The McWhopper Proposal

This is a tough one. I think it’s one of the best marketing ideas I’ve seen in a while on one hand, and depressingly ridiculous at the same time on the other. My cynical side is struggling with the exciting possibility of eating a McWhopper, and even the idea of bringing peace and type 2 diabetes to the world one McWhopper at a time! And there goes my cynical side again. I guess I could also go and buy a Big Mac and a Whopper and just put them together myself without waiting for World Peace Day, but that’s besides the point.

It is definitely and already great for Burger King, and I’m pretty sure it’s already unexpected (?) positive media exposure for McDonald’s, and they haven’t even responded as far as I know.

Is it any good for the World Peace Day and the Peace One Day NGO..? That’s just one of the other areas I have doubts about.

My first impression is that the Peace One Day’s message is drowned out. It’s certainly benefiting the burger makers. Let’s say it is about making the world a better place, if so then how are they doing that exactly? Are they handing out some cash on the 21st September? How would that cash be spent?

My second set of doubts come from looking at Peace One Day – I’ve only had a quick look at their site and a couple of video so I admit I could be missing information. Their main message seems to be: ” Awareness creates action, and action saves lives”. I saw it on their website, and on this McWhopper video.

I’m not convinced awareness creates much immediate action. I knew smoking was bad and I kept smoking for years, it’s an easy example and I’m sure we can easily think of similar ones. And certainly not all action saves lives. Some actions even eliminate them, actually.

I also thought of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge from last year, and the numbers tell us the viral sensation raised $115 million for the ALS Association. They also produced a nice infographic to tell people how they’ve been spending the money so far. I find interesting in comparison that the whatever you thought of the ALS ice bucket videos, the message was pretty clear and straightforward: Throw an ice bucket over your head, commit to donating to the ALS Association, and nominate friends in your video to keep the chain going. The ALS Association is spending the money on research, patient care, etc.

I don’t see this kind of simple message with the McWhopper Proposal, and certainly not the difference it’s going to make for peace in the world. The ice bucket videos weren’t branded, so maybe it’s just a bad comparison altogether. World Peace is a great ideal but not as simple as researching a cure to a disease, even the most difficult one.

The video suggests Atlanta as a middle ground between two US locations, none of which are or have been at war for a long time. Maybe well played Burger King, but what are you actually going to do in the name of World Peace then..?

I agree that these companies have the kind of size and influence required to make changes on society, but in this context I fail to see how Burger King and McDonald’s can make a positive difference towards peace in the world with a McWhopper restaurant in Atlanta. If anything, it may just be showing how much more people like fast food than the idea of world peace.

I also think fun and play is important, and if that’s only what Burger King has in mind, then great. That said, just tell us what this is actually doing for World Peace, because I don’t think the so called “war” between two fast food giants is what the UN wanted to solve by creating the International Day of Peace.

Or am I being too cynical (for a change)?

Who Does Advertising Serve?

Bronze plate printing an advertising for the Liu family needle shop at Jinan. Song Dynasty era (960 – 1270). One of the earliest existing examples of printed advertising.

I’m catching up on some reading and came across this article written by Tracy Follows: “Cannes Lions: will advertising ever again be about the people it serves?”.

At first I didn’t take any special notice at the title, I might have been paying more attention to the Cannes Lions part of it. I was mostly nodding to myself in agreement at several points made as I was reading. And then towards the end the title question appears again and that’s when I really took notice:

“The question for the future, then, is this: will advertising ever again be about the people it serves?”

You might think I’m being too concerned with semantics, and you might be right. I may well be focusing on a different definition of the word service than Tracy had in mind. In any case, I thought: “Wait a second, when has advertising ever been about serving the people it’s made for? Who does advertising serve?”

Just to be clear, I enjoyed the article and I agree with Tracy’s interesting points made about creativity vs. media and technology, about the fascination of the industry with technology at the detriment of creativity or better understanding people.

At the same time I can’t help but thinking there is a slight leap made in the article that jarred with me. It’s related to the word serving, and the notion of service. I went to read the Wikipedia article about advertising for a quick history overview, to make sure I wasn’t missing anything obvious about the origins and history of the practice.

I picked the image above from there, apparently one of the first still existing examples of printed branding and advertising, for a needle shop in Song Dynasty China, between 927 – 1270. It seems like an old enough example to suit my purpose. Along with the rabbit brand logo representing the Liu family name, the text above and below reads:

“We buy high quality steel rods and make fine quality needles, to be ready for use at home in no time”

Who does this serve, first and foremost? I say it serves the Liu family needle shop. Advertising serves the client, the company advertising or promoting their products and services. It doesn’t serve the consumer, not first at least. I don’t think it ever has, so it would be difficult to have it be about that again.

Advertising, the modern 20th century style of it in particular, is about creating demand and persuading people they want or need something, whether they actually need those things or not, or whether it’s useful or not.

 

Both World Wars and cigarette advertising are famously what allowed the advertising to grow into what it is has become today. I remember visiting the Weapons of Mass Communication exhibition at London’s Imperial War Museum years ago, which was very interesting in that regard. With what we know about the ill-health effects of smoking nowadays, I find it tough to say those ads were serving the people they were destined for.

I absolutely agree it’s ideal if advertising is made for the people it is destined to. It is better when ads are concerned with real people, their lives, motivations, feelings, concerns, etc. In rare cases I’m even inclined to believe advertising serves the consumers as well as the advertiser.

It is probably part of the reasons most people dislike advertising: everybody knows it’s trying to have them do something, most often buy something – possibly against their will. Nobody likes the impression of being influenced or manipulated against their will.

I’m writing all this because I believe it is possible for advertising to be relevant, entertaining, and even useful to the people it is destined for. I think that’s an important point the heart of Tracy’s article, and if I’m correct in my understanding I agree. I don’t know if there was a time the industry did a better job at that, but I’m sure it can do better now. I aim to help with that in the work I do with clients, though I admit I don’t always succeed as much as I’d like to.

I also think mass communication can be used to make a positive difference for people. I recently found out about The International Exchange and it’s great to see this type of exciting projects in the world, committed to making a difference with the help of communication professionals.

That said, I’m questioning the distinction of who advertising serves because I think it’s important to be honest and realistic about it. The next question could be: if it serves the advertisers, then how can it serve them better by being for the people they are targeting?

To finish on a another thought, I particularly liked this definition of service in the Merriam-Webster:

2c. Contribution to the welfare of others.

Going one step further with this definition in mind, if advertising served the people it is targeted to, then how would it influence products and services being developed by advertisers, rather than the other way round?

22/08/2015 update:

In the middle of an unrelated conversation a day after writing this, a friend reminded me that the origins of the verb to serve and servir (we were talking in French) are from the latin servire, literally “be enslaved”, related to servus “slave”. The meaning then extended to being a servant later on, and then even later into the figurative kind of meaning I used for this post.

Taken in this sense, the title also makes for an interesting question to ponder: Who is enslaved to advertising?

 

Le Coq à l'Ane is Open!

My brother Morgan opened his first restaurant & wine bar on Saturday 1st August, which I was – and still am – very excited about! It is called Le Coq à l’Ane, a playful name based on a French saying which translates best in English as a non sequitur, going from thing to another completely unrelated or illogically. Literally the saying translates as “going from rooster (or cock) to donkey” and the restaurant name can literally translate as “the donkeyed rooster (or cock)”.

My brother told me the saying was used as early as the 14th century in France, and “l’âne” then was spelled “l’asne” and designated a female duck rather than a donkey. The saying originally referred to farm cocks that would have sex with ducks.

As for the restaurant, Morgan liked the sound of it, and he feels it reflects what guests will be experiencing when they visit, depending on what produce are available at the market and his inspiration or mood, one day he might be cooking something very elaborate and gastronomic, and the next day a simple like you’re at home Catalan sausage and mash, or an Indian curry another day. Main dishes can change suddenly with no rhyme or reason, yet you can be sure it will all be delicious and very affordable.

The restaurant is in the small village of Latour-de-France, by a lovely river. The village has a reputation amongst all-natural wine aficionados; while small the village boasts twelve different independent organic and/or all natural winemakers. The restaurant is also a wine cellar, so you can try different local wines and craft beers, or select a bottle and enjoy it at home or by the river with friends. For now he mostly has wines from the village, and he intends to get wines from other regions of France soon enough.

Morgan cooked delicious slow-roasted pork ribs and mashed potatoes for opening night dinner

The opening night was a success and different generations of villagers came by to have drinks and plates of artisan cheese and charcuterie, the atmosphere was great and it was a pleasure to be there. We finished late at night with Morgan’s ex-colleagues from the previous place he worked at, La Coopérative Riberach, a Michelin-starred restaurant nearby.

 

If you’re in the South of France near Perpignan or know of anyone visiting, please come by or tell them about the restaurant! In the meantime, they are regularly updating the Facebook Page with photos and information, check it out! 

Beers & Billboards project - test episode 0 (World Cup 2014)

As some of you may be aware I enjoy craft beers and was also home brewing beer. The interest was shared with my good friend and previously colleague JP in Singapore. Given we had a few evenings of enjoying craft beers we thought it would be a good idea to combine two of our interests, namely beer and advertising, into a podcast or video show.

We only recorded a few test episodes that weren't particularly well prepared (to say the least), though I still think it had some potential. I decided to leave Singapore and move back to Europe shortly after, and while we recorded another test via a video conversation (that I might publish as well), the idea has mostly been taking virtual dust in a corner of my hard drive.

I talked about it with JP and thought we might as well publish it and let people be judge of the potential for some kind of show, or lack thereof. Apologies in advance for the bad video quality, it's raw and was shot with a point & shoot camera. Plus batteries ran out in the middle of recording, we didn't realise until later and we only saved the early portion of it. I'm eating almost throughout - lesson learned, it's not recommended for recording video. Enjoy.

Video advertising credits (also watchable in better quality):

McDonald's World Cup "House Divided" 

Tiger UNCAGE: Joey Pang

Heineken "The Odyssey" 

Kona Brewing Company "Sad Hour"

Kidzania: innocent fun or capitalist wet dream?

I just spent some time in London for work, and a friend of mine who has a small child told me about this brand new theme park attraction called Kidzania, which sounded fascinating and terrifying in about equal parts. Shortly after I walked by their ad campaign in the tube and took a couple of pics. I became even more curious and looked it up.

Whatever I think of them critically, I'm a bit of a sucker for theme parks. I leave my critical thinking at the door when I walk in Disneyland for example. As a game, I spent one time in Disneyland Paris queueing with small children to get all the autographs of Disney characters in a notebook. I was younger than now though still taller than most of the kids at about 20 years old. I also love tabletop role-playing games, and while I did want to be helicopter pilot when I was 6 years old, once I found out I could also be a make-believe mischievous thief or a fire-ball throwing mage in tabletop games that sounded a lot more exciting.

Kidzania, originally from Mexico, and according to their website and Wikipedia page is a chain of family entertainment centres. Each one of their worldwide 16 locations features a fully modern albeit child-sized mock city full of law abiding, hard working playing kids. As I understand it from my friend's description, parents are encouraged to part with their child along with a substantial amount of cash for a couple of hours while they go and play modern hunter gatherers at the mall.

Once the kids are in the non-magical kingdom, they have the chance to train as model citizens of an ideal capitalist society, in other words they take on jobs and earn Kidzania money for it. Each new kid in there has a dedicated bank account, and can withdraw the local Kidzos currency from any of the citys ATMs. The website doesn't specify if or what the currency exchange might be if one child travels to a different Kidzania location. So apparently you have kids role-playing and dressing up in adult jobs like firemen, dentists, journalists, business men, cooks, air host(esses), etc. Altogether over 100 different roles jobs. Once they earn and learn by role-playing their jobs, they can spend their Kidzos on entertainment and items from the Kidzania shop.

'Zupervisors' are there to help the kids in their work play time and of course major brands are there to sponsor activities relevant to their field, hoping to make loyal customers of children at an early age, given when they're 18 years old they never listen to them.

Domino's Pizza, Coca-Cola, DHL, Sony, Nestlé, Danone, Unilever, etc already have branded booths where happy children can 'play work' using their branded products and working in their companies.

While I mostly find the idea of this corporate capitalistic ideal society for children frightening, I'm also ambivalent: it is true that role-playing is natural for kids, and imitation play is as well. Play in all its forms is to be cherished, mammals all learn through play, and we humans are no exception to that. I'm also not too sure the play should be this close to the 'real world' as we know it, and it feels way too close to training kids to being obedient corporate drones to work, earn, and then spend.

Or am I being too cynical..? What do you think?

Learning to drive

My first evaluation driving lesson was driving in snow!

I've been thinking about this post for a little while, just as I've been learning to drive (and still don't have my license) for a little while longer than expected.

Let us start with the fact that I'm a 35, soon to be 36 year old man, and still don't have my drivers license. I know I'm not the only one, but people can still be surprised at that. For a long time I had a canned and ready answer: my parents didn't have the money when I was 16-18 years old, and about that time we moved to the centre of Versailles, and Paris shortly after, I didn't need it living in a big city, and when I started earning enough to consider learning, I thought spending elsewhere would be a lot more interesting. I spent it on holidays instead, basically.

Thinking about it, I hadn't learned to drive all this time because truth be told I'm just not very interested. I've never cared much for cars, and driving seemed to be a hassle. I love to leave my mind to wander while I'm traveling in a vehicle, and to me that seems more important and worthwhile than having to pay attention to the road.

So far learning to drive had stayed in the department of unfulfilled good intentions, though moving away from Singapore to the South of France I knew I'd need to learn, and this was also part of the reason for the move back. I don't think I'll be a full time city-dweller my whole life so until teleportation becomes available cars unfortunately seem to be the best - or currently most popular - option.

I've written a few times in this blog that I've been enjoying learning new skills and trying out new activities in the past few years, such as Thai massage, scuba-diving, or home brewing beer. This year so far is about learning to drive, and it may well sound surprising if you've mastered that a long time ago, but for me it has been pretty tedious and difficult.

Early this year, I was with my little brother Morgan's car in the countryside lanes surrounding the vineyards, to try out and learn the basics. I sat behind the wheel and it felt pretty odd.

I put my hands on the wheel and said something like: "Wow this is weird, I can't remember the last time I was behind a steering wheel..."

Morgan looked at me, raised an eyebrow and replied: "You've never actually sat behind a car's steering wheel, have you..?"

"Well now you mention it... Nope..."

And then he taught me to start the car, and given right in front was an incline, spent time starting it again and again going up a slope - which I learned later isn't necessarily easy. At least I gathered that I could do it.

I began the official process soon after with a local driving instructor. The theory test was easy, that's comfy territory: learning stuff and regurgitating has never been much of an issue for me.

When it came to the driving lessons though it became a little tougher, and recently I've been talking with friends about why that might be, which was interesting. I realised I have a thing going on that I panic if I feel overwhelmed - particularly anything to do with physical coordination.

You can ask me to learn something by heart or type on my laptop while having 5 people yelling different things at me and I'll generally be fine. Add the same people and ask me to cook under pressure and I'm almost guaranteed to hurt myself (I'm a decent cook, just not a professional one).

Last week I burned myself making coffee because I was at a friend's place and unfamiliar with their coffee machine. I messed up making a first coffee, felt embarrassed at myself (no need for the 5 people), panicked somehow, and then burned myself making the second coffee...

In the past few months I've had a bunch of driving lessons, and improved enough to take the test in late May. I thought I was relaxed and confident before starting, and then failed spectacularly. I had all the best conditions for the test, including a really cool examiner, but accumulated mistakes. I've never stalled so much in barely 20 minutes. And apparently stalling in the middle of a busy roundabout is not acceptable...

While I was looking at what had happened, it's interesting to notice that the physical skills I've learned in the past few years more or less require slowly focusing on one thing at a time. It's not that I'm desperately clumsy (not that much, anyways!), though  if or when I feel there's too much pressure and too many things to coordinate at one time, I panic. And hurting myself or failing tasks then reinforces the idea that I'm awkward altogether as a truth.

I'm sure there's a part of talent, and driving is unlikely to ever be an area of expertise for me. That said at the same time it's allowing me to realise that it's mostly a question of practice - there's no particular physical reason for me to be worse than most drivers. In the end, identifying my panic reactions as they happen letting me catch myself in the act, relax when I realise it's silly, and get over it, lets me be present to what I'm doing - driving in the case of this story.

It looks like I won't have a new space to take the driving exam until September, I'll be in touch about the results of the next test. Cross fingers for me. If you have one, please send a 'Don't Panic' towel!

Enjoying the new neighbourhood

While I was writing my novel in November last year I had the chance to go on a few walks in the area where my sister lives, and given they say a picture is worth a thousand words I'll post a few here by way of explaining why I chose to settle here for a while longer.

The first two photos are from the top of a hill at the Torre del Far, a fire and smoke signal tower dating from the 10th century, standing between the villages of Cases de Pène and Tautavel.

Dominating the Corbières, the top offers gorgeous views of several Cathar castles, the Pyrénées mountains, the sea pond of Salses-Leucate, and the Mediterranean sea. The walk is only like 2-3 hours long, and highly recommended. I also walked nearby the Serrabone Priory, another beautiful area with great views of the mountains and all the way to the sea on a nice day.

I've already mentioned my sister's vineyard, it goes without saying the region is known for its wines. The quality of wines and reputation of several small producers in the Roussillon area are steadily growing both in France and internationally. I've really enjoyed walking through the vineyards over winter last year, and hadn't seen so many beautiful rainbows in a very long time. The area tends to get a lot of wind and sunshine, (most) autumn and winter rains don't last long as rain clouds get blown away, and one can see many rainbows in the Roussillon and Fenouillèdes at that time of year.

The Eastern Pyrénées mountains are right there, barely over an hours drive away, to spend a few days there for New Year's Eve 2014 at a friend's place in a lovely little village. We spent a day hiking in snow shoes to the Lac des Bouillouses, pictured above.

A few days after new years eve, I realised I hadn't been to the seaside since I'd arrived in late October. I got on the train from Perpignan for 20 minutes to Collioure, a lovely town on the rocky Côte Vermeille leading to Spain. The town was known as a centre of artistic activity in the early 20th century, with several fauve artists such as André Derain or Henri Matisse making it a regular meeting place. I just spent a few hours walking around and reading on a sunny terrace with a coffee - I had been a few times before and still enjoy it, particularly in low season.

Meanwhile, once I'd finished the NaNoWriMo writing challenge, I spent a lot of time pretty seriously thinking about what I should be doing next and where I should be living. I had a few job interviews for full time roles in Paris and London as well. One interview conversation in particular was extremely useful, challenging, and overall a great support in helping me think things over.

It took me a while (and conversations with friends and family) to realise and admit what was pretty much staring me in the face: I am in amazingly beautiful surroundings, close to my family which was one of the reasons I left Singapore, and close to busy international airports with Gerona and Barcelona next door to get anywhere in the world. I managed to make a living as a consultant while backpacking around Asia, I figure I should be able to do it from here too. I have a little bit of work going already, and will be traveling to London, Paris, Barcelona, Singapore, or wherever needed on a regular basis to meet clients - and keep working on my novel on the side. We'll see how it works out.

Participating in the National Novel Writing Month

The previous posts brought me to the end of October last year, when I arrived near Perpignan, at my sister's vineyard. I have blogged about getting ready for NaNoWriMo, and about leaving Singapore, though I hadn't specified that I've been able to do what I did since thanks to my sister and her partner who invited me to spend time at their place over the winter.

I had a few goals my family and friends have been supporting me in:

1. Writing a novel
2. My drivers license 
3. Ease my transition back to France after 10 years abroad (admin paperwork, etc)
4. Figure out what & where was next.

I'll focus on my experience with NaNoWriMo for this post, which has been a fascinating exercise. 

I've had ambitions to write a novel for a long time, and had set those aside for a long time too. I checked and the most I'd written towards one novel was about 6,000 words, and that was 15 years ago. I'd never written 50,000 words of the same story, which is the NaNoWriMo challenge goal.

I was writing on a regular basis since the month of July with the intention of choosing the main theme and story for the novel I'd be writing in November. I also spent time on writing advice blogs about storytelling, novel structure, characterisation, worldbuilding, etc.

Of course by the time November 1st 2014 arrived, with months of preparation time, set up at my sister's place in the countryside ready to write a novel, I still hadn't chosen what it would be about. As you can see from the graph I didn't add words for the first few days, instead scrambling to get a storyline together from one of the ideas I was toying with. 

The single most common piece of advice from professional writers is that to be a writer, you have to write. Silly yet true. I wasn't really satisfied that I'd chosen the right story to tell, but then I just focused everything on writing for word count. The graph above and the word count were paramount. 

I quickly prepared a storyline and followed it as best I could, other than that I didn't know what I was writing about until I sat down every day and wrote it. The most difficult part was to keep writing regardless of all the considerations going through my mind. 

I didn't know anything about the topic at hand; I'd keep writing. 

I was appalled at how bad my writing was; I'd keep writing.

That piece of dialogue was all wrong; I'd keep writing.

This or that part of the story didn't make sense; I'd keep writing.

You get the drift.

I didn't spend time on the NaNoWriMo support forums and only read the pep talk emails from published authors - which were very encouraging and arrived in my inbox at excellent times throughout the month to keep me on track. Towards the end of November, I admit I was fed up with writing stuff I wasn't satisfied with and not going back to read and improve at all, though I would still recommend participating if you want to write a novel.

I think the main thing I learned and I proved to myself out of the exercise is that I am capable of writing a novel, or at the very least the amount of words to make up a novel. I'm proud I completed the challenge successfully and have a first draft to a novel, more than I'd ever completed before. It is definitely a very ugly duckling of a first draft, but one nonetheless. 

On the downside, I took 6 months to reread what I wrote. At first I had a hard time being with how bad it was and got busy with other things. I only finished it this month. It is all wrong and pretty bad, but I'm happy there are some worthwhile ideas and passages, particularly in the second half of the book. I'm going to keep working on it now.

By the Atlantic Ocean in Lacanau

Surfers on the beach in Lacanau, October 2014.

I left things off in Paris in the last post, and as a reminder in October 2014 I was on my way to my sister's place in the South of France near Perpignan to spend time there, and particularly to participate in NaNoWriMo, writing a novel. Before getting there I had a last stop on the way to visit my oldest friend and his family. They live close to Bordeaux, it was the school holidays and so we rented a house on the Ocean side in Lacanau, pretty famous for surfing. On that front it didn't disappoint, the waves were huge. My mate JB said he'd never seen them so high and was delighted to go surfing.

The weather was still gorgeous as you can see from this picture, and I even went in to play in the waves. I didn't spend a lot of time, frankly I thought the water was ridiculously cold, but I admit it was invigorating. 

I am the godfather of their second son, and it was also their first son's birthday, so it was great to spend time with the children. It is another reason I moved back to Europe, to be closer to the friends' and family children who grow up so fast and that I'd like to see more often than I could when I lived in Singapore.

I've known JB since I was 6 years old and there aren't many people who know me as well as he does, it was great to catch up with him (as it always is) and take stock of my little European tour so far, musing about where I'd like to live next and hearing where he was at too. I was thinking I might be ready to move back to Paris, though wasn't too sure. He recommended holding my horses and going back for a second visit with work in mind rather than leisure and catching up with friends.

I had done quite a bit of considering where to work and live between London, Amsterdam, and Paris in the previous three weeks, but on the other hand not as much as planned about writing daily and preparing for NaNoWriMo and it was approaching fast - only a few days left to choose what my novel would be about. I had been writing about many random ideas since leaving Singapore, focusing on daily word count, as well as reading up advice for novel writers but still hadn't settled on a story or idea just yet. 

While the Atlantic Ocean was a great spot to sort of conclude on my European tour, as I got on the train to Perpignan I was conscious of running out of time for the novel writing challenge. I opened my laptop on the train that day and determined to figure out the story I'd be writing.

Un passage à Paris

Walking around Paris, here behind l'île de la Cité and Notre Dame Cathedral.

I am still updating my blog with my travels at the end of last year after moving from Singapore, next in line after Brussels and Lille I spent a week in Paris. After I arrived, I realised it had been years since I had spent a full week in Paris, at least 5 or 6 years, maybe longer. Since I'd moved to Asia I had passed through, but only for a night or two.

I really had the feeling of being back home, as much as with being in London, or possibly slightly more. I grew up not too far from Paris, in the far suburbs, and lived there for about 8 years afterwards. I started by catching up with old friends with whom I played table top and live action role-playing games back in the day, we had organised for me to prepare a session of one my favourite games, 7th Sea and I had spent time writing a scenario to get ready. We also had drinks at one of their hangouts, a medieval themed & tabletop gamer bar in central Paris, Les Caves Alliées. An excellent address for any RPG geek visiting Paris, right next to the Odeon & St Germain des Prés, it was good fun to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in a very long time.

And that's a lot of what I did during the week, similar to what I did in London and Amsterdam in the previous weeks: catching up with friends and walking around the city while thinking about whether I'd like to come back and live there. Of course, I also tried a few French craft beers and excellent wines from independent winemakers with a good friend who has a wine cellar shop.

A Parisian institution, Bouillon Chartier - highly recommended

 Other highlights that week included lunch with my good friend Elo at one of the oldest and most traditional eateries in the French capital: Bouillon Chartier. I hadn't been in a long while and it was as great as it used to be, not necessarily exceptional cuisine but all the traditional French bistrot fare at a affordable prices in a beautiful setting.

Actors' salute, Mnouchkine's production of Shakespeare's MacBeth at the Theatre du Soleil. 

I don't know much about stage theatre and so hadn't heard of Ariane Mnouchkine who is very famous in France and was debuting a new production of MacBeth. The friends I was staying with happened to have an extra ticket and I thoroughly enjoyed it; it was an amazing stage production, extremely well played, and really impressive overall.

The week flew by and by the time I left I felt pretty good about the idea of potentially moving back to Paris, though I also realised the weather had been exceptionally good, as a couple of friends pointed out and suggested I go back at another time and check it out again, more on in a following post.