I decided to eat lunch in the IBM cafeteria today instead of wasting my 8 Euros again (it was raining, which did help me choose to stay inside). Even though I don’t keep Kosher, I don’t eat pork or shellfish, and I wasn’t sure that any of the entrees available today were suitable (they had salmon, but it appeared to be garnished with asparagus and ham, and there was a quiche, but who knows what was inside). So I avoided the entrees.

Instead, I filled my plate with salad (that was the “California” part of my lunch) — then I met the “French” requirement by adding two kinds of cheese, four kinds of bread, and a nice dessert. I think I’ll do the same thing tomorrow — I could get used to this kind of lunch.

On Tuesday, I ate breakfast at my hotel — 23 Euros’ worth of breakfast. That’s what they charged me, anyway; I don’t think it was worth 23 Euros. And I didn’t want to have breakfast at the hotel again today if I could avoid it.

Last night, I saw a greengrocer as I was walking from the restaurant to the RER station, so I went in and grabbed an orange to take back to my room (0.77 Euros). That was the first part of today’s complete breakfast.

After eating the orange, I took off to explore the area around my hotel. When I walk to IBM, I cross a street and turn right; this morning, I turned left. I wasn’t in But I was still hungry. So I retraced my steps and found a bakery; they sold me a pain du chocolate for 0.60 Euros. But they couldn’t sell me any coffee. So I continued onward to the plaza at the Grande Arche de la Defense, where Starbucks has established its second French beachhead (so new that it’s not even on their website).

This Starbucks wasn’t nearly as crowded as the one I often visit on my way to work — there was no line, in fact. But I recognized many of the customers who were there — they were my fellow attendees at this meeting!

I had a bit of trouble ordering, because the signs were in French instead of Starbuckese (imagine my culture shock at having to ask for a middle-sized cappucino as a “moyenne” instead of a “grande”). But I figured it out, and my wallet was soon emptier by 3.50 Euros (this Starbucks couldn’t take the Starbucks Card, either!), making my visit to Starbucks by far the most expensive part of today’s breakfast.

One of the colleagues with whom I went to lunch yesterday had a hard time finding someting to eat — it turns out that she keeps Kosher. And so she actually took me seriously when I talked about going into Paris to have falafel in the Marais. But the Marais is a long way from La Defense, so we decided to look around for alternatives.

I tried to find Kosher (Cacher) restaurants on Paris WebCity, with very limited success. So I fell back to the ultimate resource — Google. A quick search for “Paris Kosher restaurant” gave a recentarticle in the Forward as the first hit. So I looked at the article, which pointed me to the Kosher in Paris web site, which was exactly what we needed.

A few minutes later, we’d settled on Orient Express, at 18 rue Jouffroy D’abbans in the 17th (phone +33 1 40 53 88 88). I called them (using my trusty IP phone, which meant that the call was actually dialed from my office in California!); fortunately, they spoke more English than I spoke French, and were able to tell me roughly where they were. We decided that, rather than take the Metro and walk, we’d take a taxi.

That was an expensive decision. The receptionist at IBM said that she’d call us a taxi — that worked fine, but when we got in, we discovered that the meter was already over 8 Euros (the driver must have started the meter when he arrived at IBM). Then the driver fiddled around trying to find his GPS remote control (another Euro gone) and eventually decided he’d call for directions while driving. Which he did, and we took a direct route.

8pm is still rush hour in Paris, at least for the trip from La Defense to the Etoile. The trip around the Etoile was exciting, too — I’m glad I didn’t have to drive. Once we left the Etoile, there was much less traffic, and we got to the restaurant quickly.

The food was good (not superb, but I’d go back quite happily). I decided to have shwarma rather than falafel; my colleague had a steak (she’d been unable to eat meat since arriving in Paris, and had to be awfully careful at the reception earlier in the evening (as had I — they love to sneak pork and shellfish in odd places)). It was nice to be at a resturant where we could eat anything safely, even if we didn’t know exactly what it was.

After dinner, we walked to the RER station at the Etoile (about 15 minutes’ walk, which was no problem), and bought tickets to go back to La Defense. Unfortunately, we bought zone 1 tickets but we needed zone 3 tickets. And when we tried to exit, the turnstile wouldn’t let us out. And we couldn’t find any place to make up the difference, or anyone to ask. Fortunately, two French-speaking ladies had also only bought zone 1 tickets, and they were able to get a guard to unlock the door and let us all out.

From there, all we had to do was find an exit to the outside world which was still open at 10pm — that was not as easy as it might have been, but we succeeded, and then walked our separate ways to our hotels.

I suffered a bit from jetlag, I guess, because I couldn’t fall asleep right away, but it wasn’t too bad — I was asleep by midnight, and I slept until the alarm went off at 7am.

The cafeteria at IBM Tour Descartes doesn’t handle money. Visitors have to buy a bunch of lunch tickets before getting in the line, and that’s a slow procedure. So the organizers of this conference arranged a shortcut — for 32 Euros, we could buy a whole week’s worth of lunches in advance. It seemed like a good idea to me, and I bought in.

Yesterday, I had lunch in the cafeteria. Even though the lines in the servery were crazy, the food was pretty good for cafeteria food — but awfully filling (and I didn’t even have a dessert or wine). I was all set to go to the cafeteria again today, when one of my colleagues said that there was a small group who were going to go out and get something to eat elsewhere (they hadn’t had a chance to buy the all-week card yesterday). I hesitated (after all, I’d already paid my eight Euros), but eventually chose to go along for the walk.

That was one of the better decisions I’ve made so far today. We ended up at Pomme de Pain in Les Quatre Temps, where I had a curry chicken sandwich. And then we went out to the plaza for dessert and I had an apricot crepe from a semi-permanent cart. The crepe was better than the sandwich (messier, too), and it was very nice to get out of the overheated building for a walk in the bright sunshine and 45-degree air.

I may not get to see the sun again today, though; the meeting I’m in is expected to go till 6pm, and that’s when the sun will set. Maybe there’ll be a break….

Cassie the travel bug is now waiting to be picked up from View Over Paris – Paris Overview.

I successfully found an ATM which worked for me (apparently Meriwest Credit Union and BNP don’t like each other, but other banks are perfectly happy to deal with Meriwest), too.

And I’m almost ready to fall asleep — it’s been a long long day.