Burg em Lux

aka city of many cheese factories and slaughterhouses.  At least, that's what I'm going to be seeing this trip.

Sounds fun and exciting? Yes! Gory and disturbing?  Probably!  Well-payed and edifying?  No doubt!

Mozzarella made this morning, as it turns out, is delicious.  Not so surprising, but still yummy.  Ditto for fresh ricotta.  That was today.  Tomorrow it'll be not one, but two slaughterhouses.  Hope they have good overalls.  And maybe barf-bags.  Or nose plugs.  And goggles.  And... ah, I guess we'll see how it goes.

Work's taking me to all sorts of new places!  Yippee! (honestly, the cheese factory was really neat).

I feel like I'm 12 again.

At Pearson airport

Here we are, plopped into a chair at Toronto's terminal 1.  Why, you ask?

Because there isn't a drop of whisky worth tasting at the so-called Bacardi tasting station.  All the more galling, given the gallons of perfectly respectable whisky on the shelves of the duty-free boutique.  Whisky which you couldn't open for hours or days, even if you bought it here.  Frustrating?  Yes.  A strong statement for sensible sobriety?  Fiddle-sticks.  The only thing left to do, is to browse, drink water, and wait through the endless line-up for boarding.

Because about half the passengers on any given flight think they have "special" seats, that are in every row, so they can board any time.  Making the queues that much longer.  Good thing there's finally free wireless internet here!  It only took ten years more than in Europe.  That's innovation!  Canadian telecom style!

Heard it through the grape vine

Confucious said:

The sour grapes ripen into the grapes of wrath,
...you alkie.

Zooom -> Paris

T-22 hours.

Let's cross our fingers and hope for no airport mishaps, delays, lost baggage, and quick customs and baggage returns.  But I have no reason to expect those.  Never happened to me before.

C'mon Air Canada, don't let me down!

This marks the end of my Canadian summer.  It was warm, verging on hot.  Cozy, verging on lethargic.  Delicious, verging on sinful.  And all-around terrific, save for the fact that I was far from Europe.  A friend suggested earlier today that Canada should just join Europe.  I second that motion.  We're more european than the Brits, anyways.  The French influence and all.  Plus the Italians, Portuguese, and all the rest.

Oh, and it was the summer of Starcraft 2.  I temporarily turned into a micro-managing, move-my-probe-into-your-base-ing computo-zombie.  Aaah, exercise.

Le geek, c'est chic!

or how my new favourite movie is Scott Pilgrim vs The World!

Wonderful, funny, geeky beyond belief, it hit all the right notes in my geeky past.  Video games, role-playing games, pseudo-goth, ninjas, sword-play, rock'n-roll, and it was not only filmed in Toronto, it's actually SET in Toronto!

Viva le geek!

France, dammit

So it turns out that in spite of my Canadian/Romanian citizenships, I am still working illegally here (probably).  Isn't that great?  I've been paying taxes for the last, oh, 9 months now, but an illegal immigrant.  Whoo!

And when do I get to find this out?  After having worked again a little today.

It's the thought that counts.  The mind-boggling, administrative-minded thought.  Prepare yourself for an incredible odyssey through administrative hassle!  I'm already dreading it.

Today at the Elysee

Good thing we're all mooving in the right direction... aren't we?  The president hard at work to support young farmers.