For my first trip out of North America, I’m very excited to be talking at Open World Forum on a panel about community citizenship, in Paris at the end of September. The following weekend I’ll attend FUDCon Milan, where I hope to stir up some cloud community discussions. So how about that for a first European trip?
We had to wait until nearly the last minute to plan this trip, since I want to take my wife … and if she can’t go, that means I have reason to stay home. Hand-in-hand like that. We finally made a decision that works, booked our tickets, and now have to find a hotel in Paris.
Part of this trip is that from Sunday 25 September through Thursday 29 September, I’ll be working early in the day in Parisian cafes, and spending the evening with my wife and whatever friends we make as we go. We’ll be open, exploring, photographing, and looking for great food and wine (and music and dancing …)
Debora has a passion for the French language, which she has studied since she was a child, but has never visited France. Myself, I’ve never even been to Europe. We’ll get to break some personal barriers and have some fun.
So I’m looking for whoever I know, or friends of friends, to help us find what artistic, musical, underground (restaurant? catacombs?), alternative, and interesting Paris fun is out there. (I expect Milan to be completely filled with FUDCon, except Sunday evening when Debora and I will explore and discover together.)
Also, if you know a good hotel (conference one is full) or have an apartment we can rent for the week … let me know.
Now, to go sort out power adapters, SIM card for my Droid 2 Global, wireless broadband for the laptop …
We are going to be a few french people from Paris in Milan, I am sure we can give you some ideas of places to see/go 😉
Internet access can be quite easy to find in Paris ( at least, in the cafe where I go ). Usually, the cafe who subscribed to wistro have a unrestricted internet acces, see the list on http://www.wistro.fr/WistroPresDeChezVous.aspx . You have to ask the password however, and it may not work every time. But you can also go the Paris office of RedHat ( even if this is a little bit far away from downtown ).
While living myself in Paris since a long time, I do not have much to recommend to you, usually, booking.com is quite helpful to find hotels, and you can select one with wifi. The french community is quite active, so I guess you can come and ask on irc ( #fedora-fr on freenode ) if you need some help.
Regarding restaurants, I could recommend some with typical french food, like the various resturants near gare montparnasse ( rue d’odessa, paris 14 ) ( food from Brittany ).
For something to see, you can go on montmartre, by night. Going to the catacombs is forbidden usually, even if I know lots of people who do. There is also lots of museum, depending on what you like.
@Misc,
For the catacombs you seem to forget that there are official visits 😉
see: http://www.carrieres.explographies.com/indexus.htm