In the morning at 11am, keep in mind this is early for me, I take the red RER line out to the La Défense exit. As I am sitting on the train I look up and see that La Défense is one exit out of the Zone 1 Paris. I seem to remember that the week long pass I bought was only for zone one, hmmmm. Well the way it usually works within Paris is that I scan my ticket upon entering the metro and nothing happens when I exit. So, with this impeccable logic in mind I decide to continue on and not get off at the Charles de Gualle stop.
Well it turns out that there is a gate when you exit the La Défense. On top of that the gate requires that you swipe your ticket. I do and a red buzz goes off and the gates remain shut. I see several other people run into this problem as well. Suddenly a young girl reaches her hand over from the opposite side with a ticket in her hand. "Wow, how nice I think to my self" I just gesture to make sure that she is handing me the ticket for me to scan and she nods. A green light shows and the gates swing open. I walk through and hand the ticket back to the girl. At this point she has her hands open and is wanting something in return. I look around and suddenly realize that the entire gypsy family is doing this gig of passing tickets for money. I reach into my pocket and realize I have no change and the smallest bill I have is a 50.
She mumbles something in French and I return with the "I don't know" gesture and continue walking. The girl follows me and suddenly her two older brothers come following me as well demanding that I give them money. I respond with the "empty pockets no money" gesture which they don't buy. At this point the entire family of eight is following me around the exit area, which turns out to be a mall. I try to figure out where to go to exit. I finally walk over to an information booth and start talking to the desk person. I pretend that I am lost and point on my map to La Défense making sure I was in the right place, even though it is written everywhere in the station exit. Finally the family gives up and leaves.
Outside, I see office building and lots of artwork. I never found the offices of my ex corporation, but I was able to entertain myself by taking lot of pictures of interesting art. I ended up walking back to zone 1 and catching the metro back home.
If you look carefully into the distance, you can see the Arc de Triomphe in this picture.
Afterwards, I was told by a co-worker that the offices were located behind this structure.
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