Day 15 - Two Birds

Today was started as a stressful day. It was moving day for our little traveling caravan, and we were not ready. Moving day may not seem to be a big deal as we haven’t mentioned it much, but it consists of us carrying all of our possessions downstairs, which usually takes about three to four large trips, re-packing and re assembling the trailer, finding our new place, and traveling across the city with the trailer, and this morning we did not have a new host. Our host, Florence, was poised to leave town on a bike trip to visit her parents second house in Normandy. We were invited, but Normandy is in the opposite direction from Brussels, and it is too soon for a departure from Paris. As usual, on days of import or that require action, we woke late. We didn’t wake up until 10:30 which isn’t bad for us, but our host had been up since 7:00 - a weird position to be in when her apartment is a one room flat where we sleep on a couch that folds out into a bed three feet from her’s. Anyway we woke up, began to pack our things, and begin our exodus which first required a trip to McDonalds to see if anyone wanted to host us when two great things happened: first, Florence made us some breakfast for the second day in the row; and second, she announced that she planned to leave this evening to see her boyfriend who she had hoped to see last night, since he just returned from holiday, but that we were welcome to stay the night and that she would be leaving tomorrow morning for her parents AND that we could just leave the key in the apartment when we left tomorrow or even just stay the next night as well. Florence has gone beyond being hospitable. For me, I almost feel guilty allowing myself to do what she invites us to do because it seems too generous. Needless to say, our day started off much better than we assumed, and we left Florence’s place with plans to visit the Arc de Triumph, Notre Dame, and Musee de Pompidou instead of being encumbered with our luggage.

Speaking of our luggage, we have been contemplating shipping some extras home, but really have no clue what we don’t need. The reason for wanting to do so is that it is so cumbersome to move into someone’s place, and the trailer is so difficult to manage on hills of any notable size; however, we have no idea what to send home except some t-shirts and a pair of pants which seem hardly worth the effort. All this said, the trailer, in some ways, was a great idea that allowed us to find great-inexpensive bikes to bring, but it is far from ideal.

So we began another day as tourists. Today was hot and sunny in Paris; we made it to the Arc de Triumph where I already needed sunblock. The arc is bigger than we both thought, but, other than its notable size, was pretty unremarkable so we headed down the Champs Elysees toward Notre Dame where it was pre-decided to climb to the top of the bell towers in order to take some photos of the city as well as to see the upper levels of the cathedral. The cathedral was exceptionally crowded and was not nearly as impressive as the comparatively desolate cathedral in Amiens, but we waited in line and made our way inside only to find that the interior was also upstaged by its names-sake in the north. After bustling through crowds we returned outside, found and ate lunch, which included espresso ice-cream, on a park on an island in the middle of the Seine. We then attempted to visit the Pompidou museum of modern art only to find that what was promised to be free to us was only free if we were EU citizens, in our case it was 8 euro each. The bookstore sufficed after this discovery and was in fact quite impressive. With our planned day coming to an end, we decided to re-visit Notre Dame after having found money with which we could, in the usual Catholic fashion, use to buy our ascension. We were too late. The towers were closed. Alas, we went back to Florence’s.

After buying groceries for the nights dinner which included french-fry BALLS and lots of cheap wine, we arrived at Florence’s door and heard something that stopped us dead in our tracks which were predestined to lead us inside. Florence was home, and Sex in the City was played loudly from inside. Florence, if you will remember, was supposed to be at her bofriend’s for a rendezvous after he had been on holiday for a while. Were didn’t know what to do. Do we open the door and risk interrupting what Florence wasn’t’ able to do last night because of her boyfriends work schedule? We risked it and found that Florence was in fact home alone and her boyfriend was still at work which was not ok with Florence. She was again upset and feeling stood up. So we offered our wine and company as a distraction which she matched with wine of her own and a quiche with French goat’s cheese. Although we had had a very similar concoction the night before, we were grateful and talked with Florence about France, America, and their people for quite a while until she left for her parents empty apartment in the city from where she planned to start her journey toward Normandy to meet them. We may not see Florence again since she won’t return until Friday which is looking more and more like the date for our exodus from the city, but Florence said that she was happy that we were around which made me feel much better about her overwhelming hospitality. Not long after that, probably due to the cheap wine that we had bought, Alyssa and I fell asleep.