Paris - Day 1
Sunday 2010-04-25
I feel so alone. Which I guess was the point.
One does not travel to a country alone, not speaking the language, expecting anything else.
But still.
I am eating dinner at the Café Bata’clan. I was attracted by the vibrant facade, a fool’s motley of pastel. I felt like an idiot trying to order, eventually pointing and grunting at Tartine du Chef.
I still don’t know what it is.
I won the “single-serving friend” lottery for the second time in my life on the flight from Seattle to London. Matilda di Torino (she was from Torino, never got her last name) was consulting a guidebook to London when I found my seat.
She was moving from Vancouver to London, being employed by the Olympics in some capacity (she started in Torino). Really fun to talk to, as we compared notes. I neglected to wish her luck flat-hunting, which brings me to the next point.
I am never eating Asian food before an international flight again.
Especially the kind that has been stewing under a hot lamp for most of the day, along with very sketchy fried rice.
Combine that with a window seat, and, well, the distress was at times epic, and at others frustratingly reticent.
And that’s all I’m saying about that.
