i heart free stuff

i broke a new personal record this week: attending three tradeshows in two cities within the space of six days.

work kindly sent me to paris for SIAL, the "global food marketplace" that is held several times per year.



the weather in paris was pretty dismal - rainy and windy - but we were sheltered inside the massive expanse next to charles de gaulle airport known as parc des expositions.



one of SIAL's selling points is that the booths are grouped by type - meat, veg, cheese - and/or region, so we were part of the japan pavilion. it was fun to walk around and sample food from other parts of the world as well. it certainly had the feel of being on an international gastronomic tour. although i prefer tea to coffee, i couldn't resist visiting the illy booth at least once a day.



while we were in paris, we also stopped by the digipack congress. compared to SIAL, it was dinky, but the packaging industry gets its own turn at parc des expositions next month. i'm trying to find a way to get sent back over for work again... :)



finally, back in blighty, s and i made our weekend pilgrimage to macexpo.



perhaps i shouldn't say this on my blog, but our good friend, m, suggested that we might be attending next month's erotica show at kensington olympia instead... you'd think she'd know us well enough to know that apple products are what really get our juices flowing.

ahem.

but alas, we were there so late in the day that most of the (what we assume must have been) cool free stuff was already gone. s has his eye on a new macbook pro to replace his dead ibook G3, and i wouldn't turn down a black macbook to match my black ipod (although i'm still content with my trusty ibook G4 for now). nice that the holidays are around the corner.

hey, steve jobs & santa claus:
feel free to contribute to our apple fund!
your ever loyal,
s & b