Pictures From Paris And Amsterdam

13 August 2018

This July I went to Paris and Amsterdam for a bit of work and a bit of vacation. In Amsterdam, I presented at a workshop for security engineers and academics, and in Paris my manager and I met up with friendly Chrome people there who do work adjacent to ours.

I didn’t do anything but the workshop/conference in Amsterdam, unfortunately. I’ve loved Amsterdam in the past and should have scheduled more time there. It’s a chill town.

In Paris, I mostly walked around and ate food in neighborhoods I hadn’t visited in previous trips. Here are some pictures!

(You can get full-size versions of each picture by clicking on the picture.)

Outbound airplane food #1 — I was very fortunate, and got to fly business class. Entrée: raw salmon with herbs, some kind of pâté, bread, salad, wine.

Outbound airplane food #2 — Main plate: chicken, mashed potatoes, cheese.

Outbound airplane foor #3 — Dessert: confection squares, mint tea.

Outbound airplne food #4 — Breakfast: omelette, bacon, potatoes, coffee, yogurt, fruit.

Address
plate: “I’m Feeling Lucky” — The Google Paris office entrance.

An
overpacked brasserie — I arrived on the Sunday that France won the World Cup. Every brasserie, bistro, bar, and coffee shop was over-full of people eyeing the TV.

Belgian
waffle pop-up store — Down the street from my hotel. I swore I’d get one, but literally forgot!

View of
a bistro — While I was eating dinner a relatively less-animated pizza place, the post-World Cup celebration was heating up. And the weather was incredibly hot. Not pictured: people laying on the hood of a taxi while it drove backwards down this 1-way street; person dancing on top of a dumpster.

Hotel
breakfast — The hotel breakfast was the same every day, and very bad. The texture of the scrambled eggs was unholy, and the beans were always cold. Good bread though.

Pâtisserie — Down the street from my hotel, this fantastic pâtisserie. I got at least 1 thing here every day, until they closed for vacation.

The
Google campus courtyard — Many doors on Paris streets open into courtyards and building complexes like this. The Google office ‘campus’.

An
ourdoor pathway — The entrance to my hotel.

Philosophy and psychoanalysis books in a bookstore
window — Interesting-looking bookstore, but closed for vacation.

Evening
traffic in a traffic circle — A nice vibe in the evening.

A sign
on a door saying « Défense d’uriner » — At Gare du Nord, this sign (“No urinating”) has been ignored.

Inside
Gare du Nord — Inside Gare du Nord, waiting for my train to Amsterdam.

Outside
Amsterdam Centraal station — Arrived at Amsterdam Centraal station, going in circles trying to find the tram to my hotel. It was marginally less burningly hot in Amsterdam.

View of
a highway and a river — View from my hotel room in Amsterdam.

Bimhuis
and Muziekgebouw — View from outside my hotel.

Picture
of a traffic light Walk button — Instructions on how to push the Walk button in Amsterdam.

Classic-style « Métropolitain » sign at a Métro station
entrance — Back in Paris, riding on the Métroooooo.

More
Paris traffic — More Paris traffic.

2
lutherie shops at street level, below apartments — Every building in this neighborhood had at least 1 lutherie shop, piano store, or sheet music store.

Restaurant: O’Crêpe — ...they’re closed.

A
community library cubby — Nice to see they have community libraries in Paris, too!

Le
Moulin Rouge theater — Le Moulin Rouge.

A
breakfast of hot chocolate, orange juice, and a croissant — A proper breakfast snack.

A
graffiti sticker: « C’est le bon endroit et c’est le bon moment
» — “This is the right place, and the right time.” But they don’t say for what. 🤔

Brasserie lunch — Fantastic ham sandwich on perfect toast, with perfect fries.

Sign
alerting pâtisserie customers that they are closing for
vacation — When the pâtisserie closed for vacation, it was a sad day.

I just like this shape.

Street
sign: P, with a bicycle. Graffiti makes it say « Paix » — Peace through bicycles.

Coffee
shop named Braun Notes — A coffee shop. 🤨

Café
Jules: « Le hot dog à la français ! » — I did not try French hot dogs.

View of
the Seine — The river Seine.

Dense
buildings — On the bank of the Seine.

Placard: « 1643 : Demeure de Philippe de Champaigne, Peintre et valet de
chambre de la Reine Mère » — Placard on the front of one of the entrances.

Cappuccino and croissant — Fantastic coffee on the other side of the Seine.

Croque
monsieur — More pastry pictures.

Street
art of a protester wearing a helmet and other gear — Street art near the jazz venue that I literally could not find, presumably nestled in among roughly 9,246 tiny restaurants.

Hamburger and fries — Extremely well-crafted yet completely incorrect hamburger. Strangely tall and steak-like.

Storefront: « Les Productions du GOLEM » — I was not able to see the golem, or its productions. Alas.

Storefront: « Plus de Bruit » — “More Noise”, buying and selling records, CDs, and comic books.

Salted
caramel ice cream — Ice cream in Montmartre. A suggestion from one of our colleagues. This place also had great beer, which we chugged as appropriate in that heat.

Sunset — Sunset in Montmartre.

Restaurant « Blabla » — Blabla!

Restaurant: Banh Mi & You — I mean...

Electric motor scooter, chrome — This electric scooter was right outside a shop selling more in different colors.

Pasta
lunch with prosciutto — The sauce on this pasta (underneath the prosciutto) was perfect.

A large
caffè latte — This is what I got when I ordered a cappuccino. It was good though.

Chicken
in a pocket bread — Chicken, excellent fries, and soda.

Statue
of Athena — Athena doing a victory dance.

The
Eiffel Tower, from afar — The Eiffel Tower, on an unreasonably hot and humid day.

Inside
the Musée d’Orsay — Inside the Musée d’Orsay, a museum built inside a former train station.

An
impressionist painting by Paul Signac, « Femmes au puits
» — These paintings were lit to glow, but I think they would have even without the light treatment.

«
Pierrot Pornographe » — A program from the Black Cat Theater.

Cover
of a program — Another program cover.

A long
shot of the interior of the Musée d’Orsay — Sculptures in the Musée d’Orsay.

Restaurant: « L’Epée de blé » — Good bread is a big deal.

Sign on
a building: « Spectre » — Technically, the reason I was there.

Flower
buds from trees on the ground after rain — It finally rained, and the heat broke. The ground was covered in these buds.

Cheese
and charcuterie plates — Cheese and charcuterie, with a colleague who sits next to me in SF but who was (unknown to me) in Paris, and a friendly Parisian whom I know from security industry stuff. At a hipster beer place suggested by another security friend on Twitter. Everything was v tasty.

Street
sign: « Place Henri Bergson » — Henri Bergson.

Elegant
graffiti of a smoker, in an alcove where smokers hang
out — Fumeur.

Intersection — Walking to l’Arc de triomphe.

Croque
monsieur and fries — A slightly strange but tasty croque monsieur.

l’Arc
de triomphe — Long shot of the Arch.

Salad
with cheese and prosciutto — For some reason, I ate a lot of prosciutto on this trip. This was dinner on my last evening before coming home.