Darcy's Paris Blog

Neil's here!

Neil arrives!

Work -- fine. This morning two people in our office brought in gigantic, rich pastries to celebrate their new cars -- pains au raisins, pains au chocolat, et croissants. I think they call this whole category vienoisseries. I ate one -- most other people ate two and a half. They couldn't believe I didn't want more. I still don't get how they stay so skinny here. Also noticed at work today that we have to shake hands with everyone who walks by in the office. Doesn't matter if you've never seen this person in your life; they're going to walk up, limply touch your right hand with theirs, and say "Bonjour." Kinda nice, but by the 12th one of the morning it's a little tiresome.

After work I metro'd into town to meet Neil at his hotel near the Champs-Elysees. (For anyone who doesn't know Neil, he's a really good friend from Austin who happened to be in town on business.) Called me "Darcy Paris Dement," coined after having to create another name for me in his phone to store my number here without screwing up the Austin ones. Kinda like the ring to that. After a quick drink at the hotel, we metro'd a little ways east, walked over the Pont Neuf to the Left Bank, and wandered around until we found a good place to eat. Funnily enough, we ended up at this little French place I'd been before when I was over for work; the place was crawling with Americans, but good. We didn't stay up too late that night, relatively -- we were both tired, so we decided to call it a night. I tried to take the metro home, but got stuck at the station where I had to transfer (Concorde) when the trains stopped running at about 1, I think. I made it on a train from Neil's to Concorde, but missed the last train from Concorde north. No biggie -- headed to a taxi queue, which didn't actually have any taxis in it -- but after watching many, many, many go by occupied, I finally caught one. Good to note: a taxi from there to my apartment is less than 10 Euro. Not too bad.

posted by Darcy @ 10:30 PM