Sod it all, I'm moving to France!

I'm not literally sodding it all and moving to the land of criminally sexy accents and unusual cars. There was also a time when I considered joining the army, but I didn't do that either. Probably a good thing - can you imagine me in the army? Let's consider that for a minute...

Okay you can stop laughing now, and allow the story continue unabated if you please.

Where was I. The story begins at Nice airport as I'm coming out of Customs at 0030 looking for the sign with my name on it. The nice lady leads me outside to the clean-cut driver wearing a yellow turtleneck and vest. I instinctively walk to the wrong side of the HUGE silver VW van and am only half surprised to find the lack of a door. This was a bit of a mind-fuck the first couple of times, especially in the taxis, climbing into what should be the drivers side and having the car move without any input from me!

I'm staying in a hotel which is conveniently 5 minutes walk from where I'll be training this week. It's at a place called Sophia Antipole which is basically a largish technology park - sort of a "Silicon Valley" French style. The view from the Fortinet offices is fantastic, showing each of the various sites set into the bush connected by winding roads.

My routine for the week starting Monday is firstly the morning ablutions, then to say "bonjour!" to the hotel staff, eat breakfast (extremely-long-toast + ham + cheese, hard-boiled eggs, croissant+jam, apple juice), then walk up the hill to Fortinet. Here I insert a tiny cup then pop in a small cartridge, and take my first shot from the magical espresso making device. Espresso to die for from an auto-spastic machine - wonders never cease..

The coffee continues during the day, just because I can really, as I try my best to take in the information being directed from the front of the class by the friendly pom-turned-froglett named Michael. I'm learning about a particular flavour of firewall appliance. The content is fairly dry but interesting enough when my eyes aren't completely glazed over.

Virtual domains... high-availability clusters... route-based VPNs - dear oh dear! I forgo coffee at this point and turn to overly sweet chocolate.

My first jaunt one evening was with one of my fellow students out to Antibe. We took a taxi and discovered the hard way that they start the meter running the second you put the phone down. Well that's what expense claims are for! We wandered around the old town of Antibe which is rather pretty (but fairly dead at night), and selected a Chinese restaurant of all things. Dinner consisted of battered and fried frogs legs (yum!), salad and hearty discussion about what it's like to grow up as a Jehova's Witness.

I don't know which was scarier - learning how frogs legs are prepared (the legs are chopped off while they're still alive), or learning the in's and out's of JW society (the legs are chopped off while they're still alive). In a manner of speaking anyway.

The next jaunt the following night was to the city of Nice for dinner with a bunch of the lads. €75.00 after our departure we select a nice restaurant, where we share pizza and drink Hoegarden (amongst other flavours) under the awning. One of the guys from Norway tells me that in the north where he's from it can get down to -50°C, and that they have to dig tunnels in the snow to get to work, and they sleep inside freshly slain reindeer for warmth.

Actually I made that last part up (what wasn't stolen from ROTJ), but the -50°C was true - the sentence just needed fleshing out. Too tipsy to remember what he actually said. I switched off after the fly fishing. Lovely fella. Cool accent.

The course finished on Thursday and so does this chapter. On Friday I picked up the car (a nice surprise) and began the next leg of the journey, whereupon I revisited Antibe, discovered Cannes, had my brains dribble out of my ear-holes in Monte-Carlo, and got completely lost in San Remo. I'll fill you in on the details soon.

Pics are up (see right) - more on the way.

Au reviour
C.