Paris II

I managed to "stumble" upon the Notre Dame cathedral. I was very, very impressed. There was a choir rehearsing and I sat there for over an hour listening to them. Unbelieveably gorgeous, absolutely wonderful, save all the camera flashes (what do people do with all their pictures of the Notre Dame when they get home?). I also explored the Ile de la Cité--found many, many beautiful things to admire--and then crossed the Pont Neuf and sort of grazed through the Champs-Elysées. I was at that point very hungy and with sore feet, so I wasn't very diligent about soaking it all in, but I shall return. Here's another pic:

I spent a day exploring the Marais, which I found to be mostly closed on a Sunday, and later ate the greatest baguette of my life. I came home and tried to make a fish dish that was decent, but the name of the fish was lost in translation and what I cooked wasnt' exactly what I was expecting. Monday was my birthday and I--well, my Dad--treated myself to a new pair of shoes from a really wonderful little shop in the Marais which my aforementioned friend Matthew had reccommended. I complained to the sales person of my sore feet and he told me that the shoes I was wearing were almost three sizes too small; these were the shoes that were giving me such grief in Barcelona and Venice. In any case, his parting words were, "Walk better!," and since then I've had no problems. My friend Linnea--who is a friend of Kathryn's from Mt. Holyoke--lives in Paris and invited me over for dinner that night; her boyfriend, who along with her and her other friends who were present had all recently graduated from Le Cordon Bleu, prepared one of the most memorable dinners of my life.... this porcini mushroom risotto was really something worth hurting yourself for. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Here's a pic that was taken towards the end of the evening, obviously:

And at some point on Monday I had my first run-in with a really, REALLY rude French woman. I won't go into the details, but I want to mark it here as a kind of expunging so that I will stop dwelling on it.

And a great deal of today was spent recovering from last night's fun. I did manage to meet my friend Ilsa's friend Joe, who had all kinds of nuggets of advise regarding Paris and the French and who was also a pleasure to meet. I made some Indian for myself for dinner and am just about to go to bed.

Bonne nuit!