Back in Paris and ready for a new year! Here we are a few hours away from 2009! For this new year I'm opening a special bottle to celebrate a very long special year! :-)
This will be my last post from 2008. Some of you are already in 2009... and I hope to join you soon!
All the best for you... I'm going out and try to survive this very cold night in Paris, around 0ºC! I'll need to drink the full bottle in order to survive this winter night! :-)
And here we are again, with another cliché on this special day. Yes, it's Christmas... what a surprise! I would prefer to win the lottery and wish congratulations to myself, but on Christmas we have to wish all the best to our family, friends and ... all the others (yes, those who are "special" like politicians or terrorists... they're people too, they only need to be loved! eheheh).
I hope you enjoy another Christmas Eve with the ones you love (yes, like Angelina Jolie.... I wish! eheh), and with the presents you deserve... after all, there's a crisis out there!
Ho ho ho ... and a bottle of rum! Did you ever notice that pirates and Santa Claus have a similar cheer? :-D
Every year it arrives that special time when people join their families in their homelands. Some of them more far than others. I'm lucky because I'm only 2 hours away by plane, so I don't have no excuses to skip Christmas with my family! eheh
So my next stop will be the world's most beautiful city: Porto (or Oporto, if you're english! eheh). This award was given after a competing voting selection, and it was up the jury to decide... that means me! :-P
I'll try to take this opportunity to show you my city. The monuments, the iconic buildings, the food, and the most important and best part of Porto: the people :-)
Now let me get ready for real cold! eheh It's true Paris is cold in winter, but it's a dry weather. In Porto the temperature also drops, but there are some nasty winds coming from the Atlantic ocean. I'm getting a cold just thinking of it! eheheh
It has been really cold this last few days around here, so it wasn't a big surprise when snow started to fall.
Fortunately (or not, it depends how much you like to ski) the snow precipitation level is very very low. Some long decades ago Paris would be covered in snow by this time of the year. But now we have this fancy "global warming" that completely changed the four seasons (I'm talking about the weather, not the pizza) :P
Still I was caught on surprise, because I entered into a subway station and when I got out on the other side of Paris the weather had completely changed! Like I travelled miles and miles... into the Swiss Alps! eheheh
It would be so much nicer if I was on the snowy mountains, with my ski boots on and a cup of hot chocolate... but it was time to wake up, so I headed to work. C'est la vie...
The subway in Paris has the same problems has other subways: crowded, late most of the times, stops in the middle of the tunnels for traffic control, or when a passenger feels sick, etc.
Last week the tram where I was in was forced to stop once again, but this time the reason was a bit awkward: there was a kid running in the tunnel!!
It was like an horror movie: the tram stops in the middle of the tunnel, with only the emergency lights on (plus the tunnel lights). Without the engines running, there was almost a dead silence inside the tram. Suddenly I see a "head" running along the tram (from the outside of course)! This could be the cue to start playing some eerie music in order to freak everyone who was inside! ehehe
Some minutes later, on the speaker, the subway driver requests everyone to calmly evacuate the tram using the exit at the front, which luckily was already next to the station.
Fortunately I always carry a digital camera with me. I made a short clip but I didn't see any kid around. The security agents at the station were saying the kid was hidding under the tram!!
Anyway, the station was completely evacuated and closed... maybe the parisian C.S.I. team was already investigating ;-)
Back in Paris and ready for a new year! Here we are a few hours away from 2009! For this new year I'm opening a special bottle to celebrate a very long special year! :-)
