(This post is pretty delayed.  Had hoped to post this shortly after I got back but life happened and here I am a month later.)

I just got back from a little more than a week in Paris. I went mostly for work but since I’ve never been to France and only to Europe three times before, I tried to mix in some personal time.

One of my former colleagues whom I admire often blogs to write down his own experiences. I think that’s a neat idea and I find myself taking random notes on my phone while traveling now.  This post is a result of those notes.

I’ve never been to New York City but I imagine it to be much like Paris. A city that seemingly doesn’t have a bed time. I never got a hang of the time shift from California and would often be awake at 2am. So was the street outside the office. And so were all the restaurants around the office. The energy at 2am was as electric as the energy at 4am.

Walking around the corner at 2am to grab a crepe did not seem out of the norm. Mostly, I got to see things I had only seen in Ratatouille.

Spent a lot of time in Mozilla’s Paris office upgrading some of the network equipment and trying to understand what it means to work remote from Mountain View.

The time shift off California was something else. I’m surprised anyone at Mozilla Paris (or Europe in general) is able to function with Mountain View. 9 hours made real time dialog really difficult and really emphasized the need to record various meetings for time-shifted viewing.

I took a train down to Nice and met Cedric, one of the localizers. Nice felt like Santa Barbara in a lot of ways but with warmer water.

And here’s where Buenos Aires left an indelible mark on me. After my trip to Buenos Aires, I picked up an interest in a number of groups, including Gotán Project. They were playing at Les Nuits du Sud in Vence, just outside of Nice.

This was one of my trip’s highlights, especially when they played Santa Maria. I emailed a friend right after the show and commented to her,

Gotán Project was better than I imagined live. Such a great show. I mean I’m in France standing in a town square listening to Spanish music sung by an amazing woman with half the crowd dancing Argentine Tango. Everything I like about classical Spanish guitar & electronic music.

The most interesting thing about this trip was the number of non-Paris based Mozilla folk that kept arriving in Paris.  The first week I was there David Ascher was in town.  The following week, the US-based Jetpack team was in town. 

Paris certainly ranks in the top handful of favorite cities but still has a bit of a way to go before it can oust San Francisco.