My Good-bye Party

On Friday I was very surprised that my co-workers had arranged for me a good-bye party!! I had no clue that they had done this for me. I was sitting there doing the work thing at my computer and they told me turn around and there on the table was some cake and presents! Presents for me! I was way excited. Bruno and Alexandra had arranged for people to donate money to the fund and had used the money to hook me up big time before I left. Isn't that cool?! They gave me some really cool stuff too; a neat picture of the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty, a mug with the metro map on it, a DVD of a Classic French Movie, a CD done by a popular French artist ("M"), a 2007 Paris calendar on which they had all left messages for me, and an MP3 player that fits directly into the USB port of the computer. It's some really great stuff. I can't believe I had the opportunity to work with such an outstanding group of people while here in Paris. These guys have done so much to make a guy like me feel welcome. They are excellent people. I've gotten to know Bruno really well, and it has been very hard for me to have to say good bye to him. Sorry he's not in any of these pictures, he was the one behind the camera. I don't know, life's full of going from one stage to the next and meeting some good people, but sometimes its harder to say goodbye than others. Yes, I'm super excited to get home and see my wife, more than I could ever say, but I have got to admit, I got a lot closer to my co-workers than I ever thought I would. I owe them a lot. If any of you guys are reading this, thanks again, you made it a wonderful 3 and a half months, keep in touch!!! I guess I ought to say who's who in the pictures. Yann is wearing the blue collar shirt, Patrick is in the grey and blue stripes, Thibault is in pink and Alexandra is in black. These guys are amazing.