time. We wound up spending about 11 days total in France - starting with three days in Paris, about a week in Grenoble, then a weekend in Lyon. The trip was great - we saw the famous sites of Paris, ate a lot of fantastic food, and had the chance to explore a bit on our own. Our vacation style can be best described as "active self-guided exploration". Prior to the trip, we scoped out the places we wanted to see on the internets, and then found our way once we got there.

What surprised us the most about travelling across France might surprise you too. Rude French people? No. Actually, we felt like we busted that myth. We found the folks there to be downright pleasant and helpful. The shocking thing was that there is graffiti everywhere. Finding it in the cities was not shocking, but looking out the train window for three hours en route from Paris to Grenoble, it seemed every brick wall, overpass, and stationary object was decorated with some type of "street art". Somehow, now I don't feel as bad about the tagging I see in Jersey.

Here's a travel tip: When driving lost in a city, for instance Lyon, find yourself a bus-stop and check out the little kiosk. You will often find a map of the city with a "you are here" (vous êtes ici) indicator which you can use to adjust your route. Worked for us. Perhaps it was fortunate we found our way safely to our hotel. As you can tell from this photo I snapped, it appears that Lyon has some fairly liberal gun laws.