Back to the future...or not...

I had never seen the film of Transatlantic Tunnel

The construction work will begin in June 2005 from Paris to New York to create a Transatlantic Tunnel that cuts the travel time to just 8 hours. Big wall sized posters have posted everywhere inside the metro stations in Paris, it seems to be on everyone's lips.

or really...

Apparently this is a marketing compaigne...I must admit I did fall into the trap of naive believes ....

Marseille

One of the most southern citeis in France, just besides Nice and Cannes. Marseille is the second largest city in France and enjoys the reputation of being a great summer resort.

Last weekend me and Stefan the Canadian hit the sun after 3 hours of TGV train ride from Paris. It was a nice change from the rainy Paris weather as we were greeted by the warm sun light and clear skies.






The city is self is just as busy as Paris, so the first thing we did was heading for the sea. One of the most popular momument here is the Chateau d'If. It's a prison situated on an island just besides Marseille. It's actually the french authur Alexandre Dumas who wrote "The Count of Monte Cristo" who made it famous. In the novel the main character Dantès was thrown into jail in the prison in this castle.

The view of the castle from our ferry.



The view from the island is not bad. I wouldn't mind to be locked up there for a while.

You get the sea.



and the view.



Now lets go inside and live the experience.

How does it feel to be in a prison?



All locked up no escape.



Full view of the castle when leaving.



After getting back to the main land we explored the city, at the same time made our way to our hostel. The city offers every thing from

HOT beaches





to wooden crabs



to appetizing garbage cans



After a long day of train ride and sight seeing, we chilled on the beach until the sun went down. I don't think I will be able to get any work done if I live in this city though, just a bit too comfortable.

Back from the sun

The trip to Marseille was awesome. Photos and stories follows, once this week is done.

Home Coming

Time flys.

I have booked my return plane back to Canada already.

Augest 1.

Travel Plans

May 21-23

Marseille, France
Cassis-Calanque, France

This will be a weekend getaway to the beaches.

Art of expression...

I like this picture.

Full Credit goes to JULIUS J. PASTORIUS
http://www.jacop.net/julius.html

Thats a first

Today is a religious holiday in France, and it also happened to be father's day in Germany. What do germans do on a holiday? Nothing but beer. According to them, traditionally on this day the guys go out on the street with a baby carriage filled with beer and drink the whole day long.

Martin, Micheal, Ralph, and Bejorn decided to invite me, Stefan the canadian, and Kevin the american to "celebrate" this day. We had no baby carriage so we improvised with back packs full of beer. The drinking session started at 10 AM in the morning, in the city forest. Now drinking 10 am in the morning was hard enough for me, not mentioning the climbing in the forest, but these german guys just kept on opening new bottles . Beer is seriously useless to them.

After the walk we all got pretty tired so we settled down at Bejorn's house for a nice BBQ. Of course there were more beer involved. During the whole day I managed to keep a constant level of alcolhol in my blood stream that even by bed time my cheeks were still red. May be I should carry this tradition back home, any one would like to join?

Now this is serious...

Chinese Student Accused of corporate espionage

Guess what, she's from UTC, my school here in France. The girl was even in my Numerical Methods class last term. Although we've only exchanged few words through out the term, I never got to knew her personally. All I knew was that she was doing her first work term in France.

Sad but true. Today I went to work and the knew something was changed. Ever one was talking about UTC and this "fille chinoise". The next thing I saw was the report on French national newspaper, and now Forbes.

I doubt it is really espionage. It's just curiosity and lack of prudence. In this aspect the north american students are much more matured. We are immersed in an environment of intellectual property and corporate privacy, where we understand the danger, and self-protection.

But what do I know. May be they are right, may be there was a bigger plan. Whatever the cause, it's certainly a blow to the school's reputation, China's reputation. As for Li Li, as much as I sympathize her situation, she's done. France would't forgive her, I don't think China will either.

So there is a lesson to be learned. Becareful whereever you go, and don't let the excitement of the adventure blow up your head.