ED Supermarkets -- Part of the Carrefour Supermarket Group?!

Today I went to Ed Supermarket, located just a stone's throw from the Part Dieu shopping center. I'd seen this supermarket each time I'd walk from the bus stop to the Part Dieu shopping center, where the Carrefour supermarket is located, and also noticed many people carrying bags bearing the Ed logo you see in the picture here.

I was amazed to find that this is actually a part of the Carrefour group and based on principles similar to the Lidl supermarket I wrote about in previous entries. Direct distribution and with a limited product range they target a completely different strata of consumer from the one that shops at Carrefour, someone who is more likely to be willing to pay more for slightly better produce or perishable items, and someone who needs the variety that a large-scale hypermarche supermarket offers.

The prices were not nearly as good as Lidl, but the cheeses and the wines were very close in price. Champagne for 10,99 EUR, a variety of table wines for maybe 1,39 a bottle, cheeses relatively cheaper than what you might find in Monoprix or Carrefour itself. I just ended up buying a bottle of wine, some cheese and crackers to take to a friend's house tonight, but it ended up that he didn't eat cheese, so I got to take both the cheese and crackers home.

LINK:
http://www.ed-fr.com/index.asp

TCL - Lyon's Finest, Keeping the Buses Void of Freeloaders

The TCL personnel who check the validity of people's bus tickets and coupons jumped on my bus not once, but twice today. In the morning, on my way to school, two guys sat down in a crowded bus without validating or purchasing a ticket, and found themselves hemmed in by other passengers and with no way to escape the ticket-checkers. Caught red-handed, the TCL staff asked them to hand over their identity cards and made them sign a citation which they will have to pay at the TCL office within two week's time (I think.) Forty Euros! That hurts, when the price of a normal ticket is only 1,20 EUR each in a book of ten.

I don't know why the staff was out today, but perhaps it's the end of the month and they have a certain quota to fill. On my way out to run some errands, there they appeared, suddenly, swooping in and leaving without so much as a word.

I wonder if they hire police cadets or former policeman to help them do this work. It's thankless, and I assume they have their fair share of physical resistance.

UNSTOPPABLE OL / CHAMPIONS LEAGUE 3-0 VICTORY

Just a few days after their victory over Lille, OL clobbered Bucharest 3-0 in an away game and gave OL a very good chance of making it out of the first round. Already they have two victories and four matches left.

I was at school until 9 P.M. tonight because of a general meeting for all students, but on the way back, down in Vieux Lyon (the old quarter) people were watching the game on large screens and it was impossible to find a parking space ... on a Tuesday night!

SCHOOL LUNCH / 4,80 EUR

About five minutes walk from my campus is a state-run university with a government-subsidized cafeteria serving well-balanced lunches to students for 2,90 EUR (in a book of 10) and 4,80 EUR in cash. Compared to the snack bar that I usually eat a sandwich in, this was a nice change, although it was somewhat like the school cafeterias I used to eat in as a kid.

For this price you get a hot entree (fried squid rings or pork in gravy), a side of vegetables (carrots and rice), one salad (tomato, imitation crab and avocado salad), and one dessert (applesauce). Even at 4,80 EUR it's not cheap but it's balanced and kept me full until dinner time. A bunch of my colleagues plan to make regular trips down here to eat. It's cheap and well-balanced, and since we'll be working late in the evenings doing group work ... it'll be nice to have a full lunch to keep us going.

PS / Saturday Demonstration (Manifestation) in the Place des Terreaux

Right before the game on Saturday, in the Place des Terreaux, near the Hotel de Ville (not far from where I live), a group was holding a mass rally and the town had rerouted transportation to accomodate this rally. Masses of displaced people were out and walking on Rue de Republique yesterday and it was hard to find a spare bicycle to pedal from one end of the city center to the other.

Here's a photograph of it. Is this Lebanon or Palestine? I think it might've been the Lebanese flag given the recent events over the summer.


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FOLLOW-UP:

My instincts were right on the money: actually, the flags of both countries were flying that day.

Check out the Palestinian and Lebanese flags at these links (Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Palestinian_territories

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_flag

Sunday Market -- Towards Closing Time (They Want to Go Home)

Today (Sunday), I got a late start getting out to the market on the banks of the Saone. I woke up late after studing statistics late last night (doing practice problems on Excel) and did some laundry in the morning.

By the time I got down to the marketplace it was almost 12:30 and with drizzling rain many of the merchants were already starting to pack up. The others who remained resorted to fire sales of champignon mushrooms and plates of vegetables that they would rather not carry back with them.

I found one plate of four cloves of garlic for 1 EUR (which is much cheaper than usual) and bought some spinach (500g for 0,80 EUR) and two apples and pears for 0,46 EUR total.

If you don't mind getting slightly less beautiful fruits and vegetables there certainly are some bargains to be found. But you have to always make sure which area the produce comes from: stuff from France costs one or two times as much as the same produce from Spain or South America. Like thge Japanese, the French seem to have very high grading standards and the stuff that makes it into the supermarkets or which commands high prices here in the markets is absolutely beautiful. But if you're going to put it into a pot-au-feu or into a compote or pastry, you don't necessarily need the best and most beautiful.

Some of you may be able to appreciate this photo ...

It appears to be some kind of investment firm, but I'm not exactly sure ...

Apples 1EUR a kilogram = but 4 for 0,12EUR?

A funny thing happened to me at the supermarket yesterday. Apples were selling for 1 EUR a kilogram (= 2.2 lbs), and I put four of them into a bag and went to have them ticketed by the agent sitting at the counter, who weighs them, presses a button, and sticks the ticket on the bag.

I had four apples in there and the total came out to 0,12 EUR?
Those were the cheapest apples I've ever bought.

OL (Olympique Lyonnais) Strikes Again!! - Lyon 4, Lille 1

Saturday night featured a rivalry between Olympique Lyonnais and division rivals Lille, who finished high in the standings last year and have joined OL in the Champions League playoffs between the top European football (soccer) teams. Adding to that was the fact that OL had lost maybe three of the four last matches to Lille ...

In the first half, OL, fielding a different lineup from the one I had seen in the last few matches, seemed a little jittery and was unable to find its rhythm. The only highlight of the first half was seeing the play of Kallstrom, the huge and powerful Swedish midfielder, who put himself between the ball and the quick and larger Lille players.

But in the second half, a completely different OL team arrived on the pitch and scored three goals in about twenty minutes. As I was sitting on the North end (the home side) I was able to see all three goals and with each goal the fans on my end roared with delight.

So far I've been lucky that OL has won all its matches. Of course my year here will have been satisfying academically, but I will also have to look back fondly on my time sitting in the bleachers as one among the diehard OL fans.

FRIDAY / Processing the Carte de Séjour at the Préfecture

With translation in hand and a load of other documents, I and my other classmates made our way over to the Rhone Prefecture Office of Immigration, Foreign Students Division, which is technically, not in the Prefecture building itself but rather in a grungy, run-down building right across the street.

Luckily I and my colleagues arrived about half an hour before the office opened. By the time 9 o'clock (opening time) came around, the line was well over fifty people long. In my line were people with appointments made through the Internet; in the line next to us were people without reservations hoping to get their paperwork done that day. (If they were not able to do so, they would have to come back another day.)

Once inside the building, one of my classmates dashed to be the first to process her paperwork. No being polite here, the more aggressive you are, the father in line you are and the earlier you can get yourself processed and out of the building!

I was processed about third among all the students and dutifully pulled out my documents one by one from my file. Birth certificate, proof of address, bank statement, birth certificate with translation, copy of school certificate, revenue stamp, photograph, copy of passport and visa. It had been just as nervewracking at the San Francisco consulate when I got my visa done, but luckily everything went smoothly and I got my temporary carte de séjour (residence permit) issued that day. Apparently, though, it will be another two months before my official residence card is issued and until then I may have to carry the temporary one around with me whenever I go out. It's an unwieldy piece of paper and I'm kind of at a lost how to keep it from getting crumpled. It's not like I can put it in my wallet or anything.

The bureaucrats here (oddly enough, all women) were surly as usual and (even though I'm sure they speak English) spoke only in French. For me it was not so bad, but some of my classmates don't speak much French and so I can only imagine what it was like for them, especially if they were berated for not bringing the right document ...

One guy in my class showed up at the Prefecture, only to realize he hadn't brought his papers with him! So he went back to the school dormitory to retrieve them ... fortunately, he got his paperwork done in time before dinner that night.

Thursday: Picking up the Birth Certificate Downtown

As a footnote, I had asked for a translation of my birth certificate downtown and had to rush from the campus to pick it up before they closed at 5:30. Class ended at 4:30, so I ran to catch the first bus, transferred to the metro and within the metro, jumped on a bus going eastbound and arrived (luckily) at 5:20 p.m.

Everything went smoothly, but there's always a lot of things to foul you up when you're on the move. Just yesterday (Friday afternoon), my classmate was planning to take a bus back to the school from the Gare Perrache bus station and arrive shortly before a scheduled meeting at 1:00, when a TCL (local transport company) official came to announce that a serious accident in the Fourvière tunnel forced the TCL to cancel service of that line from Perrache. My classmate scrambled to find an alternative route but was able to figure out a work-around using the metro and another bus that passes by the school.

Always helps to be prepared and carry copies of the bus schedules on you!

Macroeconomics: Another two days of intense study

Coming right on the heels of our three-day seminar and statistics, we had an introduction to macroeconomics spread over the course of two days. That may not sound like a lot of time, six hours each day for two days, and as I mentioned with statistics perhaps the aim was not to turn us into experts on the subject but to generally make us aware of the terminology that people use when dealing with these subjects.

Whereas with statistics the terms were "normal distribution" and probability and all manner of variables p, z, and sigma, now we came away with a basic understanding of "aggregate demand and supply" and "fiscal and monetary policy." As with statistics, the moment that the course ends you put all the stuff out of your mind and that means you forget a lot of what you learned in the class, but I'm sure that it hasn't all been lost and that a little bit of it will come back once I start reviewing it with my classmates before the exam in November.

There is a very brief introduction to some of the principles used in discussions of macroeconomics in Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroeconomics

REVIEWING STATISTICS FOR THE BIG EXAM 7 OCTOBER

Considering this material was only studied two weeks ago, it's surprising how much the human mind can forget in just two weeks.

Of course we had one semester of statistics crammed into thirty hours over five days, it was somewhat impossible to cover everything thoroughly under such circumstances.

So I'm chugging away and poring over my notes to recall just how exactly I did the computations during the class. Fortunately this second time through, I'm not struggling with Excel, although as I might've written earlier, I'm using the French version of Excel. So AVERAGE becomes MOYENNE and standard deviation becomes ECARTYPE. Keeping them straight in your head is a struggle, so I'm leaving virtual post-it Notes on my Excel spreadsheets to help me with the formulas and the thought process (the logic behind the computations).

NOT REALLY SOMETHING UNIQUE TO LYON, BUT ... (FOOD + PCs DON'T MIX!)

As they always tell you, keep liquids away from your computer.

A colleague of mine spilled a can of Perrier on the table where she was working and some of it (probably a very small quantity) seeped into the bottom of her laptop.

The computer started to act a little funny and started beeping loudly and I counselled her to take out the battery quickly before anything short-circuited.

She took the computer over to the Computer center where the experts there looked at the computer to see if there was any hope that it might still work.

From their diagnosis, it seems that not a lot of water got inside the machine, and they counselled her to do what people tell you to do with cell phones (mobiles) if you get them wet: take out the battery, leave them to dry somewhere before pushing the power back on.

Just another reason to a) back up all your files from time to time (no matter how much work you might say it is), and to b) never bring foods or liquids within even 50 cm of the computer!

I know that during my MBA courses we'll be working long hours inside the MBA boxes on group projects, but this experience has taught me that I'll have to be the bad guy in the group and ask people to keep food and drink away from the work table when we're around there.

USING OLD FRENCH STAMPS TO MAIL LETTERS

During my many visits to France over the years, I managed to pick up a few extra stamps denominated in French Francs. With the changeover to the Euro, I wasn't sure whether or not these stamps could be used, but I've used them without problem several times over the past few months.

I paste them onto the envelope and then the post office clerk calculates their value in Euros. After that, I simply pay in Euros the remainder of the amount due, usually several tens of centimes.

It's a good thing, because I have quite a few stamps which I would be more than happy to be rid of.

Velo'v: Finally, a test-drive, during yet another grève (strike)

Several months ago, in an earlier blog, I wrote about the Velo'v system in Lyon, which is a rent-a-cycle system that has stations all throughout central Lyon. Most likely it was conceived to allow people to move within the city and allow them to go to places which buses and the metro do not cover. In the center of the city, it is said that every 200 meters one can find a dispenser with bicycles lined up nearby. What is amazing is that everything is controlled by a central computer, which determines which bikes have been borrowed and which have been returned.

You swipe a card (see photo, the blue card) in front of a reader, which reads its magnetic coil inside (similar to the anti-theft coils that you find inside of CDs in record stores). After inputting a PIN code you make a choice of bicycles among the ones offered, and within one minute, disengage the bicycle from its berth alongside the dispenser. I've learned to check which bikes are in good condition before borrowing them, as I've already gotten stuck with two bikes with flat tires. (These bikes, I returned after waiting two minutes for the central computer to register them as "borrowed.")

The card itself costs 1 EUR for one week, but each time you borrow a bike you have 1/2 of an hour free. So if you borrow a bike and then return it at a station, say, one km away, you probably do not have to pay a rental charge.

The system is not perfect: sometimes bikes do not register as having been returned or sometimes the bikes that are listed as rentable, turn out to have flat tires or broken bike chains. One bike I used has handles which were misaligned, or missing handle covers. And there is a problem of bottlenecks at larger stations, where people sometimes want to return bicycles but find there are no more berths to return them to.

Today, especially, making use of these bikes made good sense: with transport strikes reducing the number of buses running, waits for buses on even some of the more popular lines ran into the tens of minutes. By renting a bike and peddling it from one station to the next (a sort of leapfrogging) I was able to bypass the wait and get myself home much more quickly than I would have had I waited for the bus.

TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENTS -- InterService Migrants

On Friday I had to find a place to ge t my birth certificate translated into French and found through the Internet an office called Inter Service Migrants.

Apparently this organization is a non-profit advocacy for immigrants, documented or not, and they offer translation and interpretation services in almost thirty languages.

My request was probably very easy for them, and they promised me that they could have my translation done by next Thursday (just in time for my appointment on Friday at the Prefecture, the main administration building of the district).

The cost was 16 Euros but what was interesting was that they asked to see a piece of identification, i.e., that I was in fact the person who was listed on the birth certificate. I suppose they do have occasions where people try to forge documents and they want to cover themselves ... and in fact, the receipt on the order says that the translation can only be picked up by the person listed on the sheet, again upon presentation of a piece of ID.

They are not officially licensed to do translations for the courts, but when I told them it was for the carte de séjour (resident card) they told me that it was all right to get it done there.

The only problem is, I have to rush over to pick it up after class on Thursday. So I get out of class at 4:30, catch the 4:31 bus out, take the metro from one station to another, catch a bus going eastbound and hope to make it there before 5:30, when they close! (Yes, I know that I should've asked them to translate this document while I was here this summer! But I just found out about them just a few days ago ...!)

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Inter Service Migrants
32 cours Lafayette - 69003 LyonTel. 04.72.84.78.99 - Fax : 04 72 62 24 00
E-mail : it@ismcorum.org

Access: Get to Cordeliers metro stop using the Metro A line. Take the #1 bus going eastbound departing from in front of the Le Credit Lyonnais bank and get off at stop Saxe-Lafayette. The office is about 30 feet from the bus stop, in the direction that the bus is traveling

LIDL SUPERMARKET / EPISODE 2

My second trip to the Lidl discount supermarket had me buying three kinds of cheese: mimolette (an orange cheese which is somewhat like cheddar), Grana Pandano (somewhat like Parmesan), and Cantal Entre Deux, which I had never had before but which I will be adding to the list of cheese I will buy again. It's soft and has a mild taste like Muenster but probably goes well melted in an omelette ...

Also, butter (0,85 EUR for 250g), mouthwash (1,65 EUR for 500 ml), wine in a box (one each of red and rose wine, 1,15 EUR for 1L), canned Ratatouille nicoise (0,79EUR), Cashew Nuts (0,99 EUR for 150g or about 1/3 pound).

=================
LINK:
A write-up of Cantal Entre Deux cheese can be read here:
http://www.france-gourmet.fr/Cheese/CantalEntreDeux.html

RAMADAN AT CARREFOUR SUPERMARKET

I went to Carrefour to pick up some bread (now that I have a toaster, I'm able to buy bread and make toast in the morning instead of eating $1 a piece croissants) this afternoon and I was surprised to find at the entrance to the store ... displays proclaiming "Ramadan," the traditional fast-and-feast period practiced by Muslims at the end of September.

Interested customers perused by the racks of dishes (white dishes with gold trim), the sacks of couscous and bulgur wheat, the racks of lentils and split peas and chick peas, the soups and dried fruits and nuts that are a part of the evening meals ... I thought how hard it must be during the day time while they are fasting but for the meals it must truly be a time of celebration.

I bought three things:
1) Le Phare du Cap Bon Harissa sauce (made with chili peppers and garlic)
2) Instant Moroccan Harira soup mix
3) Instant Moroccan Chorba soup mix

I figure that since I never have a chance to see or buy these products I should try to eat them at least once.

Harissa sauce I have been looking for for some time so I was happy to find it. It comes in a tube just like wasabi. (As you might recall Harissa sauce is an integral part of the Doner Kebab sandwiches made in the quarters here).

========

LINKS

Wikipedia has an explanation of Ramadan here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramadan

Here is a photo of the Harissa sauce
http://www.zprod.org/stock/stockPix/e8harissa.jpeg

And a must-see, must-read explanation of Harira soup (with photo) here (Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harira

BEAUJOLAIS REPORT AND PRESENTATION

On Thursday, each of the groups presented their recommendations to the professors in the form of a business presentation, using Power Point. Some of the groups took an extremely analytical approach, using "Porter analysis" (what that is I'm not exactly sure), but after these presentations the professor revealed that "for presentations to managers such an approach might work, but with entrepreneurs you have to present things differently."

In the afternoon we had to make a one-minute pitch to the head of Inter-Beaujolais, a union of merchant and growers in the Beaujolais area. We had one minute to sell him an idea of something that he hasn't thought about. That after all, is what the venture capitalists will say when they take you on: tell me something I don't know or haven't already tried.

I took on the responsibility of the presentation. Since two other French colleagues (one an experienced salesman whose presentation skills I learned a lot from, one a human resources manager) had made the longer presentation in the morning, I told them that I would gladly make the shorter sales pitch in the afternoon. After all, this was an exercise and I thought that it would be an excellent experience for me: why not practice now before having to do a real presentation someday?

And so I did it: wrote up a Power Point presentation, practiced a couple times, and then did it in front of the crowd (and more importantly, the head of Inter-Beaujolais.) Oddly enough, it felt a lot like when I was teaching, with me standing in a classroom full of people -- only in this case, a group of adults, some a little more hostile than others.

I hope to make more presentations in the future: that's the only way I'm going to get used to presenting in front of a group of people.

-------

LINK:

I just dug up the Porter 5 forces analysis on Wikipedia. Enjoy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter_5_forces_analysis

LYON 2, REAL MADRID 0

Sorry that I haven't been writing over the past few days. Wednesday night was the last night of our group work (before Thursday's presentation) and the past two nights I've been out in the evenings with classmates.

Wednesday night, after finishing my group's report on Beaujolais, I slipped out of Ecully, where our school is located, and rushed over to Stade Gerland to see Lyon take on Madrid in the Champions League. I caught the bus home, dropped off my computer and bags (you can't take anything into the stadium, for security reasons), and jumped back on the metro and was in the stadium in just over an hour, and just in time for kickoff.

One year ago, even with Zidane on their side, Real Madrid lost 3-0. This time, they lost again, 2-0, to a Lyon team that played with confidence and cool, a group of players who did not let themselves be intimidated by a lineup of famous names, including Beckham and Cannavaro and Raul.

Even moreso than on last Saturday, the fans were tremendous. I sat again in the area where my season ticket for the regular season is located, in the upper stands in the North end of the stadium, again hardcore fans. Down below were the Badgone supporters with loudspeakers screaming chants and singing, up where I was sitting the supporters cursed every bad call by the referee and whistled at Beckham each time he made a mistake. Whistling, siffler, from what I understand, is not to cheer for your team as we do in the U.S., but rather a way to insult the opposition.

I hated leaving my colleagues to put together the rest of the presentation, but they were nice enough to tell me, "You have the ticket, so go, enjoy the game." And it was one of the best games I have ever seen.

There is one thing that supporters do that may sound a little bizarre, but, well, it's just something they do. To cheer on their team, they stand up and start jumping in the stands, screaming, "qui ne sautent pas n'est pas Lyonnais" (whoever isn't jumping with us isn't a Lyonnais fan). As a result the ground beneath the upper stands starts shaking (though not in a dangerous way). I don't know if U.S. football fans ever get so rowdy!

Day 2: Less time for Group Work, but Fascinating Study of Wine Industry

Right now as I write this, it's 3:57 AM local time, but don't worry. I've slept quite a bit before this. Last night I had pasta and string beans for dinner (don't worry, I'm eating my three square meals! Toast for breakfast, a tuna sandwich from the school cafeteria, and then this meal!) but was so tired I plopped on the bed from about 9 o'clock. I set my alarm to wake up about 2 or 3 AM and so here I am. I took a shower and now am up to do a little work before taking a nap one more time before breakfast.

Anyhow ... yesterday, our group divided our group into smaller teams to research various aspects of the problem: market share, consumption data, alternative uses of grapes (my category), product development.

We didn't have much time to actually look at the problem and put together any conclusions, but during the day we had a lecture on the nature of entrepreneurship (not really related to the case study) and a fascinating brief on the nature of the wine industry. I was really happy when they brought up two wines I knew about, Krug (champagne) and Mouton Rotschild (Bordeaux wine known for its colorful painted labels).

There was also an enlightening (though not completely free of bias) documentary called "Mondovino" (world of wine) that looked at the conflict behind traditional winemakers and the growing industry of wine marketers and wine consultants who, more and more, are defining consumer tastes through their ranking systems and desire to put together not timeless wines but "wines which will earn higher rankings." One example was given of a Tuscany wine which, before being taken over by the Mondavis of California, had used to sell at 35 EUR. After a polishing up of the wine and some favorable review (#1 in the world?) the wine shot up in price to the astronomical 110 EUR ($140) -- granted, still less than the top crus of Bordeaux but an unprecedented increase in price.

Of course, this thing has happened in Japan, too, where shochu (sweet potato) liquors that had been drunk by locals for 3000 yen a bottle for so many years suddenly shot up (on the black market) to 30,000 yen a bottle. I've drunk that 30,000 a yen bottle (was able to buy it for 3000 yen through a monthly lottery), and can say assuredly that it is certainly NOT worth that much.

One day left to put together a report, a Power Point presentation and a one-minute sales pitch. I don't know how it's all going to fit together, but I suppose this will teach not self-reliance, but instead how to depend on the work of the others in your team. For those of us (including me) who are used to doing things on our own, it's a big leap of faith.

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LINK
Description of film (Wikipedia):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondovino

Review by Roger Ebert

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050512/REVIEWS/50504004/1023


Link to film home page (not verified, click at your own risk)
http://www.mondovinofilm.com/

BACK TO SCHOOL: Project Teams Tackling a Beaujolais Case Study

Monday. Back to school and an extremely long day, starting with a school-sponsored coffee and croissants breakfast at 8:15.

Today we had our official start of classes, and we went right ahead and started with a lecture from 8:30 to 10:00, followed by an excellent presentation about the Beaujolais region, just north of Lyon.

Beaujolais has maintained its well-known status with its yearly sales of Beaujolais Nouveau, but even it has not been spared the downturn in wine consumption over the last few years. Despite excellent brand-name recognition and an extensive marketing and distribution network not only domestically but also internationally, Beaujolais producers remain concerned about overproduction of wine on a global scale and decreasing consumption of wine and what such trends portend for the near future.

We were asked to do two types of analysis: SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) and PEST (Political / Economic / Socio-Cultural / Technological). Again, these were not done to provide any sorts of concrete answers or solutions to the problems (at this stage, at least!) but rather to show us how useful these approaches might be to ordering the large amount of information that we were presented with and which we had in front of us.

Most of the time there is no problem getting information, either from the Internet or from other sources. But ordering it in a way that is useful for decision-making and putting it in a form which can be more easily understood is a necessary part of the analytical process, or at least that's the sense I got from the exercise we did together.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we look more at the business of wine and even have a petite degustation at the end of classes, with wine tastings of certain Beaujolais varietals and even of the grapes themselves. On Wednesday, a Power Point presentation and a 5-page report are required ... that's going to be one hard deadline to keep ....!

MARKETING ON SUNDAY: The Outdoor Market at Colin, near La Doua

This past Sunday, I took a couple of students out to the Marché au Puces, just over the river from Presque-Ile, the strip of land bordered on both sides by the Saone and the Rhone.

Along the way, we noticed an outdoor market and stopped to do a little shopping. The other two, who live in the dormitories, opted for a large rotisserie chicken (poulet roti), while I hunted around for bargain-basement priced vegetables.

And there they were: 1,50 EUR for a 2 kilograms of onions, 2 EUR for a beautiful plate of green string beans (again), 1,50 EUR for 2 kgs of potatoes, and 1 EUR for a plate of white asparagus cuttings (perhaps 1kg, origin Peru (?)). This should last me for the week, although I wonder with the busy schedule I have with classes (see another entry) just how much cooking I'll be able to do.

____

ACCESS:
Take the A Metro Line to Cordeliers Mettro Station. Walk in the direction of the church and the Saturn electronics store. Just beyond the Saturn electronics store is a bus stop with Bus #27. Board there and ride it and get off at the stop called "Colin."

OLYMPIQUE LYONNAIS - Lyon 2, Troyes 0 / My first match of the Season

I went to my first OL match of the season, where OL eked out a 2-0 victory over the much weaker Troyes, who fought valiantly down 1-0 for most of the match. As you might know, being down only 1-0 means a lot since one equalizer will earn the underdog one point in the league competition with a tie. (Teams get 3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, and 0 points for a loss. So there is a big difference when a team is leading 2-0 and when it is barely holding on to a 1-0 lead, like tonight.)

Tonight's goals were scored by Cris and Juninho, non-French members of the team but nevertheless integral parts of the offense and defense (Cris being the center fullback).

But wow! Compared to the English in Manchester, these guys are rowdy! Maybe it was from sitting in the North Virage Superieur (translation: upper end-zone, home side), but all around me the French fans were cursing the mistakes of the players and the misjudgments by the referees. Down below in the Virage Inferieur (lower end-zone, hardcore home fans), fans were chanting insults at the Troyes team, whistling and booing their every play while cheering on the local Lyon team with loud cheers (We are Ly-o-nnais!!!!)

Incidentally it's a great stadium, a soccer-only stadium with generous views of the pitch below even in the upper end-zone where I was sitting.

In the middle of the game, some fans in the end zones shot fireworks in the direction of the field. Fortunately they didn't hit anyone, but how surprised I was: up until now, I'd only seen footage of Italian fans pulling this sort of mischief! Now, if somebody tried this sort of thing at a U.S. baseball game or football game ...!

OUTDOOR FILM FESTIVAL - Lyon, Place des Terreaux

Tonight and tomorrow night (Sunday) the city of Lyon is having free publish viewings of movies (which ones I'm not sure). There was seating for maybe 1,500 people in the Place des Terreaux just a short walk from the Hotel de Ville.

What made this screening unusual is that the screen was not one of those meticulously constructed plasma screens that I saw in the public viewing areas of the World Cup. Rather, it was (literally) an inflatable screen, similar to those inflatable romper rooms for kids that you find at amusement parks. Yes, one giant inflatable stand with a giant screen on it, onto which the film was projected. A novel idea, since it can be taken down (no disassembly required!) in case of inclement weather.

I may try to drop in on the public viewing tomorrow night. Tonight I had a soccer game to watch ...

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LINK

Here's a privately-put together site that has some excellent photos of the area near where I live. I live about a leisurely ten-minute walk from Place Louis Pradel, where the Opera (see photos) is located and which features live jazz in the evenings during the summertime.

http://www.lyon-photos.com/diaporama/index_terreaux_7.htm

Notice the statue of the women and the horses by Bartholdi. Most Americans know of Bartholdi for his work on the ... Statue of Libery in New York!

Profile of Bartholdi (Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frédéric_Bartholdi

INTERNET RADIO

While I was back in the U.S. I tried listening to the audio broadcasts over the Internet for National Public Radio.

Here, on the recommendation of my Colombian friend, I've found a terrific classical station from Colombia. Very little talking and mostly just good music.

You need to open up Windows Media Player (you can find it by going Start -> All Programs -> Windows Media Player). Once WMP is up and running you then go to File, select Open URL and then paste this link into the box, then click OK.

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LINK FOR THE RADIO STATION (to paste)

http://nick8.surfernetwork.com/media/hjck.asx

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Windows Media Player will search for the connection and then within a minute, you'll have a fantastic classical music station .... broadcasting from Colombia!

Another meal out: Flammekuche at Flam's

Friday was another meal out for me, but this time I managed to keep to a budget of 10 EUR. My friend and I split a flammekueche (or tarte flambée, in French), a thin-crusted pizza with fresh cream, onions, bacon, sliced cheese or a wide range of toppings. It's rich because of the cream, but it doesn't fill you up with extra bread, like pan pizzas in the U.S. might.

With 1/2 a thin-crusted pizza, a large salad (greek feta cheese and tomatoes), and a 250cc beer, the bill came out to 9,90 EUR, which for France is not expensive at all. Of course the obligatory carafe d'eau (as opposed to the pricey mineral stuff) helped keep down the bill.

The restaurant Flam's is a good place to go if you're in a large group, as it's easy for people to have one small appetizer for themselves and share a large pizza with the others.

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LINK

http://www.flams.fr/

Locations in Paris, Lyon, and Strasbourg, Lille and Grenoble.
There are photos of the flammekueche pizza on this home page.

The pleasure of a cold shower on a hot day in Lyon.

Well, not actually a cold shower, but on a day like this, hot and sticky outside, there's nothing like coming back after a dinner out on the town and taking a cool (not cold shower) shower right before bedtime.

Your skin feels so clean and crisp and you just want to dive right into the bed while you're feeling so good.

Like I told you I also use the fragrant olive and citrus soap put out by Carrefour, it leaves my skin feeling really smooth. It's a small luxury at 0,50 EUR a cake but when one scrimps on everything else, some small indulgence like this should be allowed, shouldn't it?

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Link to weather in Lyon:
http://fr.weather.yahoo.com/FRXX/FRXX0055/index_c.html

No rain today, just a hot sunny day.

MUSSELS IN LYON: Rue Mercière - Bleu de Toi

Today I got together with a bunch of old classmates from Alliance Francaise, the French language school where I studied over the summer.

In our group was a Colombian, a Czech, a Chinese who had studied a few years in Singapore, a Japanese, and me.

We went for a cocktail (well, not really a cocktail as in the type you have at a bar), a pre-meal drink at a tartine restaurant just off of Rue Merciere: I had a glass of mildly alcoholic apple cidre, the others each had different drinks: beer, sangria, kir, cafe au lait.

We ended up at a restaurant which specializes in moules, or mussels, steamed in four or five different ways. Like at Plouf in San Francisco, they steam mussels by the potful, and each of us had one potful of shellfish. Two people went for Provencale style (cream and tomato), one took the house special (I forget the recipe), and I went for the ever-traditional, white wine and onion marinière.

A potful of mussels runs 12,90 EUR (about $16 US) but if you factor in tip and tax, it comes out about equal. All told, with dessert and a pitcher of wine, we spent 20 EUR a person, perhaps moderate when it comes to dining out here in Lyon.

When we came in at

Access:

Get off at Cordeliers metro stop (A line) walk away from the bridge (you can see the bridge to your right). After about four or five minutes walk you should find the Tati department store (brightly colored pink logo). Right across the street from it is the beginning of Rue Mercière, a veritable treasure trove of restaurants, traditionally Lyonnais and not.



REVIEW:

http://www.ciao.fr/Bleu_de_Toi_Lyon__14617

http://www.fra.cityvox.fr/restaurants_lyon/bleu-de-toi_22261/Profil-Lieu

EURO 2008 QUALIFIER: FRANCE 3, ITALY 1 (Allez les Bleus!)

In what some touted as a rematch of the World Cup final, which France lost on a penalty shootout, France dominated Italy in the second half en route to a 3-1 victory.

During the first half of the game, France struggled to find its rhythm and it looked as if the Italian team might pull out with at least a tie.

But the second half brought back memories of the Bleus run up to the World Cup final. Passes went smoothly and some fine saves by the new goalkeeper (Gregory Coupet of Olympique Lyonnais, replacing Fabien Barthez, who retired from international duty) contributed to France's win over the Italians at Stade de France in Paris.

I watched the game with a bunch of colleagues at an overcrowded Irish pub not too far from where I live. French fans crowded the bar and there was literally no place to sit down. But with each goal, cheers of "Allez les bleus" echoed throughout the pub.

Even without Zidane the French team showed impressive command of the game in the second half and, in my opnion, strongly deserved to win. This guarantees that France will gain a few points in the FIFA rankings and who knows? maybe they'll move up a notch or two (from fourth?)

As of August 2006:
FIFA RANKINGS
1. Brazil 2. Italy 3. Argentina 4. France 5. England
23. USA 48. Japan

LINK:
http://www.fifa.com/en/mens/statistics/index.html

Sunday Morning Market on the Banks of the Saone

There is a morning market on the Saone not far from where I live, maybe ten minutes on foot.

On one end are the bouquinistes, or the booksellers, and further down, are stalls upon stalls of fruit and vegetable stands.

There I bought onions (1,20EUR/kg), garlic (0,60EUR/one head), bananas (1 EUR/1 kg), tomatoes (4 boxes = 2 EUR), string beans (1.5 kg = 1.5 EUR), and peaches from Provence, (2 kg = 2 EUR). As is common with some markets, at the end of the day (towards noon) the merchants want to get rid of their merchandise so they start slashing prices: that's how I was able to get the bananas and tomatoes so cheaply.

3 September - Anniversary of the Liberation of Lyon

Not exactly sure what this is about, but there will be some commemorative celebrations of the Liberation of Lyon on Sunday, the 3rd. Bus services in the center of town are disrupted. I'll probably use my day off to rest and do laundry, maybe also hit the markets for some fresh vegetables.

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Update:

I missed the actual celebrations, which I think took place in the morning, perhaps in Place Bellecour, but I did find some wreaths from local dignitaries, laid at a plaque honoring the soldiers who served in the war. See photo, included.

UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE / Olympique Lyon (OL) - Real Madrid

The European leagues have a super-league, a kind of World Series bringing together the best teams from the various leagues in France, the UK, Spain, Italy, and other countries in a competition known as the Champions League.

This year, Lyon's team has been grouped with Bucharest and Kiev .... and super-power Real Madrid. Big match in Lyon on the 13th September, in Lyon ... I have class on that day but if I can go I hope to see the two teams clash up close.

Last year, OL was also grouped with Real Madrid, and somehow they actually came in first in the group part of the tournament (which progresses like any round-robin tournament).

LINK
UEFA Champions League

http://www.uefa.com/competitions/ucl/index.html

Day 3: Statistics / Still struggling, but finally under control.

After the first two days of struggle, the refusing to submit finally paid dividends. I went to bed a little early then read ahead today's chapters so that I could follow what the professor was talking about in class.

Then I set about to do the examples following what was written in the textbook.

The odd thing about the classes is that the professor explains the theory ever so patiently and in terms which even the most math-averse person could appreciate. And yet, when we get to the practicum on using Excel for statistics, the same teacher becomes a complete different person, an Excel wizard who zips through the equations without explaining how he got these in the first place. As a result, a lot of us are lost or struggling to keep up with the practical portion of the class.

Wry sarcasm and parting comment: "Sit down with these problems tonight at dinner with a glass of wine, and maybe you'll see how they're done. Or maybe have a couple of glasses. Everything goes well with two glasses." Yeah, right. I think I'm going to rest a day before tackling these problems again.

Actually, the class was interesting, talking about surveys and sampling large populations. Already I can see the applications of the statistics we're studying, with regards to operations management and quality control.

Evidently there is a slogan called "six sigma" referring to companies who attempt to make their manufacturing processes as error-free as possible. Hmmm, perhaps this is explained in Wikipedia.

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LINKS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma

This is a very good article on it, I do recommend you take a look at it.

i-mode in France?

Bouygues Telecom, the third-largest cell phone provider in France, has brought out a whole line of mobile phones which can provide content through its i-mode service, a 3G service developed initially (I think) by NTT telecommunications in Japan.

It allows me to browse websites on the tiny screen on my phone (which I have no interest in), but more importantly, allows me to send unlimited messages (even with photo attachments) at no extra cost. That's right -- absolutely free. No monthly fee even for the i-mode services (odd, since in Japan, NTT users pay a 300 yen fee surcharge); purchase of a phone grants you use of the service automatically. How bizarre!

Now that's odd, since generally sending mail from a phone generates some kind of charge for sending the mail as data packets. When I was using a cell phone in Japan, it used to cost me about 3 yen per mail. (Not a big deal, since I had 1200 yen of use-it-or-lose-it phone credits each month which I could deduct the cost of the mails from.) And when sending a photo it cost me even more: perhaps 15 to 20 yen.

So this free, e-mail illimites! really has me surprised.

Granted the keyboard is hard to type (oddly enough SMS messages have intuitive type but mails are one character at a time) with, but still ....

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Sample costs for phone service
Cost of mail using i-mode service: 0
Cost of SMS: 0,10 EUR (15 cents)
Cost of local phone call: 0,50 EUR (65 cents)

Carrefour Hypermarche's 3 for 2 Sale

Right now, Carrefour supermarket is having a fantastic sale, three items for the price of two (what we usually call "buy 2, get 1 free"). Not everything advertised is something I'm interested in, but there were some things that I had bought earlier and which I use regularly.

Plastic freezer bags for leftovers, tomato sauce, lentils with sausage, and shampoo. Also mug cups and bowls (mix and match). And for my daily dose of Vitamin C, 1L cannisters of orange juice (again, 3 packs for the price of 2)!

One perk of business school: Free Business Dailies

Free copies of the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal are delivered to the school each day, and I make sure to pick up copies of it each day.

It's impossible to read all of the newspaper but I like to leaf through the articles at home while I'm munching on dinner.

I guess these companies look on these students as future customers and so have made the effort to drop off these copies here free, but it certainly is nice (since as a student any money being saved means more food or entertainment somewhere else!)

DAY 2 of STATISTICS: A lot less bloody ...

Day 2 of statistics, and at least today didn't seem as bad as yesterday. At yesterday's bloodbath more than half the students struggled with Excel (myself included). The material itself wasn't so difficult, but manipulating graphs as quickly as the professor was practically impossible and so many of us struggled to follow his practicum using Excel.

Today was a lot easier, first because the material covered probability and using it to make simple forecasts given past historical data. All that sort of data is punched into Excel, which, fortunately, does all the hard work and spits out the numbers that you need.

Later, in the afternoon, we worked with binomial distributions and Poisson distributions (which I still don't understand) but at least I got the stuff to work on Excel -- thanks to a classmate sitting next to me, a French guy named Arnaud who looks like Sean Penn and who spent two years in Chicago. Amazing guy, sportive and smart, and who used to work for the French upstart telcom Neuf Telecom.

I'll be going home in a few minutes but I feel a lot better than yesterday. At least, a lot less demoralized. Will read forward the material so I can keep up with the lectures.

_____

Links:

What in the world is a Poisson distribution?
(Wikipedia definition)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution

Neuf telecom
http://offres.neuf.fr/offres/home/index.html