The Chichimeca goes to France

The continuing adventures of your favorite Chichimeca, a.k.a. the mysterious "Mademoiselle X", as she takes on the Fifth Republic with the aid of the intrepid Monsieur B!

Monday, June 12, 2006

Voilà L’été!!!

I made it to Paris late Saturday morning (VERY early Saturday morning California time). I'm still working on the whole sleeping through the night thing. It's hard too because the sun rises a little before 6 am and doesn't set until almost 10 pm. So it's basically always day for me, but day is actually night? Anyway, I'm going to have to gradually cut down on the naps.

The weather is beautiful, in the 80's and sunny in the day and in the 60's at night. It's a lot of fun to go strolling around town, although the sidewalks and cafes are a bit crowded.

Saturday I mostly adjusted to the new time zone. I'm staying at M. B's place in Montmartre in the 18th arrondissement. It's a great neighborhood a stone's throw from all sorts of shops that specialize in wines, cheeses, fresh produce, charcuterie, etc. M. B prepared a tomato, mozzarella, and fresh basil salad for lunch, which we followed with California chocolate, fresh cherries, and espressos. Then we took a walk around the Butte and took in the spectacular view of the city from the front of Sacré Coeur Basilica. There were a ton of tourists and some self-styling guitar heroes singing an annoyingly earnest version of "No Woman No Cry" (I won't if you promise to stop singing!). But it was very relaxing on the whole. Later that night M. B topped himself at dinner with a dish of rabbit marinated in red wine with vegetables and tagliatelle pasta, and cantaloup for dessert. Sunday we met up with some of M. B's friends to go to an outdoor dance on the Canal St. Martin near la Villette. There was a band with an accordion, fiddle, drums, upright bass, etc playing traditional folksy music and waltzes on the bank of the canal. Afterwords we grabbed a outside table at a cafe a bit down the canal and had an apératif followed by a salad for dinner.

Today is a little more normal. The cable guy came by to install a new phone line for M. B (and luckily was able to help us figure out why his cable modem wasn't recongnizing my computer). It was kind of cute to hear the two of them being very polite to each other (lots of "Bonjour monsieur! Merci monsieur!". Not your typical Cox Cable tech. I'm going to do some dissertating now, but will be back with the news on Thursday. I'll try to get some photos too!

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