Veal

They say it's tough at the top but I'm not so sure. I had veal in raspberry sauce with ratatouille for lunch today.

My second day had a typically Parisian start. I had to leave before 8 as there was a strike on the RATP network and the SNCF so I had to cycle. It's an easy ride (although I almost forgot that the road crosses the Seine in 2 steps) and only takes about 25 minutes.

There was a meeting this morning which must have taken almost 3 hours. Luckily I didn't need to take minutes in the end as it was quite heavy. It was mostly in English, apart from the more heated parts, but I found I could understand most of the French (apart from the jokes). It's just a case of trying to understand the subjects now! There are lots of IT projects about which I know nothing about and when they're being talked about in acronyms it becomes even more difficult!

At lunch I sat with some others my own age (ish). There was no room at the table with the others from the office to the other stagiare and I went and sat with some friends of hers. We went to the coffee bar afterwards and luckily I didn't win the "game" (I mentioned it in the last post).

In the afternoon not much really happened. I re-organised an agenda and we sent it out to people but mainly I discussed projects and things I didn't quite understand with the guy training me. I'm not sure what I'll be doing tomorrow afternoon as he's going to a meeting. I hope there's some work because I don't like just sitting around. It's also annoying that there aren 't set working hours. I have to do 35 hours a week but no-one counts them and I don't need to write down when I will be/have been in. I keep forgetting how long lunch has taken so I never know when I should leave. I'm going to start keeping track. They seem to be quite keen on coffee breaks too, I'm still getting used to the strength of the espressos.

I found out today that I need a social security number before I can be paid. I had assumed that the company would sort that out but apparently not.