Camino de Santiago

Hey all.. I know I kind of officially have been neglecting the blog. And honestly, I'm not feeling too bad about it. No offense, it's just that I've been a lot happier of late, and instead of spending my evenings trying to beef up what I've been doing into an interesting story to tell the general public... I've been doing things. And writing in my own journal. I'm sorry, I'll probably pick up again some day but for right now I'm so busy and happy and freaking terrified planing my Camino (and trying to pass my classes--epic fail) all I can really do for you is show you this!

Voila, my Camino Itinerary (subject to change)

JUNE 19 Train Paris to Pamplona – Hostel for the night

JUNE 20 Pamplona - Puente La Reina, 24km
JUNE 21 Puente La Reina – Estella, 22km
JUNE 22 Estella - Los Arcos, 22km
JUNE 23 Los Arcos – Logrono, 28km.

JUNE 24 Logrono – Najera, 29km
JUNE 25 Najera-Santo Domingo de la Calzada, 21km
JUNE 26 Santo Domingo de la Calzada-Belorado, 23km
JUNE 27 Belarado - San Juan de Ortega, 24km
JUNE 28 San Juan de Ortega - Burgos, 28km

JUNE 29 Train Burgos to Leon 12h13 depart, 14h05 arrive

JUNE 30 Léon - Hospital de Orbigo, 44km
JULY 1 Hospital de Orbigo – Astorga, 14km
JULY 2 Astorga - Rabanal del Camino, 20km
JULY 3 Rabanal - Ponferrada: 33km
JULY 4 Ponferrada - Vilafranca del Bierzo, 25km
JULY 5 Vilafranca del Bierzo - O Cebreiro, 30km
JULY 6 O Cebreiro – Triascastela, 21km.
JULY 7 Triascatela – Sarria, 21km
JULY 8 Sarria – Portomarin, 22km
JULY 9 Portomarin – Palas de Rei, 25km
JULY 10 Palas de Rei – Arzua, 29km
JULY 11 Arzua – Lavacolla, 29km
JULY 12 Lavacolla – Santiago de Compostela, 10km

JULY 13 Day in Santiago, mass in the morning – night at auberge

JULY 14 Santiago to Negreira 21 km

JULY 15 Negreire to Olveiroa 26 km

JULY 16 Olveiroa to Finisterre 15km GO TO THE BEACH!

JULY 17 Bus Finisterre to Santiago de Compostela – night in a hostel

JULY 18 Bus Santiago to Madrid 7am, arrives late afternoon, Train leaves Madrid to Paris in pm

JULY 19 Train arrives in Paris in am, get luggage, hostel for the night

JULY 20 Flight leaves 10am CDG terminal 2–to DC 12:45–in Milwaukee by (technically) 6pm!

Not sure why the blog won't let me change the spacing above, so sorry for that. But even so, you get the picture. The walking parts may change a bit, but now you know where I am going to be, so if I disappear you know where to come looking.

See you all at the airport in Milwaukee onthe 20th at 6pm SHARP!

Paris, The City of Light

Please excuse this interruption from the slow explanation of all things Spring Break for this upcoming broadcast:

Didn't someone once call this the city of light? Today I realized just how right they were.

First of all, the most obvious reason, the way the city looks lit up at night. It's rather like... and I hesitate to go here because it's just too much... but really it's kind of like a field of fireflies. Not like the blasting neon nighttime of Manhattan, instead it's left half shaded, more than half. There are little streets in the Latin quarter lit by the yellow lights coming from the cafes. And on the quais this yellow light comes from the lamps as well and sparkles on the water. The facade of Notre Dame at night is, by contrast, as white as ivory, matched only by the pyramid at the Louvre on Fridays when the museum is open late. And of course the sparkling achievement is the Eiffel Tower. When it does it's thing once an hour, it's a breathtaking display of loveliness and light.

But there's more to it than that.

In the late 19th century, one Baron Haussmann and his trusty team completely renovated this city, tearing down thousands of buildings and building as many new ones, and all of them were built the same, in white stone. I don't really know all the details of Parisian architecture, but it seems like almost all the buildings in this city look the same or at least closely related to these large, white, and powerful batiments.

It took me a long time to adjust to seeing the same building over and over again all day long. Not that they really are all the same, it just looks that way to someone who has lived in the land of disposable advertisements on every square inch of structure all her life. It seemed so blank. I even thought it funerary for a while. But now I understand... they're not tombstones, they're canvasses! If you look, you see that no building is ever just white. In fact, they change color every minute of the day. I'm not being romantic, this is a fact. Maybe I only realized it because I've been working in the theatre forever and tend to notice when something is lavendar or amber instead of white. Thus, a building that at 2 is grey and green with the reflections of the trees is, at 8 or 9, lavender with the sunset reflecting off the Seine. Right now there is a thunderstorm going on outside, and the buildings are positively yellow.

This is something you really have to experience for yourself. If you ever come to Paris, there's a little park on the far west side of l'ile de la Cite, across the street from the back garden of Notre Dame. Sit there, facing west, and watch the sun set. It doesn't even matter if it's a brilliant example of all a sunset should be.

And here are a few examples of what I'm talking about, though they can hardly do the experience justice:

First of all, see? The buildings look like... oh no wait, those are tombstones.
But seriously, this is the first day I realized that the light in Paris
would make a designer wet him or herself.

Notre Dame on a late winter afternoon...

... Notre Dame on a Spring evening, about 10:30 at night.

The Sunset in my neighborhood.

Spring Break, Day 2 continued

Sometimes my tangents turn into page long rants about the entire history of construction that leave me exhausted and cause me to pass out and not write again for almost a week. Whoops.

Now where was I? Oh yes, Westminster Abbey.

As I was trying to explain, there were too many things to see and not nearly enough time in which to see them. I walked past queens and kings, famous poets, famous structures. I walked in a real, live medieval cloister for the first time. I also got to say hi to Edmund (as in Spencer) for Natalie, as they're currently navigating an impetuous long distance relationship.

I also saw the oldest door in Britain, or so the sign told me. Unfortunately, no, it was not attached to a wardrobe and did not lead to a lamppost, nor an ice queen, nor Jesus in the shape of an eloquent lion, nor any turkish delight... or maybe it did. Yum.

Finally, the audio guide, before it decided to die on me, even included a song sung by the famous Westminster Abbey Choir, and though it was far from the real thing I'm sure, listening on my little walkie, standing among the empty choir stalls, with my vivid imagination, well it was almost heaven.

We left too soon, and after a quick lunch...

Bread and Cheese, the starving student's lunch.

...the plan was to head to the Tower of London, but that didn't exactly happen. The tube line, like all the lines in town, was closed. There was a nice man in a uniform who pointed us to a bus we could take a few blocks down... but when we got outside we were met with a force stronger than a natural disaster: the Tamil protests. Thousands and thousands of angry men and women all marching and shouting and carrying posters and flags as far as the eye could see:

(photo courtesy of worldbulletin.net)

We fought through the masses for a while, and I think Jenn almost had a heart attack, but eventually we ducked out of the way into a park to rethink our plans. Having no idea where to find this bus, and doubting very much that a bus could ever make it into this part of town at present, we decided to readjust our plans and head north instead, on a line we knew was open, to go to the British Library. Too much excitement for one day already.

I spent most of the metro trip trying to get psyched up about one very important thing: the Beowulf Manuscript. I had intended to make a pilgrimage to see it at the British Library for some time now, and here I was at last. By the time I got off the train I was breathing shallow breaths and making Jenn feel nervous... but of course when we got to the library it was closed too.

Blast!

I was done coming up with plans. I mean, if 15 closed metro lines and a closed library ain't enough to convince you that this isn't your day, maybe 10,000 screaming tamils is. Instead we decided to stop at a Starbucks (ever faithful) and relax a bit, which I did indeed as Starbucks across Europe have started playing a Talking Heads mix recently as sort of a "we feel your pain Rachael" phenomenon. And yes I did rock out.

Feeling better, Jenn and I decided to only do things we knew would be open for the rest of the afternoon. First stop? Brace yourself... Platform 9 & 3/4. It was Jenn's idea really, and a fabulous one at that. Imagine this: a normal, working train station of great size, full of business men and women, vendors, workers, backpackers, and people rolling those pansy-ass carry-ons about. But if you look carefully, you'll see another class of traveler. One that stands out. You can tell them by the way they try too hard to fit in... as though they had something to hide. But if you follow them you'll soon learn what their secret is, for they all congregate at the same mysterious location, at the end of a platform at the back of the station, past all security guards and checkpoints. It is there you discover that they're all crazy Harry Potter fans, most of them adults, trying to find the Platform 9 & 3/4 sign and to take many dorky pictures! I just couldn't get over it, all those respectible looking adults meandering through King's Cross station trying to look like they had a train to catch and weren't just there to take pictures with a shopping cart:

Be jealous.

It took me a while to stop giggling, but once I did we headed to Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace, two things we knew for certain would not be closed, because you can't go into the palace anyway, and I'd like to see the cops keep me out of a park, especially after so many failures already that day. (Cut to me running through the grass waving my arms in the air, screaming, and being chased by 10 British police officers.)

In reality all we did is, quite literally, tiptoe through the tulips, of which there were many all over London. We also, as promised, saw the palace, which was large and lovely, though I don't think the Queen was in residence (see, no flag).


All of it made me feel kind of foolish for claiming to be the King of England all these years. I saw for myself that the British monarchy does, in fact, exist, and for a minute there I was like oh, oh my, I'm so sorry, were you.. were you here's first? You say you're the Queen of England? Well gosh, I never meant to, I mean I never...

Then I snapped out of it. I'M THE KING OF ENGLAND!

(Please ignore the last few paragraphs unless you're privy to our Henry VIII jokes and/or have seen those ridiculous Tudors commercials with Jonathan Rhys Meyers giving himself an aneurysm shouting and whining about his absolute power.)

A stroll in Hyde Park following my abdication was rather lovely. Here is one of the entrances, with the pimpest coat of arms:

Any country with a unicorn in its national symbol is alright by me.

Once inside the park, the sheer oxygen content in the air was dizzying, and the wet grass and flowers smelled marvelous. I also fully appreciated this "English" garden, which in the States would look familiar, kind of like Central Park, full of long grassy lawns and trees and flowers. It even had a number of nooks and crannies, of which I'm sure we only found a few, which is something American gardens rather lack. But what it wasn't, thank the lord, was a French garden--made for the genteel to ride about in their carriages in and composed largely of gravel and a few patches of untouchable grass. Call them beautiful, call them famous, but I will never think French gardens like Les Tuileries or even the gardens at Versailles equal to the rolling hills of grass and flowers here in central London. Just check these out:


Refreshed and soothed and no longer tasting the bitterness of metropolitan London failure, we decided to don our bravery once more and head back into civilization to find some food. Led by visions of last time I was in New York, walking around at night solo and lookin' for some pizza, we headed to Piccadilly Circus, London's version of Times Square.


After tiptoeing through the crowds, which were nothing compared to Manhattan, we began our favorite pastime, the Great Restaurant Hunt. In truth, I hate the Great Restaurant Hunt with all my soul and much prefer to just bop around a grab something here and there when I get hungry, but when one is in London with a hungry travel companion, one has to make sacrifices. One has to find a place where both can be happy. And after walking forever, passing every other place for one reason or another, one finally comes to an okay pub, where one eats some bad fish and chips and is happy:

Bad English food. We is happy.

France, culinary heaven, le paradis gourmand, damn you we are through! Seriously, as I've stated before, all our American palates were screaming for after so many months trapped in dietary heaven was some bad take out food. Positively sinful takeout food, please. For the love of God just some greasy, salty, spicy takeout food. And that is just what we ate all across the UK. Fish and chips please. Fish and chips please. Fish and chips please...

Oh, I also had... get ready for this... a beer! Yes ladies and gentlemen, I've been jealous of the "beer kids" for some time now, watching them be all cool with their imported this and that while I shamefully sip gin and tonics like an aging starlet. I wanted to be cool and badass and participate in Spaten nights or "beer and the news" nights at the apartment. And for years I had been prevented due to the fact that I thought beer was friggin gross, but in an English pub, well I just couldn't allow myself to order anything but a beer. And you know what, in London, beer wasn't half bad. In fact... I almost liked it...

"Rachael Parker and the Quest for the Most Perfect Beer" to be continued...

Spring Break, Day 2

After a large and satisfactorily non-French breakfast where I made a fool of myself talking to a handsome stranger by confusing Belfast, Budapest, and Bucharest, we began the first of a number toilsome days trying to work around the many Tube closings. Honestly, why they decided to do all their construction at once, and on Easter weekend, is beyond me. Paris would never pull such a...

Anyway, eventually we made it downtown, and began the morning with a brief stroll along the foggy banks of the Thames. Like you do. Here's some proof:

The London Eye. It's watching.

Ben.

Things to know about London tourism: the lines, excuse me, the ques are longer. The French certainly have the filter-the-tourists-through-the-joint process down to a refined science in comparison, not that I'm a tourist (ahem), but after about 40 minutes of patiently waiting to get into Westminster Abbey, what ho:

That's Westminster there on the right. Isn't she lovely?

Fab Portal

See? The detail makes me giddy.
Look at the guy with the cloak fourth from the right
on the bottom row. Amazing.

Another drastic difference between England and France? They don't let you take pictures inside of anything in England, whereas in France you can take photos during mass if you want to. (And if you want me to elbow you in the lip.) But I guess I got to enjoy the place with my own eyes instead of through a cheap digital camera lens. I had that going for me.

The first time I heard about Westminster abbey was in Mrs. Judd's Brit Lit class in the 11th grade. Any of you out there fortunate enough to have taken a class with the Judinator know that this in itself makes the place noteworthy. Pretty much every English monarch was buried there, which was unfortunately overwhelming as with the crowds and lack of time at our disposal, I was forced to shuffle by Henry III, Edward I, Edward III, Elizabeth I, etc without proper veneration. Again, it never ceases to bother me that I have to run past and tag places and monuments I've lived and breathed at heart for some time now--like a mere tourist--and get picked on for my accent by the guy handing out audio guides in the process. I really just want to shout at the crowd all the time. "Dude! Du-ude! Edward I! Don't you guys understand just how truly badass he was? Blimey, slow down!"

Okay, yeah, maybe I should be a history teacher. Plus I would get to shout "blimey" at the youth of America.

Other high points included the Lady Chapel of Henry VII, another total badass. I stole this picture from online because you just have to see it:


It's the ceiling that does it. It's not just that it's beautiful, though that's certainly true. It's that mankind started by living in caves, trees, holes in the ground, etc. Then he had a fit of inspiration, and egad, he starts building structures. First a million years of hovels and shacks that topple in the wind. Until one day aliens land and teach him advanced technology so he can build the Parthenon. Thanks guys, now we're in business, don't forget to write.

But of course then someone crashes Hominem_Servire, the supercomputer, so man forgets everything and is forced to rebuild the hovels, then the shacks, and finally some wooden structures that catch fire every other tuesday. And then finally, tentatively, because this time he has only his divinely inspired self, no extraterrestrial aid, he takes a risk and starts stacking stones. Then he is crushed underneath them. The day after the funeral his neighbor, who thinks he knows what went wrong, gives it a shot. He, too, is crushed in the debris. Finally the neighbor's wife, fearing for the wellbeing of the rest of the men in town, shows them how it's done. Rocks are a hit. First barrel vaults, because mankind remembers vaguely the fine curved arches of his ancestors. Then one day an apprentice gets cheeky and Voila, pointed arches.

Now mankind is in business. Encouraged by favorable laws of physics, each builder struggles to build the tallest structure with the thinnest walls without having it fall over, kind of like Jenga. Stretching himself higher and higher, l'homme occidental becomes obsessed with making the walls paper thin. And to keep his stone structures standing, the vaulting follows him. First 4, then 6, then more in the aisles, the ambulatory, the nave. More and more the arches delicately balance and support by this point not walls, but glass, and are themselves supported from the outside by elegant flying buttresses. It's a beautiful geometric puzzle, way better than the ratty old Parthenon.

But now there's no more need to duplicate the vaulting, there are no more ways to push the strengths of the pointed arch it seems, but the elegant lines on the ceiling have grown on us. So one day a Romantic mason decides to enhance the ceiling with some delicate tracery. First an arch develops a tuft of decoration, like a well-fertilized climbing tomato vine. Fifty years later another building turns the tomatoes into ivy, which continues to climb. But in England, the place that hasn't forgotten the elegant tracing patters of both its Celtic and it's Germanic ancestors, it comes natural. They take the hanging gardens to the next level, until Henry VII has his chapel built in the 1503, by which time the ceiling has grown like a scene in Jumanji until it resembles Fangorn Forest.

From rocks piled on top of one another, to this. And when I see "this", I see it still moving, still climbing. Methinks. Even so, what else could mankind hope to build? Stucco? I guess the point of the story is that I have ceiling envy. Come on guys, we have the technology: every single ceiling should look like this.

Ug... that rant was exhausting. Will continue tomorrow...

Spring Break, Day 1

It's time I told you the story of a girl. A girl who went to London. And to many other places, but first to London.

My trip began as all trips begin: trying to beat off the advances of a 76 year old French woman as I stuffed my luggage-laden self into an elevator the size of a London telephone booth.

But how would I know about London telephone booths? Oh yes, that's right, I've been to London. Keep in mind it's been some time since these events occurred, so I hope I can still make the story shine. Then again, a laundry list of the things I've done would probably satisfy you all anyway. You know it's true.

Je commence. It took us a while, walking around the Gare du Nord train station, being sent here and there and everywhere possibly in order to get our tickets figured out, but probably just to fuck with us (they do so love to fuck with us), before we made it past customs in, as they say, the nic of time. Running to catch a train hauling a 13 kilo pack is much like being Dumbo in a performance of Swan Lake (probably an LCDT production). But finally we were on board, surrounded by quite possibly the most obnoxious children in all of France, and eager to leave the city of Love.

The most memorable part of the chunnel experience was probably, except for that whole going to England at long last thing, the part when I was huddled in the semi-fetal position moaning at the pain of my bursting eardrums. Far worse than any airplane, apparently, is going under the ocean. So unnatural be the plights of modern travel. You may say others had it worse off, crossing by wooden boat with the horses in the hull and whatnot, but I think I would have preferred the pre-Battle of Hastings technology to high-speed trains and bleeding oriphses. Not that would ever join ranks with William the Bastard. Golly, it's just a metaphor.

I must admit I was moved upon my first glimpse of my native land, the country of my heart's delight, but there's no need to go into all of that here as it would only make me sloppy. I'll admit there was some reaching out to awkwardly grip my travel companion's wrist in a fit of short, shallow breaths, but there's no better cure for a case of raging sentimentality than trying to figure out the London Underground the minute you get off the train, which is what happens next in my story. Pack-laden, tired, and smelly before dinner, it took us some time to realize how to get where we wanted to go and another 10 minutes of whining about the superiority of the Paris system before we were Go. Then, of course, our hostel was so far north of the city when we took out our map after exiting the tube, in the rain of course, we realized we were off the map. I didn't worry much though: I've been watching a lot of House recently, which makes me a better sleuth, and I had faith in our deductive reasoning. 10 minutes later we were met with this:


Palmer's Lodge. And the omniscient narrator in me assures you that it was the best place we stayed during the entire trip.

Dinner was priority one, as it usually ended up being. I remember being absolutely ecstatic that we could get thai food for just a few pounds around the corner. The months on the Paris-diet had left us jonesing for something hot, spicy, and asian (that's right, I went there). I guess it was something about Paris being the digestive equivalent of a world where the only dish invented is chocolate birthday cake with double chocolate frosting. Although I doubt the French would ever eat American frosting. Me, however... well I'll never take Asian Kitchen for granted again.

Of course, mid-wanton we realized neither of us had any idea how restaurant etiquette works in the UK, so cut to us staring at each other over our chopsticks, paralyzed by awkward fear. Tasty, tasty awkward fear. You may think I exaggerate, which I do you should know that by now, but you should also know we've been embarrassing ourselves at every turn, step, and second in France. Far be it from us to add another country to the no-fly zone of pathetic awkwardness.

In the end we played it cool and left some change behind the mustard dish before heading for the hills. And that was pretty much all we did the first night, revel in our living arrangements and relish our rangoon. I took a little break in the hall before bed though, very refreshing you should try it sometime. The window was open and it had just finished raining and the air smelled warm and sweet and deliciously familiar... and then some idiot American frat boys came barging through the hall, belching and saying various derogatory things about women who probably deserve it, not even reprieved by any sort of sexy foreign accent. All I could do was take a deep breath, turn the page, and think... ah, home.

Of course, one day I hope I will be comfortable enough in France to not be so keen for the familiar that even frat-boy idiot-head jerks seem as wholesome as grandma's apple pie. Or better, Chris'. But let's be honest, there's no way I'm going to be here long enough for that.

Spring Break Update

So I'm working on the blog guys, though it's a slow process. What I can tell you, however, is that due to Facebook being a total JERK I can't upload my pictures it seems. Instead I uploaded them on Flikr (of course they're in backwards order so start at the finish, like you do). Here's the address:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37863445@N02/page12/

Then of course I ran out of room to upload on Flikr, so I added the rest on Photobucket, so all the emo kids (including yourself) can get a look:

http://s617.photobucket.com/albums/tt252/RParker231/

If you're going to go through them, they're in numeric order, so that'll be a clue. It starts at number 39 though, just to warn you. Though I should have just let you spend the 5 minutes looking for the 38 pictures that don't exist. Muahhaha.

Enjoy!

R

Spring break trip of doom... stay tuned!

(I know, it's a slant rhyme.)

Well ladies and gentlemen, I've been on the trip of the century for about a week and a half now. Tomorrow my patient travel buddy Jenn and I will be leaving our Edinburgh hostel at 5am for our flight to Dublin.. the last leg of the journey. Don't you worry though: I've been diligently taking notes throughout it all in my little notebook in order to share my experiences with you.

Tonight of course I need to get my ass in bed in order to get up at stupid o'clock in the morning, but I just wanted to say once and for all that the long and glorious blog of doom shall soon follow. Follow me, Carmen Sandiego, as I elude the team yet again, slipping from out beneath their noses from Paris to London to Bath to Northumberland to Edinburgh to Dublin... who knows where she'll be next? Muttering the 23rd psalm to herself in the haunted vaults of the south bridge in edinburgh? In a mob of angry protesters on the banks of the Thames? Eating a peanut butter sandwith on windy crag sheltered by Hadrian's wall? Climbing about on the cliffs on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, dreaming about monks? On the banks of the Avon staring dumbfounded as a stuffed rabbit floats magically to the surface?

Only time will tell... so stay tuned!

I told Tiffany I would meet her in Paris by the Trocadero. I don't care, I don't show up. I go to Berlin. That's where I stashed the chandelier.

Sometimes things happen that suck hardcore at the time but afterward make for amazing stories.

So Thursday, the night before Nick and Allison left Paris, we decide to meet up at the carousel next to the Eiffel Tower before going out for a fancy schmancy dinner, right?

Meeting at the carousel was my idea of course. I proclaimed that I had all this knowledge about the area, that I knew where everything was. Then, of course, fate decided to kick me in the balls yet again.

Did anyone else know that the Trocadero metro stop is currently under construction? I didn't. And I didn't realize it until the metro told me so... about 10 seconds after we had breezed through what was supposed to be my stop.

So here I am, already late. I get off at the next stop, and where it had been 60 degrees and sunny the last time I saw Nick, this time it is 40 degrees and raining. And I am wearing a skirt. A short skirt. When I come up above ground I realize that I am deep in the heart of the 16eme arrondisement... the richest neighborhood in all of Paris. Gigantic stone townhouses peer down at me, a speck on the dark and empty boulevard. Certainly no taxis are close by. Instead, the wind is whipping all around me as I whip out my Paris Practique... but it's 2 blocks and 10 minutes later when I realize I read it wrong (again) and am heading in the wrong direction.

How did I realize this? I looked behind me and saw the Eiffel Tower at my back.

So cut to me running as fast as I can through the 16e arrondisement of Paris towards the Eiffel Tower. My hair, which had been up and nice and all that, was now damp and falling all over the place. My flats were clacking on the pavement, and my dress was probably up around my shoulders. Then finally I make it to the back of the Trocadero, slide past the mini Eiffel Tower sellers, and around the corner, where I am met with this:



Again, I didn't take this picture myself. And again, a picture in no way does the experience justice. But even so.

So where was I? Oh yes, running though the Trocadero. Across the top, past the restaurant we were going to in the first place (pause for loud groan), down the stairs, past the fountains (okay, I did stop to catch my breath a few times, yes), across the roundabout (whoops), and over to the carousel to meet my friends for some bisous, only 20 minutes late.

Of course, we had to hike back up the stairs to make it to the restaurant. BIG stairs. I was feeling silly and strong at the same time, not to mention hideous after my workout, so I was making silly demands like "we can't go here unless we get all 3 courses because this restaurant is too nice". It was in the freaking Trocadero for crying out loud. But then I recognized myself as the whining Rachael who followed Casey around all those years telling him not to do things, and I said fuck it, and in we went.

Of course, with Nick being fluent in German and Allison possessing only a basic classroom French, I became the translator of the evening. And I pretty much rocked it. The ask-them-their-own-questions method is working better than I thought it would. And as for the English conversation, it mostly revolved around love-lives and juicy gossips, which is nice every once in a while. Also, we spent an absolute fortune, but it was fabulous. Wine, shrimp soup, duck, creme brule... and a wonderful story to tell afterward.

Of course, when we got out of the place it was raining, absolutely freezing, and the metro was already closed. Thus, we had our bisous in the street as the cab pulled out of the roundabout to pick me up. The cab was cozy, too, and I wanted the ride to be longer (I do love me a good car ride). Oh, and yeah, for the record it felt good, as it always does, to have my little French conversations with strangers: Bon soir. Le metro Pereire, s'il vous plait. Non, je ne me souviens pas l'address. Mais, si vous connaissez la rue Laugier? Bon. Merci.

Sometimes Paris is my city.

...

Also, if you don't understand how funny meeting someone at the Trocadero is, watch this. Watch this and then feel ashamed that you haven't seen it before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjp3MAcfmps

Can you say Zahners?

How strange it is that immediately after Natalie came and visited me in my city, another American friend showed up not long after. I'm hoping this is a general trend and by the end of next week you will all be chilling with me in the new park I discovered the other day, completely by accident:

Leave it to me to find an immense English garden
in the middle of France.

So as I was saying, Nick Zahn came to Paris this week. Much like Natalie, he was here for other reasons--des petites vacances avant qu'il went to Vienna to visit the host family he lived with when he studied there in High School. Must admit, I was a little nervous about the whole hanging out with people I haven't really talked to in years thing, but I don't know, maybe it's the Montmartre air, but the minute I stepped off that metro last Monday we were chummy again.

I met first of all his roommate Allison, who is quite lovely, and then I demanded a sandwich. We got them from a corner shop just down the block from the Moulin Rouge, and when the young guy behind the counter found out I was a student and not a tourist he not only started up a little conversation, he did not get angry when I had no idea what he was saying and just stumbled along making a fool of myself. See, as my french comprehension skills improve, I've gone from just saying "eh?" and "je ne comprends pas" to understanding most of what they're saying. So, in fits of courage I usually refuse to admit I don't know what's going on, and instead I now just repeat their questions back to them.

Example:

French Person: Est-ce que vous... blah blah French... ce matin? (Do you ..... this morning?)

Me: Pardon? Est-ce je veux quelque chose ce matin? (Excuse me? Do I want something this morning?)

French Person: Est-ce-que-vous-voulez-UN-BOISSON-avec-le-croissant-ce-matin??? (Do you want a beverage with your croissant this morning?)

Me: Non, merci.

Now compare this to the conversations I had before...

French Person: Est-ce que vous... blah blah French... ce matin?

Me: EH? Quoi? Desolee. Je ne comprends p....

French Person: ... *sigh* *eye rolle* You Want DRINK??

Me: Non... merci...

See, if you give up and just say je ne comprends pas to these people, they'll not only stop speaking French to you and switch to English, they'll usually be kind of rude. But if you just say most of what they just said back in their faces without actually answering the question, they'll be not only more inclined to repeat themselves again more slowly and in French, they'll also probably be too confused to do anything else. Meh, it's an improvement.

Of course, I should add that this nice french man behind the counter was not only not rude, he was definitely hitting on me, even after I spat his questions back in his face. Something about wanting to talk to me parce que le jour est joli et vous etes jolie. Ah, France.

So, sandwiches in hand, we walked the only way one walks in Montmartre, that is, up. It looked like I knew where I was going, but really I was just following the elevation. We passed Le Moulin de la Galette en route, and I think Renoir did some false advertising or something because it did not look at all like the way he painted it:

Still, 'twas cute.

We eventually we made it to the stairs at the foot of the Sacre Coeur... I don't think I need to tell you all again just how much I love this place. It was better this time though, warmer.. more chilled out. I was with 2 people this time, and smokers too so we just fit right in, plopped ourselves down in the middle of the crowd and let the sun warm our faces as we looked out over the city. And sure enough, cute musician who doesn't know the words to the English songs he sings was there too. Life was good.


Eventually we let the momentum take us down the hill and back to the metro. We got off at Chatalet (it's fun to play tour guide), and walked along the river for a while alternating between those book-and-map-and-trinket vendors all along the bank and the pet shops. Seriously, there is a two block stretch on the right bank just west of Point Neuf where almost all the stores are garden stores spilling flowers all over the street... and in between those are the pet stores. Not unhealthy, poorly treated piles of sad animals you can't save pet stores, healthy, happy, Parisian pet stores. Some of them even had chickens. One of them had bunny rabbits, and I really really wanted one. Can you say happy place?

The goal, of course, was to get to Notre Dame. I had to show my baby off. We sat outside in the square for a while--smoking, waiting for people to finish going to the bathroom, and staring at cute French boys (actually, this had been the activity of choice all morning). At one point Nick was telling me some story but then his words were drowned out by the sound of the bells. When they calmed a bit I said to him what became the quote of the day: remember that time our conversation was interrupted by the bells of Notre Dame?

Well Do You?

We walked through the church, and I enjoyed seeing the look on Zahn's face as he made his way... he agrees with me that there is something special about this church, other than the obvious it being the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. Not too much happened after that. I took them over to Shakespeare's and we toured it briefly listening for attractive non-American English accents instead of books, and then walked down the Blvd. St. Michel to Cluny-La Sorbonne where I boarded the metro. Overall, a surprisingly amazing afternoon.

When I got back to the 17eme I was just in time for my own dinner party. Madame was out of town for the evening, and so I invited (with her permission!) Jen and Jenn over to the apartment to make food and sit around in an apartment not infested with Madames. Living in someone else's house wears on you, obviously, especially when you've been living on your own in your own tiny apartment for years and years. My Madame may cook for me and bring me candy and ask me how my day was, but she also peels my avacadoes for me in front of company. She takes the spoon out of my hand and stirs my hot chocolate for me when she thinks I'm doing it wrong. She makes me postpone my walk for 15 minutes so she can sit me down at my desk and make sure I buy a ticket to the opera that afternoon. She's sweet, but a little tough to bear, and Jen and Jen's Madames aren't much better. Suffice it to say that it was a very chill evening with music, kitchen messes, and a bottle of 5 euro wine (the good stuff) that was gone in an hour.

If only all Mondays were such a success!