I have to write a little note on the scandal that has been on in France for the past month.

You can read it all over the place : France Telecom has registred a suicidal rate of 24 in the past 18 months. Everybody is shocked and it gave a great opportunity for social-sociopaths and other left-wingy affiliates to bleed the company, the CEO and appalling working condition in this country – let me laugh on this one – or to capitalism itself.
Even the social party demanded to Sarkozy to fire the CEO [ l'Express ]

Now let’s just do simple maths :
- 24 deaths in 18 months makes 24/1.5 = 16 suicides per year for a company that has around 100.000 employees in France [LeMatin.ch]
- Suicidal rate in France is around 36 per 100.000 [OMS 2005]

Therefore by working for the company you have slightly twice less risk to commit a suicide. Any questions ?

It’s been already two months since I announced a revival of the blog. The trouble is, as usual, the lack of time.
I am currently sitting on my desk, at the client’s, waiting for a new upgrade on whatever server that unables me to work. Fair enough, for once I am allowed a 30 min break.

I will dedicated this time off to write a bit about what’s exactly going on and how I am planning to revive my blog.

I might switch to a weekly post, but for the moment I need first to :
– Take care of the pictures I’ve taken for at least a year. Even if the majority is available on Facebook, needless to say that to publish them here is a pain in the ass. The process takes heaps of time.
– Do a little sum-up of the past year (helping me with the pics and some scribbling I make when I have some time to kill) on a month basis. It makes 12 longs posts at least.
- Upgrade the entire system who’s one year old, some major improvements are now available and I am sure many I am not even aware of.

So if anyone who’s in the blogging community could give me a hand by providing me some info on major technical changes, it would be lovely.

But to already sum up this year in a few line : I had a tough year and time for me now to enjoy a bit life.

We had the great privilege to finally guest Claudius and Petra [Website] in Paris. It’s been 6 months since I saw those fellows back in Dublin.

Claudius arrived the first on Wednesday for a training at AIG, which happens to be located not 100m from my actual client at La Defense. After a ‘little after-drink meeting’ on the very first night, I painfully remember how tough it was to follow the Irish-Austrian pace. As a revenge we got ourselves a treat at Boldère during lunchtime on Friday.

The weekend was not quieter, as Petra arrived by plane on Friday night and we went straight to a créperie, to taste the French cider and catch up. It always seemed that bullshitting around a pint is our main activity with Claudius. By adding Petra, we all went professionals :)

Hopefully we saved our livers by dining at Belvédère on Saturday and by going to the open market on Sunday. The output of that market was a huge mushroom omelette of which I still have the taste in my mouth while writing this post.

Needless to say the weekend meeting was a breath of fresh air. It is always lovely to see people that played a role on what you’ve become now. It also allowed me putting my whole French situation into perspective.
I guess I am going on the right path at the moment, and soon the outcome will be decisive. In the meantime I still have to learn to be patient. Paris wasn’t built in a day, was it ?

I received the invitation quite late – probably because we were fallen out with each other for almost 2 years. But the over-waited letter finally came, giving me only 3 weeks to book my plane and take a day off from work.

But here I am, here we are – the Florczak from abroad -. Just arrived at Warszaw’s Airport – 11pm – waiting for the rent-a-car bloke to meet us. After one hour of painful walking from one bench to another, making quick dead calls with the mobile phone, the bastard finally drove by.

Welcome to Poland, when service is still not quite a standard feature. No time to yell nor to complain, 140km of dangerous one-lane road is still ahead of us. Swinging between lorries and rice-drivers.

We finally heard the ‘You arrived at your final destination’ from the GPS lady. Another lady warmly squeezed us at the front door. Grandma. Preparing hastly the too-late but too-good dinner. How one can resist to youth cuisine even at 4am ?

Waving from the car, we raced to our Polish flat – the real final destination. My so-long deserved drink and then to bed. I close my eyes and felt asleep straight as a big day awaits us tomorrow.

After almost a year of not writing on the blog, a comment of Zarazek make me realise long hours at work prevented me from carrying on. To be honest some posts have been written and put on a draft status. But to allow a continuity, I need a least a week to write all that happened this year, all the places I went to and I want to talk about.
Therefore I have decided courageously to complete slowly the gap between November and now. Slowly but surely you’ll see.

In the meantime I should hurry up to work, it takes me at least 20 min to get there…

More news to come very shortly

Last minutes in the Netherlands, time to say goodbye to Karolina, Mathieu and so forth. I am secretly a bit happy to leave as I will drive back with quite a car. 300 km without any speed limit constrains until the French border, filled with good vibes from Eindhoven & Amsterdam, my MP3 player full of Trance.

At least during those 4 days, I found what I was looking for : reaching up my inner limits to understand who I really am. Teenage crisis ? You bet !

.. Or should I say ‘Night 3′…

.Karolina arrived at 7pm and stopped at a fancy Thai restaurant just surrounded by canals. After the meal we opened a bottle of red wine that was immediately gulped ’round the corner of a street, hidden from police officers in a rather cold night. French delicacy mixed with Polish binge drinking style :)

Next was a bit of a aimless discovery of the city : going from bar to bar, spreading ours net over districts; At last we stepped on a street where folks were ice-skating. Fair-enough, we joined them. I must say ice-skating is much more difficult while hammered…

By midnight we ended up in a fancy club called ‘the escape’, spot on name for what I was looking for from my NL trip.
Once I entered there I started to realise why I wasn’t really into clubbing in France anymore : Entrance fee and drinks were cheap, the club was vibrant and colourful, nobody stared at you, and the music… THE MUSIC ! Finally some minimalist Techno and amazing Trance. Not a song of R&B, rap crap or rai. Just pure Techno

It opened me a new era of nightlife, new opportunties to have fun. It is decided, next step will be Berlin !

And yes we managed to be back to Den Haag for Karolina’s lecture, I let you imagine in what state we were the next morning, but apparently my poor friend managed to follow the lecturer and I came back to Eindhoven safe & sound.

Continuing my roadtrip in the Netherlands, where roads are terrible and Dutch driving skills questionnable; I had to stop to Den Haag [W] to pick up Karolina, a friend I met in Dublin and haven’t seen so far, on my way to Amsterdam.
Besides a lovely seashore and some official building (including the reknown international court), there is nothing worth seeing there.

By 5pm, highly unprepared (without any hotel booked nor a map), we were determined to kick off. The plan was to come back the next day before Karolina’s Monday lectures starts :)

This amazingly hard to say location – which can be straightforwardly translated into Duke’s forest [W] – is a cosy small town north-east of Eindhoven [W].

Unlike the latter, it has the advantage of not having been destroyed by the war and yet reveals Holland’s architecture beauty of the beginning of the century. It reminds me a bit of Strasbourg and a thermal city. The main attraction is definitively the St John’s basilica [W], which Mathieu and I took an immense pleasure to contemplate.

Weather was georgous and tempted us to stay longer to enjoy a warm chocolate on the main street for hours. Talking of contemplating, not only the basilica took our breath away, you should see the girls crossing the main alley :)

Straight after work, I took daddy’s car to hit the road. My aim was to reach Eindhoven [W], 500 km from Paris, before midnight to see Mathieu de Richecour.
I took an utterly pleasure to drive on the European highways, once Belgium was reached I could smash the gaz pedal to the bottom and swallow the kilometers as it should be done.

Arrived at bay, like good old friends who haven’t met for a long time, we opened a bottle and gossiped like hell. Then we spend an unforgivable night out in the city.

Eindhoven was bombarded during the second WW, so the city is not as thrilling as it should be. Greyish and modern, it balances its dullness by some thrilling night clubs and bars. Mathieu lives in a similar house I used to know in Dublin, with 5 funny flatmates, all of them has an interesting lifestory to tell. International crowd that is ! I am back to some nice stuff here, a good break from Parisian established neighbourhood.

,

Agrandir le plan

This is basically the track I will perform this weekend (4 day weekend in fact). I will cross 3 borders and see 3 close friends of mine. Mathieu in Eindhoven [W], Karolina in the Hague[W] and finally Stéphanie in Dunkerque [W]. Besides the latter destination, I’ve never been in the two other locations.

I’ll go straight after work, the car is already up & ready. Same goes with the SD cards, loaded with tons of mp3 I do enjoy to listen while travelling. Last time I had such a great experience was with Tim, driving from Strasbourg to Paris at night after the Nightwish concert earlier this year. One day to go and I just can’t wait !

From the boot story, I coudln’t deal with the fact how stupid I was to leave my stuff like that. However, in a way, I am not that unhappy to be able to buy myself a new camera and a new helmet. The helmet is now dedicated to friends who wants to travel with me and the new camera is to have a new view of life. I took so many pictures in Oz and Ireland (5000 or so)

I recieved this very morning my new toy. It is the Mark II of the previous model : A Sony DSC-T300, acquired for half the price on internet (thanks to the cheap USD). I can’t wait for the battery to be fully charged…

Please be prepared to have tons of new pictures of my weekend.

There is a drawback I haven’t realised on my scooter. On the Xevo, one can access the tank flap very easily, no lock there. Inside there is the fuel tank and another flap to open manually the trunk. This is how I got all my stuff stolen from the trunk. A helmet and my backpack with inside the camera and important document for work.

I left all there as I wasn’t going far and not for a long time. I wouldn’t imagine that within 30 min, during the day, someone would just open the trap, take the content of the boot and leave.
Today’s kebab was very experience for me, 455 €.

At least I learn on mistakes : I cut the cable that link the flap and the trunk with a wire cutter. It allows me to leave the helmets at least safely. I swore to myself never put a valuable thing such as a camera in the trunk !

I would just love to see a thief being very surprised the next time he wants to open my boot :)