goodbyes, near misses and dumb luck

today and yesterday were largely days of goodbyes. Leslie and Aubrey moved into their appartment on yesterday, paul left this morning back for dublin, and Chrissy took the train to her new host family (hopefully the owners of a yellow car). Still, we managed an excellent meal of tex-mex french style with the Village People playing in the background. That and naturally another night or two at the pub.

Speaking of which. Rum in paris is not "normal" rum. If you ask for rum you'll get "Rum Labat" which seems to translate roughly to "paint thinner". you have to specifically ask for becardi. Figuring that was the odd quirk for this particular pub we set about trying to prove whether rabits where rodents are not (we settled tentativly on not) and learn some good Gaelic words (I remember the word for water and goodbye, but that's about it). About an hour into the evening the bartender starts roping off an area with toilet paper, we figure it's for a private party. Instead they stage a murder there for some student film or art project, we get to be props, it was fun.

So near misses, Sarah and I set off with a new arrival this afternoon for the Rodin museum (having finally located it) only to find it closed for the day and heavily under construction regardless. The gate keeper was nice enough to let me sneak in to grab a shot of the "gates of hell" which has a small rendition of the Caryatid statue in one of the upper corners. I thanked them and we headed off to find the wax museum (too expensive for what it was), the moulin rouge (plenty of pictures, but no shows) and another visit to Sacre Coeur (the afore mentioned church I couldn't spell nor pronouce). I got plenty of shots on the way up the hill but found out I'd left my extra film at home once we got to the top. No matter, I'll just squish it in with everything else tomorrow (it's going to be a busy day).

Finally, the dumb luck. I'd been looking for a particular cel phone available largely only in europe. Having stopped in several stores I finally found one that said that no one in france carried any of those phones at all. Undaunted I tried on more shop and they had it. The shop was, of course, located snugly between the Sex-O-Rama and the all leather facemask shop (it was by the Moulin rouge).

So now it's home to drop off crap, pick up film, figure out dinner and see what to do tomorrow. Sarah leaves at around 7:00 then I come back and pack, it seems paradoxically like I've been here forever and yet the time has gone too quickly. Just a price of travel I suppose.

Sest Le Vie