two nights in paris

it has been a while. i apologize. i have not been avoiding you. i promise. yes it is true we are in paris. after a stint in amsterdam and a stop over in a small city called quimper in brittany france.
but i dont care much for iteneraries or todo lists. or all that.



paris, day 1:
paris is big. dont you forget it. and so when we arrived sunday night from quimper, having just been issued a pair of 20 euro fines for not having reservations on the trains. i guess in france its required. and after riding a good 3 hours on tiny booths in the diner car, we arrived in paris. after 10 pm. since we had ben camping in quimper i hadnt had internet access, so i hadnt contacted our proposed host in paris. nor did i have an address. he said to met him at his bar if we arrived before 9 pm but it was too late for that. all i had was a phone number. so i tried my cell. out of minutes. tried the pay phone, wont take my card. tried caras cell, out of batteries. so we sat in the station for a couple minutes. lets try to find a phone card.
in every trainstation ive been in there is a magazine store called relay. we bought a card there for 7 euro. and returned to the phone to make a call. not only did it charge me 4 of my 50 calling units. but he didnt answer his phone. so i left a message. over the course of the next half hour i left four messages. to no avail. we decided to head to his bar anyway figuring that he probably lived nearby. so we took the metro there.
closed.
dark street.
lets call again.
nothing.
dont panic. we can find something. lets see that lonely planet book. does it list hostels? no. theres a hotel nearby. maybe we can try that.
call one more time.
ok.

i stepped into the booth, dialed, ring, mind racing with possible catastrophes, ring, certain that there would be no answer, ring, trying to focus on a solution, ring, what's open this late?..

oui? hello?
my god! cirilo! man its good to get ahold of you.

so we braved the metro once more and through a complex series of exchanges arrived safely at a mcdonalds. wondered the dark alleys for eternal minutes. a few shady characters. or was it my imagination. paris is a big city to be lost in.

HELLO!

from down the street a scarved figure advanced towards us. at last, cirilo.

(word on cirilo. he reminds me siginificantly of jayr. a relief for the familiar. i felt a kinship immediately. but then i was tired and growing desparate.)



paris day 2:
we did some things yesterday. namely the louvre and the pompidou. choosing the safety of four walled museums to the bludgeoning frostbitten summer rain. and of course the louvre was of course breathtaking. and the pompidou was open for interpration (as modern art always is. dont be afraid to stick it to modern art. after all they stuck it to you.) we purchased some overpriced chinese food for lunch. were severely disappointed as we stuck the plates in the microwave, and even more so as we chawed on stale meat. found ourselves in the midst of a parisian twilight and headed for champs elysees, the magnificent shopping street topped by the arc de triumph. a glittering spectacle beneath the black blanket of night.
we found what we searched for. a cinema. with a showing of the science of sleep at 1010. michel gondrys new film. we tingled with excitement. even when the ticket girl told us. a third is in french, you wont be able to understand that part at all.
so we walked up the avenue and back. stopping to photograph. napoleons monument to ego. searching in vain for candy to sneak in the theater.
we returned just in time found near perfect seats and waited through a scroll of french trailers.
i wont give a movie review here. but i will say that ill be in line to buy it when it comes out. yeah it was great.

but the meat of the story comes now. it is midnight. we catch the metro back to the north side, where we are sleeping. i call cirilo.

oh man. im not home, im in paris. what happened i called you five times?

(oh no)

(he was supposed to call me so we could meet up and get a spare key. thing was i didnt have my phone. i tried calling him several times, but failing to reach him decided to go the movies anyway. now hes at a party in paris, and we're locked out.)

so we got in the stairwell, climber four flights to his flat, and waited. and waited. it was getting cold. we ran out of things to say. i tried to lean my head against the door frame to sleep, but was kept awake by caras intermitent. oh my goodness. i dosed and woke. stood. my butt was sore. and finally. as dawn approached and i again approached that daunting state of mind called sleep....

:chk:

the lights flashed on.

hes home, i whispered. haha, at last. and its only 430.

we greated him with warm embraces.

* * *

and thus concludes our first two nights on the streets in paris.



a mexican carnival in quimper.


bss in belgium.