I've made it safely to Paris for the Install Fest this weekend, and I don't understand a single word of what's going on. Last night, we went to the Restaurant de Flammenkuechen. There, we had a meeting of all the associated Linux geeks and nerds in the Greater Paris area, over many many plates of Flammenkuechen. The Flammenkuechen, despite it's German name, is a pizza-like dish from the Alsace, which can be an entire meal. It's essentially a thin crust smothered in all manners of pungent french cheeses and topped with bits of mushrooms, ham, peppers, tomatoes and anything else handy. For desert, it's more flammenkuechen complete with chocolate or apples and cinnamon, all served with many glasses of white and rose wines. I can't say that I really followed most of the conversations at the table, but I did get a chance to get to know some of the members of the community there. The Linux community in Paris, and in France overall is incredibly active, judging by the noise in the room alone.
I was fortunate to be there during the night of La Fete de Musique, which is a huge Europe wide festival in many different cities, where it it is legal for anyone to just start performing on the street or in a club free of charge. Judging by some of the neighborhoods we walked through, France also has an incredibly vivid gay community. We spent most of the night wandering through Paris sampling all the different music all over.
Getting back to my host's house was a bit of an adventure. Normally, the Paris Metro is closed from 1 - 6 in the morning. For the music festival, it was up and running, about as well as New York City. The entire Metro system, for those who don't know has been built mainly in the swiss cheese holes that formed underneath Paris some many thousand years ago. Travelling around normally is next to impossible. Getting around at 3 in the morning is worse. After riding for about 20 minutes on one very very crowded and overheated train, we found out that we had to wait about an hour for the next train. After debating if it would be worth it to walk an hour and half home instead of waiting, we decided to at least pop our heads outside where it's a bit cooler and see how far it really is. Paris also has a reputation for having really expensive taxis. On a whim, we decided to ask a passing taxi driver how much it would cost to get a ride for the final leg home. Expecting it to be about 50 euros, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that it was under 10 euros. If there's one good thing to say about the public transportation in Paris, it is that the taxi drivers are friendly and fast.
This morning, after slowly getting up, going for another hour long joyride through the Metro, I sat down with the leaders and members of the Fedora FR non-profit organisation and had a talk to them about some of their goals and what they've done so far. I think I'll put this in a blog post later.
Some Pictures.
Transavia is clearly geek friendly.
I love localized technology.
Amazing food.
The geek club where the Install Fest is being held. One Euro Coffee is certainly a geek's friend.
Selling Fedora Ambassador polo shirts.
One very happy customer. (With one very happy future Fedora user to-be inside.)
By the end of the day, these will be running Fedora 9 too!
