Roland Garros 2008 - Day 12

Woke up feeling at least as bad as I had the day before.  Missed a run for the first time this trip, which was disappointing.  Still, I knew that pushing my body while it was fighting this off wasn't wise, and the extra sleep would only help me in the long run.  I managed to have breakfast and then spend some time sitting in the steam of the hot shower again.  I was working the later shift, so I didn't have to be in a rush to get in, but at the same time I wasn't feeling well enough to go wandering Paris.  I just haven't felt like it anyway.

Got to work about an hour and a half early.  I hate sitting in the hotel room, and there's no real point anyway.  There's nothing but news channels that are English speaking, so unless I wanted to sit through 3 hours or so of CNN International, going to work at least allows me to watch movies on my laptop.

Today I was invited to have lunch in the IBM Hospitality area in the Roland Garros vendor village.  I know speaking about this to some extent violates my mantra of not talking about work in my blog, but this particular situation merits discussion.  The village is where customers are taken to watch demos, discuss business options and to wait for tennis to start.  They serve very good food, wine, and cocktails to keep the customers happy.  When there are low numbers, they will on occasion extend the invitation to those of us in the technical areas.  Two of us were invited and since I had not had lunch prior to coming in, I jumped at the chance.  When we got there, the table was empty and only one of the 6 in the IBM area had even been set.  I sat down and then I saw some consternation amongst the IBM France people that ran the area.  I don't speak a lot of French, and they, like all foreign languages I have mild depth in, speak far too quickly for me to pick up more than 1 out of every 5 words.  What I did manage to overhear, though was count bad.  Then, the person that invited us looked at the two of us, then turned back to the woman who was visibly annoyed.  Then I heard not eat, and the woman turned to look at the two of us sitting down.  In the end, they honored their invitation to allow us to eat, but at the cost of neither of them being able to enjoy lunch with us.  That disappointed me slightly, as I had hoped it would be a chance to talk to some of them in a more casual environment.  It also embarrassed me a bit because they had to miss their own chance to eat because they had miscounted the number of available meals.  Still, I thought it noble of them to not ask us to get up, which I would have, and it was a very good lunch.  Filet of Sole and white asparagus with white cheese and an egg and potato souffle.  A lot of white on the plate, which my mom would say is a bad way to cook, wanting a variety of colors on the plate to make it more appealing to the eye, but it was very tasty. :)

Play ended reasonably early and I had the chance to get back to the hotel well before dark.  I was glad, as I wanted a second night in bed early and a good night's sleep to help me kick this thing for good.  I had Chinese again at the restaurant across the street.  Steve came with me and we enjoyed a very quiet meal.  It was nice and I like that place more than the one considered the preferred spot by the regulars to Paris.

Got back to the room and called Colleen to let her know I was going to bed early again and would not be able to call her at home.  It is on this side of the time shift that it is harder.  I find it easy to call her in the morning US time as it is early afternoon here, but to call her in the evening means I have to be up past midnight and I'm too old for that very often.  I miss her terribly.  She was busy at work and sounded frustrated.  I felt bad that I couldn't find out why.  Maybe in the morning.

Cheers!