dimanche, novembre 19, 2006

Wrapping for X'mas

Each year near the Christmas period, charities will organise gift wrapping services outside boutiques. I signed up to help out Salvation Army to offer my service with the boutique "Modern Man" at Saint Lazare.

Yesterday, I was alone at the counter from 10 am to 1pm. There were a lot of shoppers and they bought things from the shop. However, these people were shopping for themselves. In the end, I only wrapped about seven gifts. As Christmas is still a month away, people usually start shopping next month. I did enjoyed myself as the gifts were easy to wrap. They came in rectangluar boxes. I remembered that last year, I was helping out Red Cross with the similar service at a computer shop. It was really difficult to wrap up a big printer box or those irregular packages like MP3 player.

There is always a money box at the counter. People will give coins for the gift wrapping service. I had seen men donating as much as 10€. I had also seen women who did not buy anything from the shop asking for the wrappers and ribbons; without donating.

Next Saturday, I will be at Saint Lazare again from 10 am to 1 pm. I hope that there will be more shoppers. Wrapping 3 gifts per hour is kinda boring.

vendredi, novembre 17, 2006

Metro line 13 and knitting

I often had so much thoughts on my mind in the morning rush hour. Walking from the train station at St Lazare to Metro line 13. Walking from Metro line 13 to my office in the cold.

Yet when I am sitting in front of the computer, my mind is a blank. What should I write? The trivials in my mind?

So what's up in my head? Well that depends on the surroundings that distract me.
Well, for one, I hate line 13. It is the worst line in Paris. Every morning, lots and lots of people use this line and often there are problems with the metro trains. They are often late and too crowded. Line 13 runs from the south of Paris to the north. In the north, there are more poor neighbourhoods and a few office areas. This means that a lot of the people have no private transport and the only way to get into Paris is by line 13. In the morning, we are packed like sardines in the old trains which have poor ventilation and no automatic door. People are short-tempered and agressive. Each one pushing to get up the train.

The transport minister mentioned that all Metro lines are running well. But obviously, he has a chauffeur-driven car. Metro line 1 was given a big budget to upgrade the lines. Line 1 runs through the central of Paris. The trains are new with automatic doors. The stations are generally clean and the trains are efficient. Any tourist visting Paris will most likely have taken line 1.

For me, I take line 13 almost every day to go to work and it is really stressful at times. Reaching office late with half my energy gone in getting my way into the train, it is really not pleasant.

That is just part of my life in Paris. I hate the underground.

On the brighter side, I took up knitting. I have never done that before. I always like to do jig-saw puzzles. However, Seb is not keen to frame up my puzzles so I usually left my completed puzzles on the coffee table until Bao Bei destroyed them accidentally. She usually lied on the coffee table and sometimes while playing, slipped off from the table bringing part of the puzzle down with her.

In order to do something more productive, I decided to try knitting. I went to Printemps and took up a lesson with the boutique Phildar. After 2 lessons, I am starting on a scarf. It is really easy. I just need to keep repeating the same gesture until I get a really long scarf enough to roll around my neck twice. As usual, I have to watch out for Bao Bei. She loves to play with the thread.

It is weekend soon. And november is here. I realised that I wrote so little these days. I will try to write more. Even trivials. It was really pleasant to hear friends commenting that they regularly read my blog when I was in Singapore.