Not much to report
Today there wasn’t much to report. I can pretty much sum it up like this:
1. My parking guy called me “ma petite americane” in the evening – kinda cute. At least he keeps coming up with originals.
2. Got word from Mandy that she probably can’t get on a flight for the weekend. She was supposed to get here Thursday or Friday, but the flights are pretty much all full or overbooked. She’s going to try, but it’s not looking good. If it doesn’t work out, honestly, it’ll be ok – I was having a little bit of visitor-overload, and I was missing my French friends, too. And on that note…
3. I tried to watch Amelie without the subtitles. I figured since I’ve seen it a zillion times I could make it. Nope, too hard. That’ll have to be after the advanced class.
4. I chatted with Majid online and made plans for pretty much the whole weekend. I think we’re going to try to go hang out on the quay of the Seine on Friday if the weather holds – lots of people do that in the summers here, just take a bottle of wine and a picnic – but the weather has been sucky. So we’ll see. Saturday is The Da Vinci Code – opening in France was Wednesday, before the rest of the world gets it on Friday. I guess that’s the thank-you for letting ‘em film all over Paris, including the Louvre. Sunday I think we’re going to walk the Canal St. Martin, something I’ve been told I should do. So that pretty much sums up what I’m doing this weekend...
Mike leaves...
Today I took the morning off to take Mike to the airport. I felt a little like I was playing hooky, but it actually makes a lot more sense rather than drive out practically to the airport to get to the office and then back again. I asked Mike what his favorite thing was in Paris, and he said the Eiffel Tower – he said we saved the best for last. Not a bad way to do it.
Tonight I had an easy night. My big news was that I tried a different take-out pizza place from down the street. Other than that I got caught up on the blog, since I was waaay behind. It takes a ton of time, and it’s hard work! But worth it, I hope…
Lazy day for Mike's last day in Paris
On Sunday we were very lazy. We’d decided we weren’t going to pack too much in today, and we took advantage of it. We slept in, and eventually I went out for breakfast – we made good use of the new high-grade olive oil with fresh garlic, crushed pepper, and a hot baguette from next door. About 2:00 we decided we’d head out, but we sat down on the couch and ended up sleeping there for two hours. We finally left the house for good just after 4:00, prompted by the 4:30 organ recital in Notre Dame that I told Mike we had to go to. That, of course, was amazing – luckily we caught about 15-20 minutes of it as we walked around the church. After touring the insides and outsides of the church, we sat in the square just in front for a while and watched people walk by and hand-feed the birds. We tried to take a boat taxi to the Eiffel Tower, but it was much more expensive than I remembered, so we took the RER instead. When we got there, we found two impromptu concerts – one live concert band playing Star Wars across the lawn, and a techno house party just across the river at Trocadero to celebrate the European Champions League final here in Paris on Wednesday. (That’s basically the European football championship – it’s like their Super Bowl, and people go nuts.) Depending on where you stood, you could hear at least one and probably both of the music sources. We walked over to the Star Wars stage; it ended, of course, just as we got there, but we got some great pictures of the tower. We walked back, got ice cream, stood in line for tickets to go up, and listened to the techno. We got tickets all the way to the top – Mike’s point was that if you come all the way to Paris, you gotta go all the way. Good point – although in my four previous trips to Paris I’d only made it up to the second level, which frankly was high enough for me. Nonetheless, we went up to the 2nd level and hung out there for just a few minutes before heading all the way up. I was pretty nervous in the elevator on the way up there, but it wasn’t too bad – when you get off, it’s all glassed in, so it actually feels safer to me than the 2nd level….that is, until you take the half-flight of stairs up to the outside part. Lemme tell you, that is a long way up there. I was sufficiently nervous to stay pretty close to the inside walls, while Mike, naturally, just laughed. We hung out there and took pictures, then walked across the river as the tower was being lit up and waited for the top of the hour (10:00) when the tower lights twinkle for 10 minutes. Some people might think it’s tacky, but I think it’s fantastic. Mike thought so, too. After deciding it was Italian over French for dinner, Mike suggested we actually go back to La Rughetta. That makes three trips to the same restaurant for him this trip, but at least he can’t blame me for this one – it was his idea – and I have to admit it’s one of the best restaurants I’ve been to in the city. After a very good but very quick dinner – the service tonight was also the fastest I’ve seen here – we came home, watched more TV, drank more wine, and crashed.
Day in the neighborhood, the Left Bank, and the Marais
On Saturday Mike and I slept in again. He was tired from his week in Stockholm, and frankly I’d had enough touring to not be too worried about it. We got a late breakfast from the bakery downstairs and walked up to the Place du Tertre, the square famous for all the street artists, at the top of Montmartre near the Sacre Couer. I told Mike it was worth the walk, especially since it’s right in the neighborhood. He ended up buying a small painting for his mom and another one for his brother, and I discovered that there actually are some decent artists up there if you can stand the people long enough to look. We walked over to the church, where Mike bought a few more things for family and I bought a few candleholders for myself, and we walked back to the apartment just to drop off the stuff. We thought we might head into the city to see Notre Dame and walk around a little, but we ended up going to do one of my errands first. I really wanted to go to the olive oil store so I could have something to go with all these baguettes. After that we ended up café- and bar-hopping around the left bank; at the café we had one of the happiest and most chipper waiters I think I’ve ever seen. (He figured out Mike spoke Spanish, too, and said “hola” as he remembered us when we walked by later.) We decided we’d leave Notre Dame for tomorrow, and we hit the Moose for another round, since we wanted more of those spicy chicken wings. We walked down this one street in the Latin Quarter that’s lined with Greek restaurants – it’s so full of energy, it’s something to see – and later in the evening went to a few bars in the Marais. First we went to a café in a pretty tree-filled square, where Mike noticed that everyone, including the waitress who didn’t speak too much English, was very friendly and willing to try any English they had. Afterwards we went by Chez Richard, where Jimi had taken me a few weeks before, but when we saw that it was pretty dead, we went to another bar nearby. We treated ourselves to a cab home, and the cabbie took the longest route possible, I think. Naturally I fell asleep in the car.
Too many social plans to handle for one day
Today was a better work day than I’ve had in a while; over the past two days I just feel like I’ve been able to get more done. I learned something interesting about French employment law, too. In the US it’s very standard to have a noncompete agreement – a part of your contract that prevents you from quitting and taking your company intelligence to a competitor; it generally only applies if you quit, not if you get fired. Here apparently, noncompete agreements are common, but if the employer doesn’t release the noncompete clause of the contract, an employee can sue for a year’s salary, even if they don’t go to work for a competitor. So basically the employer knows they can get screwed, unless the employee specifically goes to work for a competitor. Very strange.
After work I met Majid at park near the office, and near where his parents live, before picking up Mike at the airport. Majid spends the weekends at his parents’ place, since it’s much nearer to Paris than his house. We went to the little park in Le Blanc Mesnil, which is funnily right next to his high school. We sat out on the grass by the little lake for a while, then when it started to get cool, we went to grab a quick bite to eat at a Greek restaurant. It was just a little take-out joint and there wasn’t any space there, anyway, so we drove back to the park and ate outside the park in an open city square. We walked back into the park but got kicked out when it closed at 9:15. (The guy walked right past us on his way to lock the gates and only unlocked them when we yelled at him – good grief – it’s not like he didn’t know we were in there.) Anyway, we walked back to my car and drove around corner to where he’d parked. Majid told me his university was having a gala this weekend and that he’d want me to go if my friend weren’t here. Damn! Why couldn’t that be another weekend?! When he went to say good-night, we did the kiss-kiss thing (very close to the front again.) He looked at me, and then kissed me again, this time more like adults than 8th graders. It was very sweet, and we spent a few good minutes in the car before I had to go. As he walked to his car, he patted his pockets like he was looking for his keys. As he walked back to my car, I rolled down my window, and he said “I forgot something.” Then he leaned in and kissed me again – extremely cute, I have to say. He wasn’t going in the same direction as me, but he led me to the highway I needed to take, anyway. At the red light just before the highway, he got out of his car, ran back to mine, told me which way to go, and kissed me again. Again, very cute.
I got to the airport just in time. Mike’s flight was early, and I met him in baggage claim not 5 minutes after I got there. Mike wanted pizza and an easy night, which was fine with me, so we decided not to go downtown. We just got take-out pizza from the joine (Pizza Factory) down the street. (Admittedly they remembered I’d just been there last night, but oh, well.) Later on we drank wine and watched Seinfeld. Naturally I fell asleep.
Day of French
Today was pretty uneventful, except for two things. #1 – I had a meeting that ended up lasting pretty much the entire day, and it was basically all in French. I told them it was ok to start out that way and I’d let them know when I got lost, but I hung in there pretty well and was able to contribute what I felt I needed to. So that’s a success, I think. #2 – on the way home traffic was stopped completely in my street. I thought maybe it was an accident or some other emergency, but nope, after I’d parked and walked up there, I just saw people standing in the street in front of a bus, arguing. No apparent vehicle damage or anything else to justify it. The police were just standing there letting it happen, so I still have no idea what that was all about. Other than that, I just came home and crashed.
More football watching with Jimi
Today I was much less tired at work – hooray – I couldn’t take another day like yesterday! After work I met Jimi to watch another football match, this one being the final of the European B-team clubs, the ones not good enough to make the Champions League. We met at the same English pub in the Marais, the Frog and Rosbif, where he was a lot quieter than the last time – apparently that’s a testament to this league’s reputation versus the better one. Three of his friends ended up turning up towards the end, which was slightly strange for me at first but ended up being fine. Two of them live together across the street, so that was pretty easy. They were friendly and luckily patient enough with my English (and good enough with it themselves.) I called it a night a little earlier than the last time I was at this pub, though – I think I headed home around midnight…
