Rick and Jean's Paris journal. <br><br>
DISCLAIMER: Most of this will only be interesting to Jean and Rick.
But as Melanie says, "Whatev." <br><br>

<b>Mon Jan 6 2003</b><br>
Despite Jean's shingles and ear infection, the
doctor ok'd her to fly so we set off, leaving Bella with Rick's
mom and dad who drove us to the airport for our flight. To say Jean
was heavily
<img src="pills.jpg" height=150><br> medicated would be an understatement.
One of our suitcases was overweight so we removed a laptop from it which was
in a <img src="shoebox.jpg" height=150><br> shoebox, and
Rick used it as an additional carry-on, calling it his "purse."
 After a stop in SF we went straight (10.5 hrs) to Paris.
Airplane movie guesses: Rick thought "Yaya Sisterhood", Jean thought
"About a Boy" but we got "Good Girl", "Banger Sisters", and "Sweet
Home Alabama." Though it was silent we couldn't sleep much on the flight --
Rick due to excitement and Jean to sickness and fear that her ear would
explode -- so were forced to watch those movies, and 
Rick read cover to cover the entire Zagat's guide to Paris restaurants he'd
gotten as a Christmas gift. It was already clear that, like Melanie and
Denitza's Thanksgiving in Vienna, these 3 months in Paris were gonna be all
about food.
<br><br>

<b> Tue Jan 7.</b><br>
After landing and trying to "bring back the clap"
(i.e. applauding for the flight's safe landing, and getting only 1
taker), we waited an hour for our luggage. The delay was due to the luggage
door freezing, they said.
During the delay this young woman asked Jean, in French, if we knew
where she could get a phone card. Jean didn't understand but Rick
answered her in French and they had a little conversation before each
realized the other was American. 
Anyway, then we took the RER into the city.
It was FREEZING out, and Jean had hardly slept now in 2 days and was
very sick, and was in quite a mood, getting mad at Rick for
"making [her] nervous."
After Rick shoved the 2nd huge suitcase through the RER turnstile, his
ticket disappeared from the other end, which we didn't think
would be a problem but sure enough the ticket cop came by on the train
demanding 30 Euros from those who didn't have tickets.
Unsure what to do, Rick played dumb and pretended he'd lost his ticket.
When this didn't work, Jean said the turnstile had eaten it, and the guy
said "That's unfortunate.... Now pay me 30 Euros." Luckily Rick's dad had
given him some Euros left over from his last trip to Vienna, and also
Larry had given Rick a wallet with Euro coins for Christmas --
all these Euros came in handy on the bust. After arriving in the city
center we went straight to "A Parisian Home" where Anabela nicely welcomed
us and gave us directions to our apartment. She had a funny English accent
and we took bets where she was from; turned out S.Africa. She nicely let us
leave all our luggage there (which took up half the office) while we
grabbed lunch at "A Priori The", a nearby place Rick had spotted in Zagat's.
Though everyone else was just having tea and the food menu was tiny,
we had a delicious meal there: vanilla tea, pumpkin soup, salad,
raspberry tart, scones, toast, cream cheese, and lox. 
Rick had a little awkward moment trying to sign the credit card slip 
since there's no place
to leave a tip. (The waiter didn't understand Rick and just kept saying "Sign
there!") Guess you don't tip in Paris when you pay by credit card.
Either that or we're gonna be on the Paris Waiters' Hitlist by the time
we leave here.
Anyway, next we went and lugged our heavy bags on the metro and to the
apartment at 14 Rue Xavier Privas #1, right near the 
<img src="seine1.jpg" height=150><br> Seine in the
5th arrondissement. Fortunately right near the St. Michel metro station;
unfortunately that station will be closed from Jan 13 til April.
But another station (Cluny) is not far at all. Buying tickets for the metro,
the woman complimented Rick on his bright blue hat that Jean had knitted
for him. Melanie had said she'd pay "negative ten dollars" for it, but
Jean now says its "all the rage in Paris." The apartment is super-nice:
huge bed in a separate little room, living room with couch, stereo and
color tv, stocked kitchen and bathroom with plenty of hot water.
There's even a washing machine! It's really a dream come true esp
since we found it on the net. The only 2 problems: the tile floor is SO
cold it feels like you're stepping in icewater, and there's a heater
but it's right next to the window so it's hard to warm the place up.
Anyway, we were extremely pleased. We checked email at a nearby internet
place, telling family we'd made it ok (though we could only write
people by responding, since we couldn't figure out how to
type the "at" sign, and also the funky keyboard was
interesting: azqwm all in strange places). Then went to a "supermarket"
about the size of a car, which hardly had anything but of course
had like 30 different kinds of bread and cheese. Then we went
home and went to sleep -- somehow we'd survived the cold and exhaustion
and sickness and jetlag, and had stayed awake til 730pm.<br><br>

<b> Wed Jan 8.</b><br>
We woke up at 5:30am, ate bread and cheese, and went back to bed.
Rick got up at 130pm and went looking for stuff (adapters, slippers,
a heater, etc.) but found nothing. The shops near our place are filled
with junk like cases for cell-phones and plastic Eiffel towers that double
as pencil sharpeners. Rick returned at 3:30pm; Jean still asleep.
Rick went to the tourism office on the Champs-Elysees, and got only a phony
adapter (which didn't convert voltage) and bad advice (for slippers, etc
they said to go to this mall which the book said is the most expensive
in Paris). Rick went back home. Jean got up at 6:30pm finally, after
20+ hours of sleeping. Jean found some info on stores in the books
(we wanted to find something like Le Target) and Rick went to the local 
internet place and found more details. Brought back a delicious 
crepe au citron which we shared, while Rick expounded on the importance 
of getting a freshly made crepe rather than a pre-made. Then back to sleep.
<br><br>

<b> Thur Jan 9.</b><br>
Rick went out early (830am) to Rue de Rivoli and got lots of good 
supplies including adapters, slippers, candles, kleenex, heater, etc. 
The adapter situation is weird: at Radio Shack in LA they sold Rick these 
voltage converters which they said would work for France, but they don't 
fit in the plugs here. At the electronics store here (BHV) they said 
that they fit in the OLD French outlets which nobody uses anymore, and 
sold Rick these cheap little plastic things and suggested we break
them open and just use the top, to plug the Radio Shack things into
the plugs here. Needless to say it sounded pretty "sketch" as Melanie
says, but it actually worked perfectly. Asking for a heater, Rick didn't
know the word (knew it couldn't be chauffeur!) so asked for "une chose
pour faire plus chaud dans l'appartement" and they said "Un radiateur? Oui!"
Back home, Jean was feeling better and getting cabin fever so we went out to
lunch at "Relais de l'Entrecote" (another Zagat's rec) which served only 
one thing: steak and fries. Very civilized: they serve half, then when you're 
done you get the other half, so it's always piping hot. We tried to 
dress fairly nicely but the French people there were decked out; plus the 
first question they asked us ("how do you want your steak?") we couldn't 
understand, so we stuck out like sore thumbs. On metro back we saw a woman
who looked exactly like Carolyn Hampton, but about 18-20 yrs old -- 
figured Carolyn must have donated her ovaries on the streets for crepe-cash
when she was here as a teenager. Next Rick went to see the Universite
Paris VI and Jacod's office, but the whole 
<img src="jussieu.jpg" height=150><br> building 
was under construction
and Rick couldn't get in. So emailed Jacod and went home. Asleep at 630pm.
<br><br>

<b>Fri Jan 10.</b><br>
Our little blue "radiateur" is a life-saver. Works so well we call it 
"blue gold." Jean was feeling much better today and we both went 
to the tourist center to ask about museum passes, but they're only for
5 days max so we'll wait til Nan gets here next week 
because she gave us a list of what she wants to do when here and 
it includes almost every museum. (Also on her list was a boat ride 
down the Seine -- good luck with that!!! Don't think she quite realizes
how cold it is here.) We strolled down the Champs-Elysees a bit, where
it sank in like it hadn't before that we're really in Paris. The only
other feeling like that was when we looked over the Seine near our apt, 
and at the huge, extremely old and beautiful buildings right there. 
A Chinese couple tried to get Jean to buy Luis Vitton purses for them.
On the metro we followed this intriguing looking guy who looked
like the "Croupier". Ate lunch at "Dos de la Baleine": fantastic 
entrecote and so cheap we thought they'd made a mistake. Gotta like
the $13 prix fixe, including dessert and wine. Very few choices here 
in general, which we kinda like. Also it's just a given that 
you'll have wine; they just ask "Vin rouge, ou blanc?" The 
Japanese girls next to us didn't get the prix fixe thing and were having
major problems ordering. They asked the waiter, in broken English, 
to serve "what you think" and he said, in his thick accent, "I cannot decide
because I am not the one who will eat it," then turned to Rick and smirked.
When we came out of the restaurant, it was snowing! Really beautiful.
Next we went to the musee Carnavalet (history of France), one of the
few sites not on Nan's list. Free with our student/academic id's, but
just ok.  Most interesting part was our debate whether a person in one
painting was a woman with hair in a bun or a man with a hat. So cold here
Jean decided she'd knit a scarf, so on the walk home we asked in bookstores
if they had any books on "le crochet" and got quizzical looks. At home 
looked up knitting and found it's "le tricot", not crochet. That might 
explain the looks. Rick woke up at 130am to go to the internet place
for the lightning round. Generally, lots of mattel football and dominoes
and cheese and crackers and Rick's "un-tea" (boiling water with juice) and
 confiture and baguette and nutella going on, esp 
when we're up in the middle of the night.<br><br>

<b> Sat Jan 11.</b><br>
Saw Lord of the Rings (which Jean called "Roi des Circles") on the 
Champs-Elysees in the morning. Took every possible wrong turn getting there,
and ended up walking all the way around the 
<img src="arc1.jpg" height=150><br> 
Arc de Triomphe. On the bright side we got to see the Arc from
every angle. Figured out after the movie that Gollum is to the Ring as
Bella is to the Ball. We liked the part where the tree whose crown is 
burning dunks it into the river, but were the only ones in the theater
laughing. The French are quiet. Next Rick, wearing his Australia hat, 
returned his US/Europe adapter they'd sold him which didn't work since
it didn't convert voltage. They said "Ah, you're returning it because
it's for US and you are Australian," which Rick went with. Ate lunch
at Chez Marianne, an Eastern European Jewish restaurant -- really good,
esp the eggplant and kefta. Quietest such restaurant we'd ever seen.
French people hardly ever talk while they eat. Guess it's too important.
Our pistachio strudel was 1 percent strudel and 99 percent pistachio paste;
kinda nasty. Walked home through the Ile de la Cite, past the outdoor ice 
skating rink, the <img src="notre1.jpg" height=150><br> Notre Dame, and the 
<img src="seine2.jpg" height=150><br> Seine, got some
groceries and went home and fell asleep by 7pm. 
Like us, the 
Parisians seem to be hibernating in the cold weather. In our whole
apartment building we never hear any noise, and even on streets
like the 
<img src="germain.jpg" height=150><br> Blvd St Germain  
(shown here completely empty at 7:30am on a weekday),
you hardly see anyone except during daylight hours, of which there
are only about 4 or 5 a day.
<br><br>

<b> Sun Jan 12.</b><br>

Everything's closed Sundays, so we just relaxed, cleaned the apt, 
did laundry, got some groceries, checked email -- Nan told us Julie
is coming with her! That should be fun and the extra body heat will warm up 
our apt, which fortunately is easily big enough to accomodate all 4 of us.
Since most French restaurants were closed we ate at cambodian 
"au coin des gourmets" (there are lots of ethnic 
restaurants right around our apartment, especially Greek but also some
Asian, Italian and even Mexican). The cambodian place was good but 
even better was our crepe au nutella et banane afterwards. Then just read
our paris books, planned what sights we'd see this week a little bit, 
played dominoes, and struggled to stay awake til 8pm.  Jacod called Rick
and told him they're in a temporary building (while the other gets 
cleared of asbestos) and how to get there.
<br><br>


<b> Mon Jan 13.</b><br>
Rick met Jacod in the morning, while Jean searched in vain for Yarn.
Many tech problems for Rick trying to figure out how to send emails
(and this journal) we'd written on our MAC disks with our MAC laptop. Also
can't download our photos, and several other little problems. 
Found a good supermarket right near Rick's 
<img src="bureau.jpg" height=150><br> office. 
Everything's 
1/2 the price of 
elsewhere. Has a WALL of cheese, probably a hundred different kinds. 
Rick's not too big on the soft French cheeses by the way, though Jean likes 
brie a lot. However a big surprise was the French salami we got -- definitely
the best salami we'd ever had. Who knew the French knew salami?
Significantly warmer today than the previous days, so 
Rick walked home from work instead of metro and found it takes approx the 
same amount of time (30-40 min). 
We'd planned to eat lunch and watch the Aussie
Open on ESPN, but figured out that we didn't have ESPN but instead had
ESPN Classic, and they were showing not live Australian Open but the Open 
Final of Agassi vs Sampras from 5 years ago or so, just after the "strongest
man in the world" competition (in one event they had to drag cars). 
Fascinating as that is, we decided to promenade down the 
Blvd St Germain,
searching for a cafe where we could watch the tennis, 
and found little Asian-run Cafe Sagenetti with tennis on the tv. 
Every time we saw anyone
paying attention to the tennis we'd say, "Laurent?" and see if they turned.
Found a yarn store on Rue Monge (a very cool street), and did some other
shopping.<br><br>

<b> Tues Jan 14.</b><br>
Another nice warm day (high about 40F, instead of 25 like last week).
Watched tennis at cafe Sagenetti again, then saw the 
<img src="pres.jpg" height=150><br> St Germain des Pres 
church. We remarked that the profiles in the stained glass and sculptures
were a-la Jean's drawings -- profiles but the face faced you. Had an
interesting discussion about whether we believed that Jesus was 
visited by 3 wise men, and wondered whether 
they could've been a doctor, lawyer and rabbi 
and the 3 gifts bagels, cream cheese and lox, and the story just
got a little embellished. Zagat's restaurant we were walking to for 
1/2 an hour turned out to be closed Tuesdays (why?), so we ate at this
nearby Zagat's-recommended Greek place which was really good. Then Rick
went to work and to the weekly Tuesday seminar (in French, and the guy never 
once looked at the audience, yet it wasn't bad somehow), while Jean
shopped and knitted.<br><br>

<b> Wed Jan 15.</b><br>
Rick, still on a weird schedule, got up at 630am and walked to work, 
getting there at 7:15, only to find that the building only opens at 8 (so got 
a hot chocolate nearby). Came back home around 11, stopping by the yarn store
which now was filled with 80-yr-old French women. Jean knitted and read in
the morning. Then we went to Sagenetti where the tennis was on, and although
we'd ordered hot chocolates, they rudely changed the channel after about an
hour or so, to this boring interview that you couldn't even hear, as if 
telling us to leave!  Don't get it because we'd heard you could hang out in
cafes all day. Guess not in this one. So, then we walked down the Blvd
St Michel looking for another one and quickly found something like 
Cafe Soleil which we now call Cafe au Tennis, on the Ile de La Cite. 
After watching tennis there and joking around with the very friendly
waiter, we went to the 
<img src="pantheon1.jpg" height=150><br> Sorbonne and the Pantheon. 
Started to take the tour of the Pantheon but could hardly
understand anything and what we did understand was so boring anyway 
(mille-huit-cent-quatre-vingt-trois this, and 
mille-sept-cent-soixante-douze that), so we split off and did our own thing,
leisurely looking at the famous 
<img src="crypt.jpg" height=150><br> crypts 
and other 
<img src="pantheonstatue.jpg" height=150><br> sights there.
Were intrigued by the big crypt for Monsieur Bougainville, "Jardinier 
extraordinaire!"  After that we walked by the Jardin du Luxembourg but
it was closed, so we ate a crepe and strolled around. Walked down 
the Rue de Rivoli and Rue st Honore, and found the 
ultra-swanky hot chocolate place carolyn recommended we try on the 
swankiest part of the Rue de Rivoli, but it was closed. It started raining
so we called it a night.<br><br>

<b> Thur Jan 16.</b><br>
Rick woke up early and went to work; Jean slept in. Went to Cafe au Tennis
for lunch where waiter remembered us. Sat at the same table, but today
there was beaucoup de la circulation and chilly from an open door
from the adjoining creperie. Rick nonchalantly closed the door and later
the crepe lady and the waiter got in a huge fight and the only thing 
we understood was something about "fermer la porte" so we wondered if
it was our fault. Felt we were overstaying our welcome after eating lunch and 
watching lots of tennis so we left to see the St Severin church, and then 
searched for another apt for next month.
It was cold again today, too cold to do much sightseeing. 
En route we saw the Kuerten match still on at Sagenetti so despite our 
injured pride we caved in and 
went back in to watch the (disappointing) end of the match. 
You'll notice we're not mentioning the tennis results, perhaps because
all our players are losing. Especially Rick's. But we're also 
rooting for Melanie and Dad who are doing well. After that we just went to
one apt rental place, then  
to the internet cafe and home, grabbing a bite at a Greek stand 
near our place ("holding out for a gyro"). <br><br>

<b> Fri Jan 17.</b><br>
In case we weren't having enough computer problems already, UCLA's email
server went down all day. Rick to work in the morning, then in the afternoon
we went to cafe au tennis for lunch again (observing that they always play
Gloria Estefan there), then went around all day looking at potential
apartments. Decided our current one is the best we could find that would
do a short-term rental. At night, went down Rue de Rivoli (the Riv as we 
call it), considered seeing a movie but slim pickins, went looking
for this cafe at St. Gervais where supposedly you can play games; found
Place St Gervais but not Couteur St Gervais where it is. During our
search kept singing "Bain de Soleil for the St Gervais"; somehow that
didn't help. Had a nice walk anyway.<br><br>

<b> Sat Jan 18.</b><br>
We've been getting lots of good feedback about this journal -- think
the feedback is much more entertaining than the journal itself.
Went to an Awesome lunch today -- best meal yet. Bistro d'Henri, 
another Zagat's rec. Terrific saumon. We've noticed that French people
for some reason all seem to order the same thing, and it's usually
not what we'd even consider ordering. The other day at cafe au tennis
the tables near us ALL got flan, so we thought maybe they were out 
of their other dessert (profiteroles) but the 
<img src="waiter.jpg" height=150><br> waiter  said "Si, bien sur!"
Also, today we ordered salmon and chicken, and EVERYONE else in the
restaurant got pots of sausage with rice! Anyway, after lunch we went
to the St Sulpice
and then to the musee de l'orangerie but it seemed to 
be closed, so we walked through the 
<img src="tuileries1.jpg" height=150><br>Jardin des Tuileries, 
which Rick called 
<img src="tuileries2.jpg" height=150><br>Jardin de Pietro 
because that's where he (via Nuria) first
learned that Pietro was born (or as it that Silvia was
pregnant?). There were tons of dogs everywhere -- Bella would love it 
here. We got attacked by pigeons. Speaking of animals, in the meat 
dept at the supermarket they have a section labelled "cheval"!  
Had some hot chocolate at cafe Sagenetti and watched tennis, despite
their lingering attitude towards us there. Checked email and found 
out our Aimee Mann concert next month got cancelled. Got some vin 
chaud (Larry's suggestion, and a great one!) at cafe au tennis. <br><br>

<b> Sun Jan 19.</b><br>
Not much to do on a cold, rainy Sunday in Paris except sit in cafes and
watch tennis. But after today we've had enough and vowed not to waste 
any more time on that. We also went to a 
<img src="chabon.jpg" height=150><br> Michael Chabon reading at an English 
bookstore near us. About 50 people were packed
into the tiny room to see him. A translator read parts of his new book
in French. We helped out this nice Canadian woman who was stuck trying to 
move in to the apartment next door by calling her renter for her, 
our good deed for the day. Tried to see a mass at Notre Dame but missed it.
There must be lots of pedestrians run over in Paris. Normally the rules
are sorta like in New York: the cars enjoy the right of way and zip by, 
and it's pretty much never safe to cross so pedestrians ignore the 
signals and just run across whenever there's a break in the traffic. 
Several times we've seen pedestrians (sometimes ourselves) almost get 
run over by cars, even though the pedestrians had the little green man
telling them to go. No surprise there, right? But what we don't get is that
several times now we've seen pedestrians just go across an intersection
when the CARS have a green light, and every time the cars have just 
patiently stopped for them! I don't get how those jaywalkers survive here.
Maybe if you do it brazenly enough, it works? Anyway, we're not willing
to try that out.<br><br>

<b> Mon Jan 20.</b><br>
The French work ethic is pretty impressive -- Rick's been searching (and 
emailing) all week for the computer-guy at work 
to help out with all our computer 
problems but can't get hold of him. Today Rick caught him 
at 11am on his way in; he was gone by noon and didn't come back all 
afternoon. The post office right across the way from Rick's work is 
another example: it's open 
monday-friday, 12:30-4:30pm. 
In general people don't seem to work, check their 
email, or answer their phones much, nor do they have answering machines. 
Makes communication rather difficult. Or maybe everyone's just avoiding 
us. Il pleut so we stayed in this evening, holding out for a gyro and 
a salty crepe with emmental et jambon 
(pretty nasty but had to try it since all 
the French seem to love it). In addition to our psyche-ESPN which is 
actually ESPN 
classic, we also discovered that we have MTV only it's not MTV but "MTV 
Base" which plays Jay-Z every 5 minutes max, and constantly advertises for 
the British Urban Music Awards; we think "urban" is their 
euphemism for black.  
Our other tv experience was Jean's fascination with this show on BBC about 
scientists on an island competing to do tasks like predict the weather and 
build microscopes. Jean swears it's real while Rick likens it to 
Gilligan's Island. They also often show "Hollywood Stories" which we're 
both fascinated by. We've seen it 3 times now and it's always 
been on some hollywood 
model or actress who either gets killed or OD's. 
It's in French mostly and when the 
interviewees speak in English it has subtitles, so it's a great learning 
tool. Other important news: 
Jean's tennis rotisserie team had a big win today with El Aynaoui over Hewitt.
Evidemment another slow, cold rainy day.  <br><br>

<b> Tue Jan 21.</b><br>
WARNING WARNING WARNING! To all potential visitors: staying with Jean and 
Rick is no free ride! If you think you're coming for pleasure and fun, 
think again. The hosts mandate all guests to play a game to determine the 
lucky person who gets to write this journal entry. They typically choose a 
game which they have practiced many many hours and have created 
nonsensical and secret rules which no outsider can permeate. They derive 
great pleasure in tricking their guests into these crazy rules. It is 
analogous to a "gang jump" in which a young novice wants to belong, but 
must face torture to do so. However, not only have I (Julie) survived this 
gang jump, I came out the clear victor. Basically I kicked butt. However I 
wanted to serve a warning to all future guests that staying at this 
residence is no easy feat.<br>
Ok, as the big loser at our dominoes game, I (Rick) am delegated to write 
the remainder of today's entry. By the way Julie just proclaimed 
"I think that was some of the best prose 
in that whole journal." 
<img src="seinepaiks.jpg" height=150><br>Nan and Julie
got in this morning, and we 
went to lunch at delicious Bistro d'Henri where Julie ordered the poulet, 
Nan and Jean the saumon, and I, feeling adventurous, decided to go for the 
"rognons de veau nature", figuring it was some kind of veal. Turned out I 
got a big plate of something black and nodular and looking exactly like a 
big brain. We didn't know what it was. I tried it and it tasted a little 
like liver, only not as good. I couldn't eat it. We left unsure if it was 
liver or brain (Jean thought it was "quite cerebral") and just looked in 
the dictionary to discover it was kidney!  I didn't want to leave it all on 
my plate and insult the restaurant, so when the others were done I cut it up 
and spread pieces of it on their plates, telling the others, who were quite 
disgusted, "Dig in! There's plenty for everyone!" Anyway, next we went 
to the 
Musee D'Orsay
for some terrific 
<img src="orsay2.jpg" height=150><br>impressionist art, and then did a 
little shopping along the Blvd St Germain before having a light dinner in 
the Cafe de Flore where Sartre and other famous intellectuals supposedly 
hung out. We tried a croque madame and 
millefeuille (Melanie's suggestions) which were truly 
excellent, esp the latter. 
We tried to discover the meaning of life at the cafe but the best we could 
come up with, in French, was Jean's declaration that "tout est faux". 
Back at home, though Julie and Nan were exhausted, at 7:30pm, 
Jean and I forced them into a friendly game of dominoes to determine who 
would have to write the journal. And the rest is history.
<br><br>


<b> Wed Jan 22.</b><br>
La maison des conspirators!!!  After losing so sorely last night, Jean and 
Rick conspired against moi (Julie) tonight.  During the nightly torture 
ritual [dominoes], 
I saw them 
exchanging suspicious, devious looks and magically, they nearly shut me 
out.  Though I know I am the victim of "le grand conspiracy," I will take 
my loss with grace and dignity.  On the bright side, we had a glorius meal 
tonight.  After much hemming and hawing and fussing and fighting, we 
settled for a fromagerie.  We enjoyed it immensely.  We started off with 
the "assiette du fromage," which consisted of seven lovely cheeses, the 
worst being the Camembert, if you can believe that.
 Then Jean, une conspirator, and I ordered le 
fondue savonere.  Tres delicious.  Afterwards, we shared a creme brulee for 
dessert.  The meal ranked as one of "mes favorites de monde." <br>
I (Nan) am immune from the daily dominoes 
torture because Jean assigned me the task of 
finishing her scarf-knitting. I'm supposed to finish it before I go. 
However I am dictating this anyway out of a sense of duty.
After 12 hours of sleep last night I was very energetic all day and we walked 
to Notre Dame and Musee du Louvre and had a great lunch at Angelina which is 
well known for hot chocolate and Mont Blanc.  On the way there, on the Blvd
Saint Michel, Jean saved me from a gang of 4 pickpockets! Luckily she saw 
one of the girls opening my backpack and she yelled at them, and they just 
casually walked away. That's my entry!<br>
I (Rick) went to work today but met up with the others afterwards. 
At the restaurant tonight (Ferme St Hubert), the cheese was terrific but 
we ordered way too much and wanted to take some home. So I put 
some in a napkin and Julie snuck it out in her purse!  We're not sure if 
they noticed or not. On the way home from the restaurant we walked by the 
ice rink and the Hotel de Ville, 
which we learned is not a hotel but 
their city hall. Hence the famous phrase, "You can't fight Hotel de 
Ville."<br>
I (Jean) "dominated" the game tonight and thus don't need to write but 
just want it to be known that I am not at all involved in the 
cheese incident of tonight -- it was tres gauche.<br><br>

<b> Thur Jan 23.</b><br>
This is rigged!!! What started out as a "friendly" game of dominoes on the 
first night has turned into full-on war! After a wonderful day full of 
sight-seeing and great food, I (Julie) was again taken advantage of in the 
mandatory torture/dominoes game du jour. However, as usual I take my loss 
with dignity and grace and I will try to lift my head high even knowing 
that I was in the conciergerie for the daily torture. Again, we had a 
lovely dinner at 
<img src="chimere.jpg" height=150><br> Le Monde du Chimere
(The World of Daydreams). Though the 
decor was good, Rick agreed to go there. But he too enjoyed the evening. 
The highlights of our meals were Jean's endive potage, Rick's veal, and my 
apple-kumquat compote. The conversation was lively, the company was good 
and the food was delicious. A lovely evening. <br>
By the way, Jean's scarf is going very rapidly and smoothly and before long 
I (Nan) will finish it, and then I'll probably start a new hat. This 
morning Julie and I climbed up the top of the Notre Dame 
nonstop and there were 
more than 350 steps. At the top we saw Quasimoto's bell which was very 
impressive. After that we walked to St.Chapelle which was very beautiful 
and very impressive. Each windowpane has a story from the Bible, Genesis to 
the New Testament. Then we went to the Conciergerie and I was so impressed. 
Since I just finished reading "Marie Antoinette" I really felt the pain of 
her sorrow. After a quick lunch we walked to the 
<img src="picasso.jpg" height=150><br> Picasso museum where we 
met Jean and Rick. At the Picasso museum we had to compete with a bunch of 
children to view the art. But in my opinion the Musee D'Orsay was a much 
better museum than the Picasso. <br>
I (Rick) think Julie's "prose" has taken a turn for the worse.
 Something's wrong 
when your Paris journal entry is all about dominoes instead of the Notre 
Dame. So although I was the big WINNER at dominoes, I will write something 
anyway. This morning after eating our stolen leftover fromage and bread for 
breakfast I went to work and then met Prof. Bremaud for lunch 
at the "Ecole Normale 
Superieure" (doesn't that seem like a contradiction?) which is a famous 
research institution -- I saw where Pasteur did his experiments for 
example. Was on the late side so had to RUN about a mile to meet the others 
at the Picasso Museum and was dripping wet with sweat when I arrived. 
After the museum we had 
to wait an hour before the dinner restaurant would open so we shopped 
around, passing some interesting stores such as a charcuterie featuring 
a big 
<img src="cowhead.jpg" height=150><br> cow's head for sale. 
We also stopped for a chocolate muffin in a 
coffee shop that had a help wanted sign, so Julie pointed at Jean and told 
the workers there "ma soeur 
voudrait travailler ici" and they seemed interested and gave Jean some 
application info. <br>
Lots of shopping today including cute little specialty shops such as teas 
from around the world, a tapestry store, a chocolatier, a soap store, a 
paper store, and a store that had all this eclectic clothing such as 
scarves, hats, sweaters -- all things I (Jean) hope to be able to knit soon. 
Even though the French people seem to love their dogs (they walk them 
everywhere leashless and they're allowed in almost 
every store and restaurant), 
there are these funny signs at the parks that mean dogs must be on leash; 
however the 
<img src="nodogs.jpg" height=150><br> illustration
seems to say "dogs must not eat their leashes." 
It's quite interesting and certainly Bella would not be allowed at any 
of these parks. We miss Bella so much (thankfully we get Barbara's weekly 
updates of her on the web and see that she's doing fine without us)
and luckily she's not here to see how 
perfectly she'd fit in. 
<br><br>

<b>Friday, Jan 24.</b><br>
Victory was so close tonight! I (Julie) could taste it on the tip of my 
tongue. I spurted out to a great lead but was unable to secure the win. 
Again, Rick, out of nowhere, came back and beat us. A good win for him.
After the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, Mother, Jean and I had 
lunch at La Brasserie l'Ecole Militaire. I ordered the mussels and got 
about 60 of them! I savored each and every one of them and licked the pot 
clean. That was an excellent meal. Unfortunately we were unable to eat our 
dessert because Rick was waiting for us at the 
<img src="rodin1.jpg" height=150><br>Rodin museum 
so we told the 
waiter "pas de dessert" and he looked very stunned. Then we rushed off to 
meet Rick who had been waiting for us. We quickly toured the museum as the 
closing time was fast approaching. Then we had a little snack, shopped for 
a while, and went to the Souffle house where we were unilaterally denied, 
so we tried some new cuisine at Fish La Boissonerie. Unfortunately, I sat 
in the hot seat and was sweltering all night long; however the meals were 
very very good and we met a lovely Dutch couple who reminded us that we 
speak English in all 50 states. Upon returning home, Jean announced her 
crush on the Dutch man. <br>
I (Jean) really liked the Rodin museum. It was a beautiful day today so it 
was perfect for the museum which is half 
<img src="rodin2.jpg" height=150><br>outdoors. 
Unfortunately we ran out 
of time and planned to go back. However, we did learn that Rodin's lover 
(Camille Claudel)
had episodes of "frenzied persecution complex" and destroyed most of her 
sculptures before going off to an insane asylum. Went shopping for 
hats but couldn't find anything. Turns out these 
French people have very small heads. Dinner was fantastic and indeed I am 
in love with the Dutch man; however, I wasn't brave enough to ask him if 
he'd seen Austin Powers 3.  <br>
From Nan: While we were killing our time before dinner, 
we went to the 
<img src="hat.jpg" height=150><br>Bon Marche
dept store which supposedly has the best bookstore in the basement and Julie 
asked for a Mother Goose book and they didn't know what we were talking 
about. However we saw Grimm's Fairy Tales and Peter Rabbit books in French, 
as well as Where's Waldo, but instead of Waldo it is Charlie, and 
Maisie is Mimi here. Also 
the bookstore doesn't carry magazines here! <br>
This morning I (Rick) called the musee Picasso where I'd lost my nice 
laminated map of Paris the day before, but didn't know the word for map and 
guessed "carte" which I later looked up and found to mean "menu". Somehow 
they figured out what I meant anyway and did have it, and Jean was kind 
enough to go pick it up for me. Other than that I will inkove my executive 
priviledge and go to sleep instead of journal-writing.<br><br>

<b> Sat, Jan 25 </b><br>
What an unusual last day in Paris! For reasons unknown to man, in the 
morning after Jean and Rick left for the St.Chapelle and the Conciergerie,
Mother and I (Julie) got stuck in the apartment. We tried to open the door 
for 20 minutes but gave up. Thank God Rick and Jean were coming back in an 
hour or so to pick us up for lunch. While walking to our lunch destination, 
Rick kept on asking us, "Don't you know how to open a door? Haven't you 
done it before? What were you doing?" And we assured him that yes, we did 
know how to open a door, but for some reason, the door would not open. So 
we had a very filling lunch at Willi's Winebar, which at that time we 
greatly enjoyed. Then we took a nice stroll and went to the bizarre 
<img src="pompidou1.jpg" height=150><br>Georges Pompidou museum of modern art. 
It was very weird and I personally 
did not understand a lot of it. When we finished, Rick wanted to head back 
early to shower for the farewell dinner that Mother and I wanted to buy Rick 
and Jean. So, Jean, Mother and I mosied around the museum and walked home 
at a leisurely pace. As we climbed the steps to the apartment, we were 
eager to get in to set our stuff down and rest before dinner. But lo and 
behold, the door was stuck AGAIN!!! Jean pounded on the door for Rick to 
come, and Rick said "All right, all right, I'll let you in," and we heard 
Rick grab the doorknob and pull it, but the door did not budge one iota. 
So Rick and Jean were pushing and pulling and leaning and sweating and 
kicking and theorizing, but the door would still not open. As all this 
commotion was happening, the 2 waiters from the restaurant below just 
walked casually by without paying attention or offering help. Finally, 
after about 40 minutes, because we were all getting hungry and because the 
door was not going to open, Rick decided he was going to jump out of the 
2nd story window. So after one last try to open the door, Rick took a big 
breath, slowly exhaled, and started to make his way down. He agilely stuck 
out his right leg to a ledge which was turned at 45 degrees downward and 
reached his left arm over to grab a pipe while Jean was waiting below to 
catch him. Then Jean guided Rick's right leg on top of a cardboard box 
which was sitting on top of a recycled trashbin. After Rick got his 
footing, he got his other leg down and jumped off the trashbin. He raised 
his arms in victory. Then we 
<img src="victoire.jpg" height=150><br>walked
to our fancy meal. <br>
While we were locked in the room this morning, I (Nan) thought they 
INTENTIONALLY locked the door so I could finish knitting Jean's scarf!  
Luckily they came back to rescue us and it happened to be that the door is 
very temperamental and this had happened once before. So, my scarf is 
almost done and I wonder what kind of assignment they're going to give me 
for next week. <br>
The irony of today is that Rick and I (Jean) 
started off today at the 
<img src="conciergerie.jpg" height=150><br>conciergerie
which is the old 
torture chamber/prison of Paris. It's a beautiful 
building right next to the St Chapelle. So I guess the question of 
today is: Is it better to be locked in or locked out? We also went to the 
<img src="stchap1.jpg" height=150><br>St.Chapelle
 which was gorgeous. We had a wonderful 
<img src="stchapguide.jpg" height=150><br>tourguide
who was a 
little nuts. Her spiel was very insightful and entertaining and she was so 
enthusiastic, even the other tourguides were telling her to be quiet. 
(By the way, I really like the 
<img src="stchap2.jpg" height=150><br> St.Chapelle 
as it seems to have a feminist 
twist to it, with the stories of Judith and Ester given such prominence.) 
The 
<img src="pompidou2.jpg" height=150><br> Pompidou 
was fun, however both Rick and I got very sick of the audio guide 
which seemed to begin every explanation with "This artwork is a commentary 
on society...." We wanted to put our map on the floor and have it lay 
there as an artpiece itself, the commentary being that this was a 
representation of frustrated tourists. We pigged out again today, both at 
Willi's Winebar (which seemed to have poisoned all of us, especially Julie) 
and at L'Excuse. The food and service at L'Excuse are superior 
and they ended the meal 
with these wonderful chocolates. Unfortunately Julie was feeling very sick, 
maybe from Willi's Winebar poisoning, and couldn't enjoy the meal. 
It didn't help Julie to watch the table next to us 
chowing down on rognons! 
Also, when the desserts 
with the prix fixe dinners 
came for Rick and Mother, the waitress 
asked me if I wanted a plate (to share their desserts) and I asked for a 
menu, because I wanted dessert too! And everybody, especially the waitress, 
started laughing at me. It was rather karmic because 
there was also a mint leaf on my dessert 
which I gave to Julie and instantaneously it cured the violent illness she 
was having. 
All in all, a dramatic yet philosophical 
day.<br>
I (Rick) have been instructed to write my part quickly because the 
others are going to sleep. This day has made me appreciate the little 
things like doors opening and closing. It has also taught me that some 
things defy explanation. Maybe it was some kind of mystical phenomenon -- I 
just don't get it. Why would the door open for Jean and me in the morning 
without problem, and then not open for Julie and Nan moments later? And 
then open again without problem for Jean and me, an hour and a half later? 
And then it opened again without problem several hours later when I came 
home myself from the Pompidou (where I'd had my fill of shopping in museum 
shops afterwards), and yet not open just a half hour later when the others 
came back? And it's not like it just opens for me, because then I tried 
and tried and tried to open it and could not. Even after I snuck out the 
window, I went back up the stairs and tried to open it and again could not. 
Thinking it might be the humidity or something, we left the window open 
while we were gone for dinner, and when we came back, again the door opened 
rather easily. There are several reasons which I won't go into here 
why the humidity explanation doesn't seem very plausible. So the whole 
thing seems very perplexing to me. I doubt I'll sleep at all tonight, just 
thinking about it. Surprisingly the others all seem very content now just 
to be inside, not concering themselves with whys and wherefores, and just 
relaxing in slumber with the door just slightly propped open to avoid the same 
thing recurring tomorrow morning when Julie has to catch her flight. Very, 
very strange....<br><br>

<b> Sun, Jan 26 </b><br>
... And then there were 3. Julie left this morning, and Nan and Jean and I 
(Rick) went to the Notre Dame for mass. It was pretty amazing -- Melanie 
would especially love it since it combined two things she seems especially 
fascinated by: great music and interesting religious fanaticism. One of the 
priests there even tracked you down the aisle if you failed to put the 
body of Christ in your mouth at the appropiate time.
Then I went to this sort-of public gym to participate in their free 
<img src="pong.jpg" height=150><br> ping-pong tournament
for all of Paris. 
There were 2 divisions: adult and 
youths. There were 20 adults and 48 youths (ranging in ages from about 7 to 
about 16), and it was an extremely 
well-run tournament, with several shrinking round-robin pools. I came in 
5th in the adults, eventually losing to the winner and 
<img src="jacques.jpg" height=150><br>the runner-up,
to get eliminated. The guy who won was an old bald 
Vietnamese guy named Nguyen. His 11-yr son won the youth division. 
By the end there was a pool of several dozen spectators watching, including 
numerous people coming in off the streets to watch. The fans did the wave 
at one point. 
The most fascinating part was after the tournament was over: there was an 
awards presentation for the top 4 kids and the top adult, wherein they 
were given medals and paddles, and were kissed on the cheek by the MAYOR 
(that's right, the mayor!) of the 4th arrondissement!  Excusez-moi but 
where is Jim Hahn for our paddle tennis tournaments? Then cookies and 
champagne were served! It was a lot of fun and I think I 
spoke more French today than all the other days combined.  
While I was there, Nan and Jean tried to do some shopping (pretty futile 
though since it was Sunday) and took naps and then we all grabbed a quick 
bite and a delicious gelati. 
We're gradually regaining confidence in our broken door and are now 
closing and locking it with reckless abandon. 
One other note: the restaurants down our street (Greek and Mexican places 
mostly) all have people standing outside their doors trying to sucker you 
into their place, and it's funny how they try to guess your language. To 
Jean and her mom they usually say "Hello, ni hau, konichiwa" (never once heard 
them guess Korean), or some variants. Today I heard one say "Why not?" 
Like a greeting -- no hello, no how are you doing, just "Why not?" 
Got an email that Melanie and Rob will visit next month, which should be a 
lot of fun. Melz, just to anticipate, if you thought "sarong saright" was 
catchy, try "pompidou pompidont." <br><br>

<b> Mon, Jan 27 </b><br>
After work, I (Rick, tonight's dominoes loser due to Jean's "Heavy D")
met Jean and Nan at the
<img src="sacre.jpg" height=150><br> Sacre Coeur, where we went around the
cathedral and then grabbed a drink at probably the most touristy spot in
Paris and watched the Montmartre artists. Then we went up the enormous
but very thin
<img src="stairs.jpg" height=150><br> staircase to the
<img src="view1.jpg" height=150><br> very top 
of this 2nd-highest point in Paris (2nd
only to the Eiffel Tower) where we saw incredible
<img src="view2.jpg" height=150><br> views of Paris.
While I soaked in the beautiful
<img src="sunset.jpg" height=150><br> sunset 
on this unseasonably gorgeous afternoon,
Jean and Nan were busily 
<img src="taking.jpg" height=150><br>taking photos, 
some of which you see here if you
click on the links.
Not much to report after that -- we took the subway to dinner
at Le Coude Fou which was good, where we talked about Marie Antoinette,
then came back home and that's
about it. Coincidentally Le coude Fou means crazy elbow and at the end
of the meal when I was getting out of my chair I accidentally
elbowed the waitress! <br>
Finally, I found it! A hairdryer! While Rick was at work I (Jean) finally
found one and it works great.
<br><br>



<b> Tues, Jan 28 </b><br>

big news! my
<img src="scarf1.jpg" height=150><br>scarf is finished! it looks fantastic
and will certainly keep me
<img src="warm.jpg" height=150><br>warm now that the weather has turned a bit
chilly and rainy again.
woke up late, mother and i (jean) grabbed a
croissant and coffee and headed to the marmottan museum (monet) which is
across town. the marmottan is very nice. it used to be monsieur
marmottan's house. monet's son, michel, donated nearly 65 works of his
father's and voila! it's the monet museum now. the bottom floor is all
monet's work. much of it is work from the later part of his life. during
this time, his vision was not so good, and his work shows it. instead of
the soft, hazy pastels, this work is very dramatic and uses dark colors.
the second floor is mostly work of monet's friends, including pizarro,
morisot and renoir. i fell in love with berthe morisot's work. it's very
colorful and playful and there's one painting in particular that i love.
it's of a girl in a park with a skinny brown dog jumping on her.
after the marmottan, we walked to the palais de chaillot.
 there are two museums there: the marine/aquatic center and 
an anthropology/african museum. we
were starving, so we first ate at le totem, the museum cafe. it was
delicious and offered a terrific view of the effiel tower. after a long,
leisurely lunch, we went to get tickets for the museum and it was closed.
closed on tuesday, of course. so, we walked down to the palais d'art
moderne. an entire room there was dedicated 
to two of matisse's work, the dancers. i
liked the way the museum was set up: each room was numbered and housed the
art from the decade. basically, it traced the the trends of modern art
from the turn of the century to the present. however, by the end of the
museum, it was pretty sketch. for example, one installation looked like a
living room with a television on a shelf. playing on the tv was a german
man in s&m drag, laughing and eating eggs. very schprockets.
we metro-ed back to our place, did a little shopping and then rick came
home with groceries. he made a wonderful salad with cheese and nuts, a
great change of pace from gorging on cheese and chocolate desserts at
10:30pm. by the way, mother and i really enjoyed our lunch today but when
we came home and looked in zagat's we found that the restaurant had only
a food rating of 9. hmmm...i think rick may need to re-vamp zagat's
numerical analysis...<br>
For beginner's luck, I (Nan) won at dominoes! Julie: I'm gonna try to win
tomorrow, to break your record!
Now that I'm done with the scarf, tomorrow I'm gonna start a pair of
mittens.<br>
I (Rick) met with Emmanuel Roy at work today. He's very bright and
may be the next big thing in my field; right now he's just 
Bremaud's grad student.
Also, I wanted to take a photo of the cheese and the supermarket to capture
a sense of just how much cheese they have there, but could not come close
to fitting all the isles of fromage into one picture. So instead check out
all the
<img src="bread.jpg" height=150><br> bread and
<img src="yogurt.jpg" height=150><br> yogurt.
I'd say the amount of cheese is about
equal to these two put together. Same for wine. Pretty amazing, especially
considering the market's not really all that big and has little
except for those 4 items.
One other note: I can't get over how nice they are at the post office. They
are friendly and efficient and seem to enjoy their job. Maybe because
they're only open 17.5 hours a week.
<br><br>


<b> Wed, Jan 29 </b><br>
Freezing cold, rainy and windy today -- perfect day for Jean to stay warm 
thanks to her huge new wooly scarf.   
I (Rick, the big dominoes loser du jour) went to work this am to meet with 
Bremaud while Jean and Nan (the 2-time winner now) went to see the Paris 
Operahouse. We met up at the Rodin museum 
<img src="rodingarden.jpg" height=150><br> garden 
and walked all around it, 
then went to the nearby Invalides and Musee de L'armee. I 
borrowed Jean's scarf to warm up but the cold had taken its toll on Nan 
and me and when we got home at 6pm, we crashed and had to nap, while Jean 
went shopping for an address-book and pocket-folder. Held out for a gyro 
and homemade salad and tried to watch tv but the ghost of our apartment 
(the same ghost that locks us in from time to time) decided to turn off 
the Noah/Perfors match on ESPN Classic and after that the tv would not 
start up again. 
We made a reservation for the souffle place called Cigale for Friday night, 
and also for Jean and Nan's cooking class Friday morning 
where they'll learn to make bouillabaise, so lots more good eating is coming 
up.  <br>
One funny thing about French life is the washer and dryer. It comes in one 
piece, you put your clothes in, and it washes and dries them, but it takes 
FOREVER and doesn't dry it that well either. Usually in the morning when we 
leave the house around 10am, Jean starts the laundry, and when we come 
home around 5 or 6pm, the dryer is still going, and the clothes are not 
dry. Jean has unique terms, describing the dryness as "rare", "medium," or 
"well-done." I (Nan) think I like American washer/dryers better. We went to a 
large 5-story bookstore but they don't have a magazine section, so I don't 
know where I can find this magazine called 
"Fluvial" for my friend. <br>
the opera house is beautiful. it's so luxurious, with chandeliers, statues 
and mirrors everywhere. according to today's standards, it cost 2.6 billion 
to make. the entire ceiling of the theater is a huge chagall painting. 
outside the opera, i (jean) noticed a big women's clothing store was having a 
sale. i went in and got the most blanket-like coat i could find. it's so 
warm and fuzzy. mother and i went to lunch and did a little shopping 
at the galleries 
vivienne. we really like that place, they have interesting stores there and 
mother, of course, bought more stuff for serena. when we met rick at the 
rodin garden (near the statue of the 'burgers' as my mom says, which i 
think is really the bourgeois) rick immediately make fun of my jacket. 
and because i 
had my nice thick scarf around my neck, rick said that i looked like an old 
russian cossack. he kept calling me 'cossack' an laughing until it started 
to get really windy and cold. both my mom and rick were freezing, yet i was 
quite snug and comfortable. rick, who was only wearing a light sweater 
and a thin jacket, got so chilly that i lent him my scarf. he warmed up so 
much, nearly falling asleep on the metro back. by the way, the only reason 
why i say the laundry cooks is because there's some safety lock on it and 
the door won't open right after the cycle stops. the laundry just kind of 
stews in there. oh yeah, we also think our neighborhood crepe guy (whom we 
patronize loyally) is actually a ph.d candidate in linguistics. while we 
were waiting for our crepes today we saw him speak about five languages in 
two minutes: french, english, spanish, japanese...we've concluded that 
working at the creperie is his field study. <br><br>

  <b> Thu, Jan 30 </b><br>
Soit qu'il neige, soit qu'il neige, soit qu'il neige!  It
<img src="snow1.jpg" height=150><br>snowed today for
a long time: most of the afternoon and then
<img src="snow2.jpg" height=150><br>again at night.
Just gorgeous.
We went to
<img src="angelinas.jpg" height=150><br> Angelina's this morning and had their
ultra-thick chocolate soup and pastries, then I (Rick) went to work while
Nan (now the 3-straight dominoes champ) and Jean went to the Petit Palais
and then the Grand Palais but they were both closed, so they went to the
Musee des Arts Decoratifs. Then we met up for dinner at "Languedoc"
(the Donger), another
Zagat rec. By the way a big shout-out to
Millie who deserves some serious props for that indispensable Christmas
gift. I got this goose and beans cassoulet
which Jean thought was scary but I thought was
really good. Then we saw a free piano concert at this nearby restaurant. The
<img src="pianist.jpg" height=150><br> pianist 
was really great. We showed up a little
late and there were only like 20 chairs, and the only open ones were
right in the front so we got to sit there, literally 1 foot from the
piano. The guy was terrific so we put lots of
Euros in his little coffer but seemed like we were practically the only
ones. <br>
The same building as the Decorative Arts Museum had the Jacqueline Kennedy
Fashion during the White House which displayed over 100 of her designer
clothes and the house was so crowded with French women. Jean and I (Nan)
really enjoyed it. I finally found Fluvial magazine -- I'm sure Bob will be
very very happy. After he bought his houseboat, he has to invite me and
Jean and Rick who helped me find the magazine and then we'll all sail down
the rivers of France at a leisurely pace.<br>
One of my goals of this trip is to try every dessert at Angelina's: 3 down
and about 15 more to go. Once again my jacket and scarf paid off as
everyone was freezing today walking in the snow and I was quite content.
It was a Carolyn Hampton day: she recommended not only Angelina's but also
Pariscope which listed the free concert. So gotta give my girl big ups.
Not sure why we're writing in ebonics tonight; maybe 'cause it's late.
<br><br>

<b>Fri, Jan 31 </b><br>
Two weeks passed already -- today is my last day.
It went so quickly but I (Nan)
did so many things, including 8 museums and 2 gardens and 3 cathedrals and
4 monuments and many restaurants. Each restaurant was unique and I savored
every bite. But I think my favorite was L'Excuse and tonight's souffle house
called Le Cigale. Jean and Rick were very gracious hosts. They accompanied
me everywhere I went. This morning Jean and I went to our cooking class.
There were 10 people, 2 men and 8 women, and 5 were Americans. We made
bouillabaise and chocolate cake dessert. It was very gross to cut all
those fishes and we had to take the guts and hearts out. After we finished
all the cooking, we all sat down and had a great lunch. In the afternoon,
Rick and I went to the Jardin du Luxembourg and the Pantheon. The souffle
house has everything on the menu in souffle form which was very unique.
I think Jean's
citron dessert was the best. Somehow she has a knack of selecting the best
food on the menu. Overall I enjoyed my stay very very much. I cannot wait
until their next foreign assignment so I can visit.  <br>
One thing Nan forgot: it snowed again today! Very pretty, but man is it
cold. I (Rick) went to Alexander Cherny's seminar this morning scheduled for
9:15-10:15am though it lasted til 11am. I think the dinner at Le Cigale
tonight was the best meal I've ever had. Mom, look out: hate to say it but
their chocolate souffle left yours in the dust. And while I agree with Nan
that Jean's lemon souffle dessert was incredible, for the main course
I think my camembert
souffle and Nan's calamari souffle exceeded Jean's mushroom souffle. What
an amazing meal. It was so great that as we left we made a reservation to
come back with Melanie and Rob in 3 weeks.<br>
As the domino winner this evening, this will be brief. I (Jean) think it'll
be very
quiet around here without any visitors for a while, but Rick and I will
hopefully be able to fit into our clothes again.
At the cooking class this morning I was talking to this German woman who
has been living here in Paris for 10 months with her husband and dog. She
said in Paris, dogs are allowed everywhere except for the parks! Qu'est-ce
que c'est l'ironie ici?<br><br>

<b> Sat, Feb 1 </b><br>
Nan left this morning, taking her 3-straight dominoes champ title
with her. Toward the end she started trash-talking:
"I don't think about winning or losing; I just win." Jean and
I compared her to the Williams sisters. It was fun having
her here and I think she had fun too, though when we asked her if
she had a good time she said "Yeah, I did 18 of the 25 things on
my list."
It snowed a LOT today. We mostly stayed in and slept and cleaned
and decorated our place using photos of Bella and Indie from
mom's great websites. She should be an animal photographer.
Oh yeah we ate a lot too, of course.
I am still not getting tired of that goat cheese.
The tv's still on the fritz so we
went to the internet cafe and were stunned to read the tragic
news about the space shuttle exploding near Dallas.
Nan was supposed to fly into
Dallas on her way to LA; wonder what happened.
<br><br>

<b> Sun, Feb 2 </b><br>
On the 1st Sunday of each month
the museums are free so Jean and I went to the Musee Cluny, where we weren't
expecting much but were pleasantly surprised by the beautiful old tapestries
and stained glass from the middle ages. Probably won't seem funny to anyone
but us, but we were laughing about how in many of the religious tapestries and
paintings there seem to be a bunch of people in the back gossipping, and
we joked that they were saying "Rizzo a du pain dans la cuisine." As you
can see our francais is still not tres bon.
Got a crepe from the 
<img src="crepelady.JPG" height=150><br>
crazy old crepe-woman at
the cafe au tennis -- a young waiter came out and made fun of her saying to us
"she's my wife; isn't she beautiful?" and she replied "Ferme la porte!"
Then went to the Louvre and looked at the
16th and 17th century French art which was great. Took particular notice of
the many works by Charles le Brun ("Le good grief!").
<br><br>

<b> Mon, Feb 3 </b><br>
Rick got up early and went to work while I slept in. Read a bit and
went to Ecole Eiffel, a small French language school somewhere south of us,
off the Paris map. I only knew its local metro station and
walked around rather aimlessly and finally found it
after about thirty-five minutes. Got some info
and left to meet Laurent, a friend of one of my former professors at USC,
Velina Houston. We met at the Galleries Vivienne for tea. He is so
incredibly nice. We ended up talking for more than two hours. Rick met us
there too, since he was nearby at A Parisian Home, signing the
contract for the rest of our stay here. He claims that the women that work
there are full of crazy theories (even crazier than our ghost theory); for
example they think our tv broke because of the rainy weather.
Laurent is extremely friendly and
interesting. He is a writer for French television, some kind of NYPD Bleu
show and his wife also works in television for a popular cartoon show,
something like "Lucky Luke". Laurent's English is very good, especially
compared to our French. At one point he recommended a French movie to us
and said something like, "You'll enjoy it. It's like a silent movie."
Laurent also informed us
that things like Rocquefort (and other furry cheeses)
are not allowed in the States
anymore because they are "too alive."
Afterwards, Rick and I did some shopping (today was the last day of the
Soldes, nearly a month of sales in every store), bought some groceries and
came home and ate dinner.
Laurent has influenced us to be a
little more daring and stray from our conservative American tastes. Tonight
we bought some pretty moldy Rocquefort cheese
which was very good, yet as we
told Laurent, we still draw the line at rognon, a delicacy he, like most
of the French, thoroughly enjoys.<br><br>

<b>Tue, Feb 4</b><br>
Another cold, rainy day in Paris. I slept in this morning while Rick worked
at home, then we went to have lunch at Dos de la Baleine. We had eaten
there once before and really enjoyed it, the food and the ambiance. It's a
terrific three course prix fixe meal and today we realized that it's very Palm
Springs-esque. Seated behind Rick was a Justus Schutting look-alike.
As we left the
restaurant it started pouring down rain. We didn't bring a parapluie because
without a TV we never know the weather forecast,
and it was quite sunny outside when we left.
We got completely drenched. Rick went to work in the afternoon and
met a new visiting professor, Josef, from Vienna (we think he is a distant
relative of Josa and his tea-loving wife in California). At home, I
cleaned the apartment. Yesterday at A Parisian Home, Christophe, Monsieur
Fix-It, said he'd come by sometime with a new TV. When Rick told me this,
I said that most likely Christophe would come when we have our damp socks
and underwear hanging across the apartment. Rick said, "Of course, when is
that not the case?" So, I'm cleaning in an effort to increase our odds of
presentability.<br><br>

<b> Wed, Feb 5 </b><br>
what a bourgeois day! woke up late, very late actually, after noon for me,
while rick
did some work at home. i converted rick to crepes a cannelle instead of
his usual sucre or citron or nutella. we found out that
aimee mann's concert later this month, which we had bought tickets to, didn't
actually get cancelled but rather moved to a smaller venue called la cigale.
we went to see the open gaz de france women's tennis tournament,
hoping they had half day tickets. at the stadium
we discovered that one ticket is for all of the day's tennis, about
twelve hours' worth. so we got a couple and saw two great matches. the
first was stephanie foretz (fra) v. nicole pratt (aus). while they were
warming up, it seemed that pratt would win easily, but after several bad
calls by the linespeople and numerous thrilling points,
foretz won 6-2, 5-7, 7-5. the audience was in love with foretz, too,
breaking their usually eerie silence to cheer her on. the women behind us
were so into the match, throughout it we heard them yelling, "oh la
vache!" and being backseat coaches, "a gauche! a droit!"  the stadium
was so small and empty and for some reason
there seemed to be lots of kids
there. in fact, these two boys sitting next to us kept
yelling out, "allez matthieu!" and we realized
that they were cheering on their friend, one of the ball boys! even at set
points. matthieu would look up, really embarrassed. it was really funny
and so then rick and i started cheering for matthieu, too. the second match
was serena williams and a suisse woman, myriam casanova. it was neat to
see serena in action, she's so smooth, and casanova put up a good fight. we
saw richard williams in the stands, taking photos of his daughter. after
williams won, a french mc interviewed her and serena answered all of his
questions in french! we were so impressed. her french was not bad and the
audience loved it.
also, rick's trying to out-do his haiku from hawaii. however, i think he
should stop while he's ahead.
<br><br>

<b> Thu, Feb 6 </b><br>
 
First of all la poeme about our Parisian apartment:<br><br>

Great location,<br>
Nice and roomy. <br>
Metro station: <br>
Georges Cluny. <br><br>
 
At the market by my work today I found that not only do they have a
"cheval" aisle, next to it they have something like "autres" which contains
all kind of nice animal parts like "coeur", "rognons", and even "tete"!
Not much to report today but I want to comment a bit
on yesterday's tennis match between Australian Nicole Pratt and French
Stefanie Foretz. The calls were not just bad, they were horrendous, and
they made me understand how the home team could win the Davis Cup, or the
World Cup, etc. Afterwards Foretz thanked the fans, but the fans had
nothing to do with it: if she had thanked her immediate family the
linespeople would probably have said "You're welcome dear."  The worst was
the guy calling the service line. Basically anything Pratt hit near the
line was out. So she ended up having to serve really shallow and Foretz
would just whack her returns. The umpire over-ruled about 8-10 times, all
in Pratt's favor, and all deserved, so I think the umpire was fair -- it
was just the linespeople. Somehow it was a very dramatic match and despite
the obvious cheating it didn't really turn us off from watching tennis.
France's 2000
World Cup victory over Brazil, on the other hand -- now THAT was completely
fair.....
<br><br>

<b> Fri, Feb 7 </b><br>
Jean and I went to watch the tennis again today,
and since the only food they
have there are hot dogs and muffins, we brought our own.
Someone was in our seats so we felt justified in moving over into
the best seats, just inches from the players,
and nobody kicked us out so we got to stay there and watch
Hantuchova 
get mad and lose to
Dimentieva, 
and
<img src="dokic.jpg" height=150><br> Dokic 
get mad and lose to
<img src="daniilodou.jpg" height=150><br> Daniilodou,
both matches that the loser
probably should've won. Then
<img src="serena.jpg" height=150><br>Serena
 won easily and
Mauresmo,
a crowd favorite, fairly easily.
We were literally in the 2nd row and surrounded by men in suits.
The crowd was mostly French except for one guy who
recognized me from Gayley Ave in Westwood.
In front of us was this
40-yr-old woman we called 
<img src="fanatic.jpg" height=150><br> "The Fanatic." 
She was completely insane. During the first
match we thought she must be Hantuchova's coach, the way she was
yelling and pumping her fists and stuff.
But then after the match she asked Hantuchova for an autograph!
After every match tons of kids would file down to our seats to try
and get autographs from the players, and amid these crowds of kids
there'd be this one 40-yr-old woman trying to get the players
to sign their pictures in this huge book she had.
After Mauresmo won, The Fanatic was literally crying, with tears of joy.
She had a certain affinity with Mauresmo and not just because they're both
French woman interested in tennis, if you know what I mean.
We saw Matthieu, our ball-boy, and cheered for him.
Ate a quick dinner at a Chinese place and walked home a LONG way, over an
hour. Had to go to the bathroom REALLY badly, esp Jean, maybe the
worst she's had to go ever, but the public toillette wouldn't open
so we rushed home and made it just in time.<br><br>

<b> Sat, Feb 8 </b><br>
 
Well, we finally did it. We tried three extremely stinky
<img src="cheese.jpg" height=150><br> cheeses,
two of which were furry with mold (one was purely green on the outside). 
And, I'm
happy to report, we're both heathy and alive to talk about them. They were
all good, I liked the stinkiest one, it had a smooth, creamy, subtle
flavor; Rick liked the furriest one, a hard chevre that was like a
brick.
We ate these cheeses tonight with
<img src="laurentfatou.jpg" height=150><br>Laurent and Fatou.
They are a fun
couple and Laurent tried to teach us about French music while Fatou
prepared a lovely meal. For dessert we had the cheeses (one delicious
creamy one they had and two furry ones Rick and I had brought)
and "arranged" rum, a concoction Laurent had made with
oranges, lemons, cinnamon, vanilla and other fragant fruits and spices.
The rum had a really tangy flavor to it, though Rick and I felt like we
were both breathing fire afterwards. There was much lively conversation
all around tonight, even though none of us were 
completely fluent in each other's
language. Several of the stories were so animated that miming worked very
well, such as when Fatou told us about her pet monkey and dog that she had
as a kid. She said that the monkey was really smart and fast and hated the
dog. So while the dog was sleeping, the monkey would slap it and then run
away, and the dog would go crazy trying to catch it. Laurent is quite a
jokester, too. When  Rick and I had said that we wanted to try cheeses we
could only get in France, he said, "yes, but if they had those cheeses in
Iraq, Colin Powell would call them biological weapons of mass destruction."
Earlier in the day we went shopping to the fromagerie and found a tiny
bakery/patisserie near the Ile de St. Louis. They have France's answer to
the lebkuchen (pain d'epices), though these ones are either 
dipped in chocolate or some
lemon or vanilla frosting. Absolutely delicious! We bought some and then
went back about thirty minutes later for more.
<br><br>      

<b>Sun, Feb 9</b><br>
Another rainy Sunday. 
Like the good Jew and Protestant that we are, Rick and I went to the Sacre
Coeur for mass this afternoon. It was very different from the one at the
Notre Dame. Today, it was mostly singing led by about a dozen nuns and
just a very few words spoken by the priest who had an uncanny resemblance
to Harry Potter. Then we walked around the Montmartre area.
We were noticing that the ourdoor artists were very liberal 
with their artistic
freedom when it came to drawing portraits of people. For instance, there
was a young girl patiently sitting for her portrait and the artist was
drawing a version of her that looked about ten years older, wrinkled and
with sun damage. Rick said he was capturing her inner beauty. We wandered
further around the Montmatre area, Rob's favorite part of Paris, and wound
up on a big street filled with sex shops and peep
shows. Hmmm...
We metro'ed back to the 5th and went to a Chinese restaurant that is in
Zagat's. The soups were fantastic but the entrees were below average. I
don't know if it's authentic or not, but when the entrees were put on the
table, we weren't even sure if they got the order right. After dinner we
walked to the St. Germain area and got a gelati. Always a winner, even
when it's raining.
<br><br>

<b>Mon, Feb 10</b><br>
Last night I think I got food poisoning. And not from the cheese,
but maybe from the shrimp or possibly something else at the chinese
place. I didn't get to sleep until 7am, waking up poor Rick at 3am
to console me. (He did so by taking my eye pillow and putting the
blankets over his head before turning his back to me.) Anyway, when
 I woke up this morning around noon, he was gone to work. I just
stayed in bed all day and read our guide books cover to cover,
realizing that we've done so much already. Paris is much smaller
than I thought. Once the weather warms up a bit, I think we'll get
a chance to enjoy all of the outdoorsy things, like the parks and
gardens. By the way, I think because all day I've only eaten these
biscuit/toast things that look and taste like door stops, I have a
new goal while I'm here: to try all of the flavors of gelati at the
gelateria down the street. Being in Paris makes me very ambitious.
<br><br>

<b>Tuesday, Feb 11</b><br>
not much to report. i stayed in again today as i'm still not a hundred
percent. rick went to work all day. one noteworthy
revelation tonight though: i've discovered that rick has a great memory
though truly selective. i was thumbing through the zagat's guide, looking
for a place to make reservations for friday, and asked him what he thought
of a particular restaurant. even before i could start reading the
description he starting reciting the food rating, price, place and direct
quotes from the description. impressive.
<br><br>

<b> Wed, Feb 12 </b><br>
Ever since we've been here Jean and I have
been searching for a good cafe to hang
out in, but most of them are small and cramped, with mediocre food at
best, and despite what we'd heard they often kinda rush you out after a while,
but today we finally found the perfect one.
I left work early today to meet Jean for lunch at Dos de La Baleine, but we
got there 10 min too late (it's open 12-2pm, lunch only)
so we went to the L'Apparement cafe
which the TimeOut Guide said was a fun place to hang out and play games,
and they were right. It was perfect: you sit on these comfortable
couches, the food's great (terrific salads), the place is huge and
roomy, the service is nice and laid-back and lets you stay
indefinitely, and best of all they have tons of games in the back so we
stayed there all afternoon sipping tea and playing French
<img src="scrabble.jpg" height=150><br> scrabble. 
The only weird thing was that
everyone eating there was strangely attractive; maybe in the back they have
a modeling agency or something.
Afterwards we went to get some cookies at that delicious pains d'epice
(lebkuchen) place, but it was closed. The sign in the window
said "ferme lundi et mardi," and next to it another one said
"ferme mercredi et jeudi".
Stopped in this chocolatier which had probably the most unfriendly
service I've ever seen, but the chocolates were good. They were like 3
Euros per morsel though.
<br><br>

<b> Thu, Feb 13</b><br>
Pretty slow day. Stayed in mostly because it's getting freezing cold again,
much like when we first got here in January. We tried to walk to the
Institut Monde Arabe, literally five minutes away and we had to turn
around midway because we couldn't handle it. However, here are some minor
happenings and observations:<br>
- I've finally convinced Rick that drinking water upside-down immediately
cures the hiccups. He's been a non-believer ever since I've known him, but
he tried it and it worked on him.<br>
- We've realized that here, the word for bread it much like the word for
snow in the Arctic region --
there are a million variations on the one word. We
went to a boulangerie and saw a big loaf of wheat bread and Rick said
something like, "Je voudrais la baguette la bas."
and pointed directly at it. The
guy chose the one right next to it and said, "la demi-baguette?"
When Rick said that wasn't it, the guy
picked out the bread on the other side of it and said something like, "La
baguette coupee?" Then I said no and pointed
again, right at it, and the guy goes, "Oh, le grand pain." Others in the
store were laughing at us.<br>
- We've nicknamed my new wooly scarf "the neckbrace." It's so thick that
when you wear it, you can't turn your neck at all. However, it's a small
price to pay for such warmth.
<br><br>

<b> Fri, Feb 14 </b>
I rushed home from work and to celebrate Valentine's Day we hurried to Dos
de La Baleine for lunch and just barely made it by their strict 2pm deadline.
Then we walked by the 
<img src="vosgues.JPG" height=150><br>
place vosgues, a very nice little park, and then to
<img src="bastille.JPG" height=150><br>
the Bastille and to the operahouse there. We tried to get cheap tickets to the
evening performance of Falstaff but they only had tickets for "cent neuf
euros" left. The saleswoman said the price so fast we had to think about
it before it registered and I said "yikes" and she nodded and said it back in
agreement, in a very thick French accent.
But we were able to get cheap ones for lundi's Faust. Outside
the Bastille Operahouse there was a whole bunch of teenagers rollerblading and
rollerskating and jumping over this waist-high stretch of tape. It was
really impressive and though nobody else was watching, Jean and I stayed
and watched them for a while. Then we went to get more pains d'epices at
that boulangerie which we discovered is called "Lerch"
(must be some German influence there, which explains the lebkuchen).
At night we went back to l'apparemment cafe for another great meal and
French scrabble game. Though they have other games like taboo and
"composio", we're quite addicted to scrabble at this point. Again everyone
in that place was unusually good-looking and we noticed many celebrity
look-alikes including a Jude Law, a Christian Slater, and even a Marie
Teegardin Kim.  By the way the French have some very strange advertisements...
check out this 
<img src="mcdo.JPG" height=150><br>
McDonald's ad for example.
<br><br>

<b> Sat, Feb 15</b><br>
Vive la 
<img src="paix29.JPG" height=150><br>
revolution! This afternoon, much to our surprise there was a HUGE
<img src="paix18.JPG" height=150><br>
anti-war demonstration
right by our place, on the corner of Saint Michel and Saint Germaine.
It seemed like about 250,000 people were rallying along the two wide streets, carrying
all kinds of 
<img src="paix6.JPG" height=150><br>signs, 
<img src="paix34.JPG" height=150><br>flags, 
<img src="paix17.JPG" height=150><br>drums, etc. 
There were people on stilts with
firecrackers and trucks blaring Palestinian music. Numerous groups were
represented, like Russians in France, pro-environemnt people, Jews in
France, etc. and besides all being against war, another common bond seemed
to be their strong 
<img src="paix26.JPG" height=150><br>
dislike of President Bush.
It was great! Not only was it amazing to see these two big streets taped
off for the demonstration, but even in all of the pandemonium of so many
people together, it was very peaceful. We didn't see any police around or
any precursor to violence.
In other news, we went to the gelaterie tonight and tried a new flavor,
pistache. It really gave frutti di bosco a run for its money. Then we did a
little shopping for cds and found the last copy of "Black and What?" by
the multi-talented Yannick Noah!
<br><br>

<b> Sun, Feb 16 </b><br>
Jean and I got up bright and early today to go to the
highly-Zagat's-rated Sunday brunch at Mariage Freres but got turned away
because it was full, so we went to our usual L'Apparemment Cafe, which was
also packed but barely had place for us. It'd been raining here every
Sunday so far so we never went out, and thus we're only now realizing that
Sunday brunches are so popular here.
In general we're pretty curious about how these Parisians, who work 2 hours
a day, can afford to all go out to dinner and lunch and brunch and tea and
coffee all the time. After brunch we went to an art show which was in the
same gym as my ping-pong tourney, and the art was extremely crappy. It
seems that French art is on its way down. The only interesting thing was
this scultpure
made from 
<img src="bicycles.JPG" height=150><br>
bicycle parts.
Then we looked around the St. Paul church and admired its many
trompes d'oeil which successfuly tricked us. Very cool. Then we went to
<img src="defense.JPG" height=150><br>
la Defense and took the outdoor elevator all the way up for some
great 
<img src="viewdefense.JPG" height=150><br>views, 
and looked around the mediocre museum at the top. Apparently
la Defense is a huge office complex, i.e. where all the French do all
their hard work. We visited the big 
<img src="finger.JPG" height=150><br>
finger statue and ice skating rink
and 
<img src="fromdefense.JPG" height=150><br>
fountain nearby, and were gonna walk from there to the Arc de Triomphe and
Champs Elysees, which we've seen surprisingly little of so far, but it was
too freezing. So, we metro'd back home for dinner, then went to mass at St
Severin. We'd planned to pray on our decision to get either gelati or
crepe afterwards. Much to our surprise, the mass was super-religious and
filled with locals who all sang in 5-part harmony with each other, with no
organ or anything, and all in this small room in the back.
Feeling very intimated, we made our escape during communion.
Alas, we got neither gelati nor crepe tonight as our prayers have not been
answered.<br><br>

<b> Mon, Feb 17 </b><br>
While Jean was out sightseeing at the invalides today, she went into
a church which was completely empty except for one figure crouched at the
altar, and when Jean turned around for a few seconds and turned back, it
was gone! It couldn't have walked away since Jean was by the door, and
also, she didn't hear anything. We had dinner with Laurent and Fatou
tonight and discussed it -- Laurent figured it was Napoleon's ghost.
We also talked a lot about different superstitions, and
Laurent told us that the French are always very positive; for example if
you step in dogshit that's considered good luck. We
also played taboo with them: Jean and I in French, them in English, and
Fatou and I tied Jean and Laurent 15-15.  It was a lot of fun. The most
memorable ones were when they were trying to get us to guess "splendide"
(Laurent's clue was that it was "in between beautiful and excellent") and
when we were trying to get them to guess "massif" and we simply could not
do it. I got Fatou to say "messe" and "passif" but that didn't work, while
Jean went with the band "____ attack". We got a glimpse of Laurent's evil
side tonight, as he was trash-talking hilariously
during the game and told us, as his way of inviting
us to Fatou's birthday party this Saturday, that "this Saturday, Fatou is
very very old."   <br><br>

<b>Tue, Feb 18</b><br>
A perfectly lovely night out in Paris. Finally had an occasion to wear 
something other than our grungy pants and sweaters as tonight we went to
the Opera Bastille to see Faust. It was a very good production (though 
we were somewhat confused by the ending) and we were happy to discover 
that the French, although ultra-civilized when it comes to the arts and
 food, sell ice cream during intermission. The audience was a bit strange
though, lots of coughing and
gagging and whispering during the opera as well as flash photography
 (right next to us!) which went off at the oddest moments. 
All in all, a great night.<br><br>


<b>Wed, Feb 19</b><br>
 
We're slowly accomplishing our goal of trying all of the gelati flavors at
the shop near us. Tonight we ate dessert first and got a cone with
chocolate and pineapple. Sounds like a strange combination, but it was
delicious! It was the best chocolate I've ever had and Rick really loved
the pineapple as it was so fresh and tasted just like the real thing.
After two such winners, we got another cone with strawberry and amerena, a
cherry-vanilla mix. The strawberry was even better than the chocolate and
pineapple! However, the amerena was a disappointment, like a wannabe Jerry
Garcia without the flavor. After that, we realized that we've tried eight
of the twenty-two flavors. Still a lot of work to do.<br> 
By the way, we've ranked our favorites like this:<br>
<br>
Jean:<br>
1 - Fragola<br>
2 - Ciccolato<br>
3 - Frutti de bosco (a kind of berry melange)<br>
4 - Pistache<br>
5 - Ananas<br>
6 - Citron<br>
7 - Amarena<br>
8 - Variegato di Amarena (a whipped version of Amarena)<br>
 <br>
Rick:<br>
1 - Fragola<br>
2 - Frutti di bosco<br>
3 - Ciccolato<br>
4 - Pistache<br>
5 - Ananas<br>
6 - Citron<br>
7 - Amarena<br>
8 - Variegato di Amarena<br>

Just a note: Barbara, your son - if you can still call him that - nearly
embarrassed you on an international level. I had to
convince him to move chocolate up from number 5 to number 3, guilting him
into it by telling him how appalled and disappointed you'd be in deserting
his Viennese (meaning chocolate, of course) roots.<br><br>

<b> Thu, Feb 20</b> <br>
Phew -- I finally finished my grant proposal, which was quite an ordeal.
Met Jean for a fun dinenr at a Greek place halfway between work and home,
then went back to work to finish the grant which was due at noon LA time
which is 9pm here, but after I got back I found the lab manager had shut
down all the computers so I couldn't get on one with Microsoft Word, which
caused some interesting problems but anyway somehow it all got done.
<br><br>

<b> Fri, Feb 21</b> <br>
So much eating, so little time!
<img src="rjmelrob1.JPG" height=150><br>
Melanie and Rob arrived this morning, taking the bus in from the airport
and walking like a mile to our place. Though they'd stayed up all night
and hardly slept on the plane, they were surprisingly awake so we grabbed
some delicious crepes and paninis at our creperie,
then went to the marais and got lunch at Dos de la
Baleine, which for some reason was pretty mediocre today. After lunch we
played some ping-pong at the park by the musee Picasso next to some teenage
boys, one of whom, named Cedric, promptly challenged us to some
competitive matches. Then we went to L'Apparemment for some French
Scrabble, Durac, and hot chocolate, and hung out there for a few hours
before heading back by the Notre Dame and along the Seine and to our
gelaterie, where we tried about a million different flavors. Believe it or
not we still had an appetite and yearned for some real food so grabbed
sandwiches at nearby Cosi, hung out there a while, and then came home for
the nightly dominoes game, won by Rob and evidently lost by me (Rick). I
should add that much time was spent in the Internet Cafe as 
<img src="melhandel.JPG" height=150><br>
Melanie is
quite addicted to the web. There we discovered that Kirsten is coming from
Spain tomorrow morning and will be here at 9am, which is not many hours
away. By the way Rob is an extremely light packer: he
arrived with only a "schoolbag," which really looks like a purse! After
they arrived Melanie took a shower, and we joked that Rob couldn't because
he had nothing to change into. <br>
From Melz: Rob was a stingemeister and wouldn't let me take a cab from the
airport so after hours on the bus we ended up walking 2 miles with our
luggage (which Rob carried) across the Seine. <br><br>
 
 <b>Sat, Feb 22</b><br>

Greetings from Gnir-Melz-Rob Pierre-Gene-Ricky (a.k.a. team
Hypoglycemia),  
Minutes from 1st
annual Conference on Travel Induced
Constipation,                                                                 
Paris-- Fevrier, Deux Mil Deux.<br>

Bonjour de Paris!!! It was a wonderful wonderful weekend in Paris not
only because I (Gnirsten) 
was in the company
<img src="robnirmelz2.JPG" height=150><br>
of various Schoenbergs and affiliates,
but also because it was my first time ever in Paris!! We had a fantastic
weekend. I don't know how the rest of you rate weekends in Europe, but
for me, the higher the "time spent eating / aimlessly lounging at cafes"
to "time spent sightseeing" ratio, the happier I am. We did wonderfully.
We somehow successfully dodged plans to see the catacombs, the modern art
museum, the Louvre, and other traditional tourist sights, and instead
logged an amazing amount of hours playing German regulation pick up
sticks (with hand signals, of course, to avoid embarrassing Melanie with
my rather loud buzzer noises), eating gelato/ crepes de tout les parfum,
consuming plenty of goat cheese (with hair), and most importantly,
talking about constipation.
For those of you who might feel it a pity to travel all the way to Paris
and do nothing but eat and talk about poo (or lack thereof), I must let
you know that we did go to the Sacre Coeur. 
And <img src="robnirmelz3.JPG" height=150><br>
Melz, Rob Pierre and I
even paid the extra 5 Euros to climb up and visit the pigeons up on top
and to see Jesus's heart in the basement (although doubtful that it was
in the padlocked metal box next to cardboard ghetto). 
Other notable memories of the weekend:<br>
Rob's tricky pole hiding techniques, 
Melanie and Kirsten's Foccaccia Gelato Sandwich, 
Mullet in a frying pan (a la dictionary de Gene),
Soup a oignone (X3)--- avec raped cheese,
Ricky's Pim cookies,
Melanie's 14 Euro green pound cake,
Melanie/Rob singing bagpipes,
Mark and Brian!, 
Details of Rob's 11th grade trip to Paris.
Overall, the weekend was a great success. Few things are as enjoyable as
being reunited with old friends while abroad, and better yet when in such
a beautiful and gastronomically pleasing city such as Paris; especially
if you're the one who wakes up with all the covers. Merci beaucoup to
Gene and Ricky for being so generous with their "Top 5 Worldwide
Destinations" apartment.
Finally, I cannot close without thanking the producers of chlorophyll
gum. Without the temporary spurts of photosynthesis that this gum made
possible, our team members might have succumbed to terminal hypoglycemia.
A bientot! Gnirsten.<br>
And for those who are counting, final Score 
for the weekend (unofficial):<br>
Melz 0, Kirsten 0.5, Gene 2*, Rob Pierre 4, Ricky 2.<br>
*gracias a pharmaceuticals<br><br>

<b> Sun, Feb 23 </b><br>
Ricky woke up the sardines 20 min before our reservation (mom would be
proud) at mariage freres, quite possibly the best restaurant ever.  7
desserts later, we decided we needed to stop for some cheese at a cheese
shop, where we met messieur fromage, a very happy cheese vender.  He let us
try many different cheeses, including "le fromage le plus fort du monde,"
which looked innocent enough, but was actually marror in disguise, and we
coughed our way to the nearest gelateria.  puis, after danieling for
masses, we settled on the notre dame mass, which was crowded and
touristy, and ended up not even being a mass, but was instead an organ
concert of froggy music of messaien and other frogs.  the messiaen was
great  though.  after the
"mass," we decided to have a little feast of cheese, baguette and olive
oil.  2 baguettes and 3 cheeses later, nirsten left to catch her train,
and rob went to meet his copain farice for diner, and
Ricky Jean and I (Melanie) went to email,
some of us in an attempt to get the bowels moving (there was a bathroom
next door at mcdonalds).  but to no avail.  later we all went to a bar with a
bathroom that doubled as a rick steve's peep show, with little holes in the
ceiling and video cameras in the sink area.  very creepy.
our international Steiny-fest
began here.  excited at the sight of cards, our waiter proceeded to
perform sketchy "magic tricks" for us, that were "pompidou style" in that
the structure behind the trick was very apparent...rob just farted,
and it was so potent
that it is affecting my brain so please excuse any nonsense that may
follow.  after this bar we went to low rider cafe, open 24 hrs!!!  after
ordering 4 of the most disgusting onion soups ever, melz and jean dominated
more than several rounds of durac while a sketchy loner alcoholic we thought
could very well be rick steves himself looked over rob's shoulder at our
game.  (why pay for expensive tickets to sporting events when you can watch
a riveting game of durac for free?).  rick steves, however, ended up
leaving an obscenely huge tip, to all of our surprise.  after rick steves
left, a throng of people entered low rider, (it was now about 2am).  we
decided it was late enough and we were feeling weird enough to pull a bill
clinton, and bring everyone together.... for some mafia.  we succeeded, and
even got a real italian (leonardo) to play.  all of this, including
explanation of the rules, in french!  leonardo was a natural, and
his friend arnaud wasn't bad either.  we all referred to rob as
"l'ecosse."  rob and "rique" were mafia, and somehow leo managed to smell
them out right away.  despite how affable they all seemed, we later noticed
an impermeable social boundary between the 2 algerians
(antonio and said) and the 2 french guys, leo and arnaud.  they were all
nice to us, but the two duos didn't really interact with each other.
this was a bit upsetting, as to us outsiders, they all seemed nice and
most importantly, good, intense, fun mafia players, also they were all
into cards and card tricks.  a la bill clinton, we reflected on why we
couldn't all just get along.  finally at 4am we realized it might be a good
idea to go home, which is where we are now.
better rest up for some heavy duty eating tomorrow. <br><br>

<b>Mon, Feb 24</b><br>
Woke up just in time for our 1pm reservation at souffle restaurant.
Delicious, unique--unlike anything we had ever tasted before. The food
inspired us to have yet another conversation on what we thought was the
best meal we had ever had.  Came home, decided to go to garnier opera
house but it was closed.  
<img src="robmelrickvict.JPG" height=150><br>
On the way to a cafe for some coffee and tea,
Jean and I (Melanie) went to 
<img src="cat2.JPG" height=150><br>
Esprit and talked while we sent 
Rix and Rob around
the block a few times so we (I) could try on stuff.  During their walk,
Ricky and Rob discussed their "strategy"--how they convince us to do
what they want us to do, and also bonded over how women "just need
someone to listen."  then we went to another cafe, had some onion soup
while R and J had salads.  R and J 
went to see 
<img src="aimee1.JPG" height=150><br>
Aimee Mann while rob and I went
to the Louvre, walked along the Seine, enjoyed the glorious view and
finally were struck with the fact that what everyone says is true: that
Paris is indeed the most romantic city in the world.  While shopping
for a bottle of wine for R and J, nature finally started to call me, so we
ran home, my water broke, and I proceeded to give birth to the 15 huge
meals I had had since the last time I 'evacuated'...Unfortunately, when
it rains it pours, and R and J returned around 11pm urgently needing the
bathroom only to find that I would be in there for quite some
time...rob had fallen asleep but when he woke up he desperately needed
to pee, so everyone left me to poo in piece while they all ran around
the city trying to find a bathroom...
After we successfully emptied our pipes, we proceeded refill them at a
nearby french "am/pm minimarket," with delcious 3-fromage paninis and
chocolate crepes.<br><br>

<b> Tue, Feb 25 </b><br>
<img src="melhandel.JPG" height=150><br> 
Jean-Mel et Robespierre left very early this morning.
Jean and I didn't even hear them leave.
They were ideal houseguests and not only was it a lot of fun having them
here, but also they got us a nice bottle of wine before
leaving, in addition to buying us some delicious olive oil and a midnight
snack (in which Melanie "refueled", wolfing down 2 paninis and crepes),
and all this in addition to a plethora of nice and much-needed
housewarming gifts from the states such as mylanta and tums.  Nirsten also
brought some delicious green olives and oranges from Spain, and
also we're awaiting some journal entries from Melz and Nirsten, via email.
Our eating binge remains in effect, as tonight after dinner at home we went
out for yet another gelati run.
I must say there was more discussion about bowels 
ce weekend than I've ever heard in my life.
Apparently one of us who shall remain nameless (note: probably not 
the one you'd guess) has gone 17 days without....
<br><br>

<b> Wed, Feb 26 </b><br>
After work, I got a baguette and fromage (had some of the only funny
dialogue I've had in French with the fromagier who, when I asked for
gruyere, offered me some cheap emmental instead, but I insisted on the
gruyere so he asked why and I said if my wife
says gruyere, it has to be gruyere, and he replied
"Ah, je comprends bien ca"; maybe
you had to be there but it was pretty funny and we both were cracking up),
and Jean and I had an early dinner, then went to the Louvre,
which is open late and has reduced prices Mon and Wed evenings, and looked
at some French 19th Century art.
By the way I realized that I have a superstition: several weeks ago I made
a point to myself that I'd walk to and from work whenever it wasn't raining,
and metro if it rained. Since then it hasn't rained once, and I have the
feeling that if I'm lazy and take the metro when it's not raining, then
it'll start raining.<br><br>


<b> Thu, Feb 27 </b><br>
Can't believe it's almost March. It's starting to sink in that our time
here in paradise is approaching its end. After work today, I had dinner
with Jean at Gourmet de L'isle, a restaurant recommended to us by some very
nice American friends of Jean's professor, Velina Houston, who said it was
the best place they went to on their honeymoon. Well, maybe it's changed
since then because it absolutely sucked. Definitely one of the worst meals
we've had here, second only to poisonous and disgusting Mirama, and
quite pricey to boot.  Strangely it got not only pretty high ratings in Zagat's
but was supposedly a "bargain". Zagat's has been very good to us but
missed the boat on that one. Neither of us could get through more than a
few bites of our lean cuisine halibut and hungry jack steak, so we rushed
off for a delicious crepe a nutella et banane at our trusy creperie. Then
I went with Jean to go skating, something she's been looking forward to
doing but hadn't gotten around to for weeks, only to find that the ice rink
is closed! We think it just closed today, of all days. They're setting up
a circus in its place, right in front of the Hotel de Ville. What can you
do? One thing's for sure, you can't fight Hotel de Ville. We're still
listening to Aimee Mann but without the same gusto after her concert
Monday seemed to shatter her sense of frailty and artsiness -- she came
off more as a wannabe rock star. Still, her songs and voice are great.
Oh by the way, Jean wants me to note that her dominoes win today was a
skunk -- I'm sure you care.
<br><br>



<b> Fri, Feb 28 </b><br>
What's going on here -- Jean hasn't lost in dominoes since Feb 19! 
That's 8 straight journal entries.  
After I came back from work we walked around
and played aux echecs in the
Jardin du Luxembourg for a while til it started getting windy and
drizzling. Then went to 
<img src="lerch.JPG" height=150> 
Lerch for some French lebkuchen and though they
shockingly were not closed, they were out of lebs. On the way there, the
police closed off the Boul-Mich as we were walking on it, and we had no
idea why. A huge crowd of French people just stood and waited. Then we saw
a police car with the word "deminage" on it, and I took out my dictionary
to find that it means "defusing of explosives" and we
rushed far away, though the French crowd remained there unfazed, some even
trying to sneak past the police. After passing the hotel de ville to
verify that there really isn't ice skating anymore, we went to this play
in English at the Irish Cultural Center. 
It was actually 3 plays, all by Beckett,
and to our surprise all performed by the same guy. He was very emotional but
performed them very strangely, I thought badly though everyone else seemed
to love it. He'd have these long pauses and sudden fits of rage that I
suspected were mostly his own creation rather than Beckett's, and all in
all it made for a pretty bizarre experience. Oh also our big discovery of
the day was that at the gelati place you can get 3 different flavors per
cone, not
just 2 -- this should really help us achieve our goal of trying every one.
<br><br>


<b>Sat, Mar 1</b><br>
Oh sad day! This afternoon we went out to patisserie Lerch, the place
 where we had those
delicious, one-of-a-kind, parisien lebkuken. (I had gone back there
several times during the week, certain that they'd be there and I was
always caught off guard when they weren't and M. Lerch asked
what I wanted. So, I've tried nearly everything in that tiny 
place, all good but no 'pain
d'espice'.) Our theory was that
maybe the cookies were only a weekend speciality. However, again we were
caught off guard and got 100 grams of a different kind of 
cookie. Rick asked Mme. Lerch if they
were going to have pain d'espice any time soon and much to our 
dismay she told us that she hasn't made them in weeks and 
that she doesn't usually make them
in the spring and in fact, in three short weeks Patisserie 
Lerch will be no more! We
were shocked and deeply saddened, to say the least. We were speechless as
we walked out the door and then had the idea to take a picture of them. So
we looked in the window, decided on a huge upside down kind of
muffin/bread with nuts and raisins covered in powdered sugar,
and went in. Mme. Lerch laughed at us
and said, "Oh la la, 100 grams is not enough for you!" They agreed to take
a photo with me, Mme. Lerch was very happy to, but M. Lerch just thought we
were weirdos. We've noticed that even though there are tons of terrific
places to get take away foods, like patisseries, hardly anyone eats while
walking out on the streets. As soon as we left the patisserie we opened up
the bread and started eating it 'bella-style' just straight in the mouth,
no utensils or napkins. It was realy good and we ended up with powdered
sugar all over our faces and clothes. Well worth it.
The bad news was followed by some fun events. We metro'ed down to
Montparnasse and luckily found an open ice skating rink - they close
tomorrow. The ice was like soup, because it was kind of rainy and quite
warm outside (of course, according to Rick), but I had a great time anyway.
I like to think that my 
<img src="skate1.JPG" height=150><br>
skills were appreciated by these frogs as the
security
guy kept following me and I think wanting to be my 
<img src="skate3.JPG" height=150><br>
skating partner. There
was also this interesting game they had there. These kids would race
around on 
<img src="iceboard1.JPG" height=150><br>
razor scooter-like things and everyone had a pretty hard time,
balancing on them (instead of wheels, there was a single blade) and wiped
out all the time.
Afterwards, we went to our trusty L'Apparement cafe for some 2-player
pictionary/taboo and dessert. 
We made a reservation for Monday night and discovered
that that is the night a psychic will be there. Had dinner at some random
sushi place that was surprisingly good. Then headed to a free concert at some
church near the Pompidou. We're torn about these 'free' concerts. On one
hand, the ones we've been to have featured excellent 
musicians (in fact, we think 
tonight the 
<img src="pianiste.JPG" height=150><br>
pianist was some child prodigy as she had groupies after the
show), yet the strangest people attend these events. Tonight, there was a
man sitting right by the pianist and he kept on falling asleep and his
program would fall out of his hand and gently glide toward her. Then, he'd
abruplty wake up when the clapping started and just clap so much louder
and more enthusiastically than anyone that had stayed awake. Also, there was
another man that just got up from his seat and started doing yoga-like
stretching. Oh well, I guess that's part of the ambience.
<br><br>

<b> Sun, Mar 2 </b> <br>
A ghastly, ghoulish Sunday in Paris....
It began with Jean and me trudging in the cold and mist to the musee
d'Orsay to take advantage of the fact that museums are free the first
Sunday of each month, but the line for the d'Orsay was around the block,
about 500 people long and hardly moving! Crazy. So we took a detour to
Napoleon's church, i.e. the church where Jean thought she saw Napoleon's
ghost a couple weeks ago, aka Basilique St Clotilde. Once again nobody was
there, though the church is magnificent and in any other city would be a
major attraction. It is really beautiful actually, and seeing it in total
silence was pretty awesome. Then the most startling thing happened. Just
as we were rounding the corner towards the spot where Jean had seen the
great general, we heard a really loud crash on the other side of the
church. We froze and stared at each other, wondering what to do, and just
as we began to run toward the noise, these bells began to clang, that do
so each hour on the hour.  It was really freaky and we had to stop in our
tracks. Then we resumed running after what we presumed must be Monsieur
Bonaparte, only to find an old priest. We don't understand where he came
from or what he was doing, so even though we may not have witnessed the
great emperor's ghost, we still are a bit mystified by the St Clotilde.
Maybe that's why it's always empty!
Adding to the ghoulishness of the day, we later saw the horror movie "Dark
Water" which despite the English title was actually a Japanese movie with
French subtitles. We were able to understand it nevertheless, but
unfortunately there was not much to understand as the movie ended up being
pretty crappy; disappointing after the director's previous hit with "the
Ring" which I loved.
Note: our gelateria stops are becoming so frequent now, they don't even
seem to warrant journal mention anymore, but rest assured we continue to
appreciate the greatness of "Amarena". We went two different times today,
each time for a triple-flavor.  We also finally used the public toilets
today -- for the first time ever we found one that wasn't out of order.
One final thing: we saw the tv show "Les Guignols" today which is somehow
funny though extremely appaulling. Offensive would be a huge
understatement; I was just shocked. Their image of everything American is
Sylvester Stallone, and at one point they show a NASA scientist who's
Stallone wearing glasses and in a scientist's coat, talking about how the
crashed rocket was no problem and they're ready to go again. At another
point they show a sign saying "Make love not war" and two soldiers, both
Sylvester Stallones, are raping this woman and one turns to the 
camera and says,
"Why can't one do both at the same time?"  Mostly the show makes fun of
the French press for being racist and for not showing the real news. Some
of the racism accusations are also really disturbing; so much so that I
can't describe them. Or maybe I misunderstood (it's all in French).
Still, I must say I'll most likely tune in next week. One funny example:
Saddam Hussein is being interviewed and is asked if he has any missiles.<br>
Saddam: "Yes, of course."<br> 
Interviewer: "But that's illegal"<br>
Saddam: "All missiles are illegal?"<br>
Interviewer: "No, not necessarily."<br>
Saddam: "Whose missiles are legal?" <br>
Interviewer: "Um, those of the Americans, for example..."<br>
Saddam: "Damn.... I don't have any of those."<br>
<br>

<b> Mon, Mar 3 </b><br>
We invented fake French names for ourselves, Gerard and Francoise LaForge,
for when we're making reservations because they never understand Paik or
Schoenberg or Rick or Jeanne.  Can't wait to try it out. After work I went
to meet Emmanuel Roy (Bremaud's student) at L'Apparrement for dinner and
French Trivial Pursuit. Jean had cleaned the apartment and had a headache from the fumes
so stayed home while Emmanuel and I discussed les Guignols and played
games -- by the way in trivial pursuit the answer was "Napoleon" at least 3
different times. The hard part for Emmanuel was understanding the question
when I read it.
Jean and I thought of an embellishment on Dad's joke-in-progress about tennis
players Jonathan Bye and Igor Default; this time it's about the most
performed composers of all time: 
Andre Pause, Adrian Break, and of course
Theodore Intermission.
<br><br>
 
<b> Tue, Mar 4 </b><br>
Uh oh, a new dominoes losing streak for me seems to have begun....
There's a lot of trash-talking in our games these days, with an especially
large amount of quoting of our two favorite philosophers:
Chuckie Adams's dad ("Show me a good loser and
I'll show you a loser") and Venus Williams ("I guess I just don't like to
lose, I guess), with honorable mention to Nan Paik ("I don't think about
winning and losing; I just win.")
Today Gnirsten came at 9:30am and we chatted and pigged out on fromage
before taking a siesta. Then I went to the weekly seminar and afterwards
met Jean for dinner and an incredible string quartet concert in the Sainte
Chapelle.  It was really amazing (and cold!) seeing a concert in there.
The music was pretty much a "best of" classical music but very enjoyable
anyway and they really sounded great. Came home and met Wes, Gnirsten's
male companion
 who's also staying with us, and they were hungry so
I made a reservation for them at the cheese place, La Ferme St Hubert. I
hope the "LaForges" are enjoying their meal! <br><br>

<b> Wed, Mar 5 </b><br>
Today was the first day we walked around without our jackets! It's getting so
beautiful here in Paris - nice and warm and clear. Gnirsten woke up at the
crack of dawn and bought us croissants which we all later ate for breakfast. 
Then Gnir and Wes went to the Arc while Rick worked a bit from
home and I went shopping. We met up again later in the afternoon at the
Louvre where we used our trusty guidebook to go through the massive Denon
wing with Italian, Spanish and French paintings. 
Highlights included musings on what the Italian masters 
Pannini and Martini ate and drank while preparing to paint,
the spotting of a cartoon-like dog in one painting, 
discussions of statues' 
missing limbs and genitalia, and Rick's "memory" of certain paintings 
(i.e. looking them up in our Louvre book). 
Gnir and Wes, who were
dead tired after getting totally turned around in the city looking for the
perfect crepe and internet cafe, then went to the souffle house for dinner
while Rick and I found a good new restaurant near the gelati place. We were a
bit wary of trying new places since the last new place we tried was 
terrible, but this place was very good.
<br><br>

<b> Thu, Mar 6 </b> <br> 
There are only two things I (Wes) can remember about 
Paris at this moment and that
is formag and, that which is of infinitely more pleasing memory, Masseur and
Madam Scho.  With respect to the former, let it be known that I will never
again eat cheese whose name does not end in a vowel.  While I equally blame
myself and the cheese makers for my dairy-al overdose, however my amiga
especial (aka Madame du Goat) was the main catalyst behind my gastronomical
imbalance of cheese product to non-cheese product.  I am however, pleased to
announce that this journal entry finds me in much better health and that
balance has been restored by the various culinary wonders that are Italia.
Mozzarella has restored my faith in cheese and Kirsten has had little
trouble switching from goat to cow.
Now to a significantly more pleasing topic - the most agreeable Rick and
Jean.  These are two people of enormous hospitality and generosity the like
of which is seldom found throughout the world - not to mention Paris.  And
while once considered a punishment for losing a game of dominos to Jean's
crafty double six selection, Rick's solid defense and intimidating sock
waving, and Kirsten's annoyingly distracting yet brilliant harmonic
rendition of an as yet to be determined song - I cherish this opportunity to
thank our gracious hosts and bid them farewell.
Regarding the Italy-vs-France-ice-cream comparison, we were unable
to have gelato our first night in Italy due to an excessive amounts of
tiramisu.  However, gelato was had on the second night and the results are
as follows:
Kirsten - newly named the wuss - can not make up her mind.  She was very
impressed with the flavor selection in Italy and particularly with one
forgotten flavor that we can only assume is availably only in Italy -
however she did enjoy the more common flavors better in France.
Wes - being the orderer of the previously mentioned unknown flavor, my bias
lias with Italy.  While I do agree that Paris offered some fantastic
strattacella, I do have to pick the Italians over all.  I will say this
however, we certainly had worse gelato in Italy.  But this kind of
competition requires a best against best battle.
<br><br>

<b> Fri, Mar 7 </b><br>
Gnirsten and Wes left this morning for
their flight on Air Sketch to Roma, after eating some home-made crepes.
They were a lot of fun to
have here as visitors; a great mix of always up for anything but never
stressed out about having to do too much.  And amazingly they folded up
their bed back into a couch every morning.
Jean and I went to a free concert tonight at St Merri cathedrale
-- duets for piano and singer by Schubert, Brahms,
Mahler, Debussy, and Noel Lee (the pianist), all very good. Also a nice
performance of "10 Min" by Andre Pause, during which we recognized the guy
sitting two in front of us as the pianist who played a free concert at
Olivier's back in late January when Nan was here (Peter Illich I think), so
we tapped him on the shoulder and told him he played great. His female
companion seemed to be very impressed that he had fans.
Other highlights at the concert were "the Enthusiast", a guy in the front
row who constantly had a huge smile on his face and was leaning forward
and side to side to get a better view of the singer -- never seen someone
THAT into it. And like 3 seats down from him was "the Sleeper", this weird
guy we noticed falling asleep in the first row
last time we went to a concert there, and here he was doing the same
thing: falling asleep during the music, then waking up and clapping
passionately afterwards. Even giving a standing ovation. We mused later
that maybe the chuch pays him just to come and clap,
but refused to pay the extra fee to make him actually listen.
<br><br>

<b> Sat, Mar 8 </b><br>
I submitted my paper and have been feeling so much more free since,
like a weight is lifted and now I'm on vacation. Jean and I tried making
salty crepes this morning and they were actually really good! Strange,
because the ones made by our guy down the street were kinda nasty I
thought. Tonight I went to Laurent and Fatou's party, celebrating
Laurent's movie that's coming out. Jean was too tired to go. It was fun;
everyone was very nice and eager to practice English on me, though I'd
answer back in French. Lots of politics talk: we had some interesting
debates on the two-party versus multi-party system, police brutality here
and in the US (they'd never heard of Rodney King),
whether Chirac is an idiot and a thief (as they all
think), les Guignols,
why French people smoke, why Americans watch tv, ..., ok
not all political but pretty interesting.
<br><br>

<b>Sun, Mar 9</b><br>
What a fun day! Rick and I
woke up late and watched the political puppet show "Les
Guignols" again.
This time, we kind of recognized some of the characters, like the French
equivalent of Donald Rumsfeld, who was getting pressed on his hard-line
stance toward African immigrants. He replied, "What am I to do? Let these
people come to France, walk on our streets, take our jobs, and eat our
food? And what are we gonna do about all their elephants promenading down
the Champs-Elysees?" The interviewer responded, "But nobody's taking
elephants with them into France," to which he said, "That's right,
thanks to me!"
We also had some great homemade crepes. Salty ones, if
you can believe that. Rick is getting very experimental, but we've decided
that we need to study our crepe guy's technique. Then we went walking
around the city. It's the perfect temperature now, about 14 C. Right near our
place was the city's half-marathon, so we sat at a cafe and watched all
the people rollerblading by. We took out a deck of cards and the waiter was so
intrigued by them. He kept on saying that he knew some magic tricks, and
did this long, complicated one on me only to get it wrong - it wasn't a
magic trick afterall, he was just fooling around. However, right before we
left, he did a good one (pompidou-style as melanie would say, fixing the
cards right in front of us) that was surprisingly good. Decided that we'd
try and check out a mass at St. Eustache, the big church on the Rive Droit
next to a huge sculpture of a head and hand. We passed by the hotel de
ville, looking for the circus, but instead found a big '100 years of women
in paris' exhibit. We also noticed that the
city's fountains have been turned on, like the very modern one near the
pompidou. Also, because of the nice weather, so many performers were out
doing their thing. Some actors were doing a very euro-comedy near the
pompidou and at les halles. we saw a big group of people juggling, miming,
doing all kinds of balancing acts and our favorite was this guy that
spun these spool-like things on a piece of string and would whip them
around in the air. We were so impressed that rick asked him if he was in
the circus, which we think is coming soon (he wasn't). Then we went to
mass, which was hard core. There was this one part, where the priest asks
everyone to greet the people next to them and shake hands and rick said to
me, 'how about that guy?' and when i turned around to extend my hand, his
entire finger was up his nose. As you can imagine, i recoiled as quickly
as possible. We barely escaped during the communion, as
usual. Stopped by an afro-cuban bar where people were salsa dancing and had
the best beer and strange flavored coffee drink before heading to a
zagat's recommended japanese place. We had made reservations there last
week since we couldn't get in and tonight it was so empty and eerily quiet.
So quiet in fact that we could hear the entire conversation of the couple
next to us, which was quite interesting indeed, since it was an irish
man and a russian prostitute! After dinner, we stopped for a 
<img src="gelati.JPG" height=150><br>
gelati
(nocciola and lampone) and realized we've now 
tried all but about 3 flavors.
Mission nearly accomplished.<br><br>

<b>Mon, Mar 10</b><br>
This morning we tried to kick our bad habit of waking up late. Got up
fairly early and went for cafe after breakfast. We found a nearby cafe
that's inexpensive and good, and they leave you alone. Zagat's would not
give it good marks for decor, but it works for us. I guess the caffeine was
a shock to our systems because both of us had to run
back home to use the bathroom and then Rick went to work while I went out
exploring parts of Paris in the northwest part of the city. First I went to
the big flea market just outside of the city. It's huge, several miles of
little shops and winding roads. It was a strange mix of stuff, from faux
Louis XIV clocks to ABBA vinyl records. Then I went walking around the
Opera Garnier and the Madeline. Met up with Rick in the evening for some
grocery shopping at our favorite little shops, like the fromagerie. While
it was closed, right next to it was a tiny wine shop that we had somehow
overlooked until today. We were outside looking at the bottles when this
strange, possibly homeless woman kept getting 
in our faces and shaking an unlit
cigarette while saying, "on
ne peux pas s'allumer! on
ne peux pas s'allumer!" The wine guy came out and shoo'ed her away but she
came back nearly one second later, saying the same thing. Rick was
cracking up at her. He said that she reminded him of Bella and her
compulsiveness. Actually, while the wine 
guy told us that that woman was a little
crazy, we later thought about what she said, or at least what we thought
she had said, and realized that maybe she was making some political
commentary. In fact, Rick thought her words were a dark allegory about
having compassion for one's neighbors 
while I took it more literally and thought that she was calling
attention to the fact that a man wouldn't light a lady's cigarette in this
day and age. By the way, we didn't find a fromagerie, but stumbled upon a
Greek deli, with excellent feta, and a cute patisserie
with the best lemon meringue pie! That gelato place has got some
competition.
Just a note: while I'm adoring the great weather, it seems to have brought
out the vultures. When I was walking through the Tuilleries today about
three different men approached me, slying trying to get me to take a tour
with them. One even started talking to me by asking what time it
was!<br><br>

<b> Tue, Mar 11 </b><br>
I'm discovering how to get by in French: never, ever be serious. As long as
every singly phrase I utter is either a joke or a ridiculous or sarcastic
response of some sort, I'm understood perfectly. It's when I actually
answer someone's question honestly that I get quizzical looks and am
not understood. Anyway, today at work I saw a completely incomprehensible
seminar (in English) by Dynkin, one of the grandfathers of probability
theory. He must be in his 80s or 90s, and at one point made a conjecture
and said "I hope someone can prove this before I die." After dinner Jean
and I saw a very strange Algerian movie with French subtitles, called "En
Attendant le Bonheur". Somehow despite love, loss, flight, and even
multiple deaths of major characters, it had the feeling as though nothing
happened. An interesting slice of Algerian life. A typical scene: two
friends are talking about their mutual
friend who has tried to flee by swimming to Spain.  One says "I wonder
where he is by now." The other, after a long pause: "I think he's in Spain."
The first, after another pause: "No, he's in Tangiers." The other, after
another pause, "No, he's in Spain." Then the first again: "No, he's in
Tangiers." Then a long pause, and then "No, he's in Spain." End of scene.
Jean and I are planning a road trip to the Loire valley, but planning it is
not so facile. We're having a lot of
trouble deciding when and how and where to go. <br><br>

<b> Wed, Mar 12 </b><br>
We decided we hadn't walked aimlessly around Paris for a while so we did
today, and it turned into un vrai marathon. We walked many miles,
from our apt to the
Madeleine, passing many petstores, then went down, crossed the pont Alexandre,
then down past the Eiffel Tower to the Jardin du Trocadero and Palais de
Chaillot, which we had neglected to see previously. It was so far that even
the 
<img src="sittingstatues.JPG" height=150><br>
statues 
were tired and had to sit down. However this statue of
<img src="bellastatue.JPG" height=150><br>
Bella 
was not tired (if you look extremely close you can see Jean in the
top-left of 
<img src="bellastatue2.JPG" height=150><br>
this photo), and so we continued on up to the Arc de
Triomphe, then down the Champs-Elysees. Then we rested over a sandwich and
a movie ("25eme heure" by Spike Lee), before walking back to the Madeleine
and eating a delicious raclette (melted fromage) dinner at Ferme St Hubert.
It was so late (about 10:20pm) by the time we got there they had to talk
in the back for like 5 minutes, about whether they were gonna let
us in, but fortunately decided in favor. For dessert we had this ile
flotante that was so incredibly delicious -- definitely one of the best
things I've ever eaten. Reinvigorated, we even walked the remaining 40
minutes home. <br><br>

<b> Thur, Mar 13</b><br>
Had a great night at Hotel du Nord, where we met Rick's friend and
colleague, Emmanuel. There's a small bar/performance area in the back
where we saw a song and dance caberet-like show. It was with two great
women singers accompanied by a guitar and bass. The women were hilarious,
in more ways than one. Their schtick was to pretend to be Americans and
they had witty banter in Franglish and kept saying things like, "I love you
so much!" and after applause, "We deserve!" They sang songs, mostly
in english. This was the most amusing to us as their renditions included
such famous American hits like, "Some Way Over Ze Rainbow" and "Zhat's
Antretainment." Sometimes it was hard for us to tell if they were joking
or not because their Franglish was so exaggerated. For instance, they said
that the bass player was from Kentucky, (a "Kentuckien") and we believed
them. It was only after the show, when Emmanuel introduced us to him - his
friend - that we realized he was totally French and hardly spoke any
English. Afterwards we spent some time with Emmanuel, a very nice guy that
somehow switched from being a pianist to a statician. Then we leisurly
walked home, stumbling upon the Republic.
By the way, a couple of days ago I got Euro-ed! I got my haircut at some
random place in the 6th and little did I know that Jerome was actually
"Jerome Scissorhands." He gave me the most parisien-eighties do' I've ever
seen. Oh well, c'est la vie.<br><br>

<b>Fri, Mar 14</b><br>
We've realized that our days here are numbered so we're trying to take
advantage of the beautiful weather and wonderful sites. Started off the
day at the wonderful Mariage Freres for some exotic teas and dessert. Then
we went to the Galleries LaFayette, not for shopping but for the
spectacular view from the rooftop. It's a great close-up view of the
Opera Garnier. Then we walked back to the Madeleine and got in just minutes
before closing. From the outside it looks like a big government
building as huge columns are lined up around it on all sides and the
buildilng itself is  surrounded by a circle of traffic. However, inside it
is a tranquil and beautiful church. We were torn by the politics of the
church though as they were taking donations for the building 
of a French church 
in the Muslim country of Burkina, 
homeland of our friend, Fatou. Afterwards, we
did a little shopping at
the nearby delis. They are stocked with so many fragrant and exotic foods,
like a variety of curry powders and coffee beans. We walked home, passing
by the Place Vendome and the Hotel Ritz. Even though we looked pretty
raggedy, we walked in the hotel and sat in the lush lobby,
pretending that we were waiting for someone when in actuality, we were
re-tracing Princess Diana's last steps. Ate dinner at home and then went
out for a gelati, chocolate and frutti di bosco, staples.
<br><br>

<b>Sat, Mar 15</b><br>
This afternoon Rick and I walked over to the Bastille Opera and discovered
that there were still tickets available for tonight's performance of
"Perala, l'homme de fumee." All of the women at the ticket booth fell in
love with Rick because instead of asking for tickets to "L'homme de fumee"
he asked for tickets to "L'homme pas fumeur." The woman was so tickled by
the comment that she had to stop processing our tickets just to tell her
friend and they had a good laugh at Rick's expense. Then, on the way home
we were walking on a crowded street and next to me was a man, whistling.
(By the way, I've heard more people whistling in the past three months
here than my entire life in California. I guess Paris inspires.) Rick
thought it was me whistling and so he started whistling a Black Crowes song
really loudly and asked, "Is that what you're whistling?" I started
cracking up and I think the man next to me was a little embarrassed because
he stopped right away and walked really quickly away from us. Anyway, the
big story of the night is about the opera. We arrived just in time and
realized that our cheap seats were actually very, very good. We should've
taken that as a sign. The opera is set way in the future and starts out
with just this guy in white, sitting on a suitcase on what looks like an
empty planet. Then the opera goes straight into a Land of the Lost revival,
with the appearance of Chaka and then a couple of SleeStacks. If that
wasn't humorous enough, next a giant Mister Peanut comes out and soon
after him a guy that looks like Captain Crunch. Finally, a huge guy in
rabbit ears appears, looking like the cartoon 
from the Trix cereal box. It was hilarious! The
costumes were so outlandish. It was
hard to stay quiet because we were laughing so hard. (Even the serious
German couple behind us was chuckling.) While the singing was
of good quality, the music was so uninteresting, it was hard to even care
about the story. We were going to leave during intermission -- that's
another story, someone dropped a wine bottle on the third floor and red
wine came splashing down on everyone at the bar on the second floor, just
missing us -- but I wanted to stay and see how the audience would react at
the end. Very much to our surprise, it seemed that everyone loved it! We
were shocked and the German couple behind us, well I think that's the
loudest clapping I've ever heard. It was crazy, there was this one guy that
played an exotic bird-like animal, with a neon mohawk and tutu, all he did
was squak maybe five or six times
throughout the entire thing and he nearly got a standing ovation! Even as
we left, everyone on stage was taking their fourth and fifth bows. On the
metro home Rick and I chalked up the night to a Euro-avant garde
experience.
<br>
P.S. The little used CD store near us is a gold mine. Not only did
we find the Yannick Noah CD there, but today I found (and bought) the best
of Falco.<br><br>

<b> Sun, Mar 16 </b><br>
Question: what do Kentucky Fried Chicken and the dessert at the
table next to us have in common? Answer to come. After what looks to
be our last helping of Lerch's french lebkuchen since they close up
for good next week, Jean and I
went to montmartre looking for this cirque that
was supposedly going on there, but got distracted by a delicious
patisserie and later the cafe-du-pick-up-sticks, where we played some sticks
and some Teen French Trivial Pursuit -- Jean had one question asking which 
"chef" (leader) was known as "la dame de fer" and thought they were
asking about the iron chef, rather than Margaret Thatcher. Later we had a
delicious dinner at Le Petit Prince, where the couple next to us
started totally making out to a ridiculous extent, to the point
where she was licking his cheeks and he was licking her hands. It was
quite disgusting actually. Also, we seem to have picked up the
French attitude toward peace and international law. Bush's
Gulf War part 2 that seems about to happen is really depressing us,
especially me. Hard to understand how something like this could happen,
when it's so stupid and unnecessary, and when the whole world seems
so opposed to it. I wonder what the justification is in the United
States: that somehow unilaterally bombing and invading
a country that's done nothing to us is going to dissuade terrorists
from attacking us?  Is anyone pro-war besides Bush and his oil
buddies?<br><br>

<b>Mon, Mar 17</b><br>
Erin go braugh! We celebrated St. Paddy's Day and what looks like might be
the last day of peace by going out and having some pints and screaming
"Top of the Morning to You!" to passersby who not only didn't respond but
didn't acknowledge us. Also we joked about having a birthday party and
inviting all of our 
<img src="rvoisins.JPG" height=150><br>
"friends" from this trip such as the Lerches, the
Fanatic, the Low Rider boys, the crepe guy, and the guy that stands
ourside of our building 
yelling, "Mangez Grec?" and amused ourselves about what
the
conversations would be like. We noticed that the French have a strange St.
Paddy's Day ritual in which men dress in drag. At our table were two guys
all decked out in wigs, make-up, etc. We couldn't help but whistle at the
other
guys that walked by the pub when we were sitting outside. Rick even
whistled at a woman with long curly hair, which he thought was a
wig.<br><br>

<b> Tue, Mar 18 </b><br>
Today Jean and I took our road trip to 
the Loire Valley, and took the scenic route bigtime. We got lost 
at least 8 times today: 1) looking for the rental car place, 2) 
looking for the Peripherique, on which we then 3) circled around 
Paris 1.5 times a la European Vacation searching for the "A10" exit 
as the rental agent suggested though it didn't exist (the A10 doesn't
 hit the peripherique), then 4) we somehow turned into the Orly airport, 
then 5) lost again at "Chilly-Mazarin", where we stopped in McDonald's and 
a guy nicely gave us directions which 6) were totally wrong, so we tried 
to recover but wound up 7) lost in Massey, many hours after leaving Paris 
but still just a few miles away. From there we made it to Chartres and 
Blois without problem, but later in Blois we parked in a lot, walked 
around, found a hotel, and then 8) got TOTALLY lost looking for our car:
 we somehow walked ALL around the whole small town for over an hour before
 finding it! By the way, this morning we got up early after celebrating St
 Patrick's Day last night, so Jean was again in "quite a mood" while driving
 and snapped at me several times: for not saying enough in my navigating, 
saying too much, yelling, mumbling, and pointing, all within minutes of 
each other.  Although it sounds terrible so far, the trains went on strike
 today, so good thing we drove. And the scenery on the drive was beautiful.
 Chartres, our first intentional stop, was quite nice though a surprisingly
 big town.  The cathedrale was gorgeous -- tons of beautiful stained glass
 windows telling stories from the bible. We had fun trying to guess what 
each story was about from the windows before checking in the guide (and 
only got a few right). 
 Next stop was Blois, the seat of the French king pre-1600. 
On the way there Jean taught me how to drive the stick-shift car,
 which I've long wanted to do but it was extremely frustrating as 
I was inept and just kept stalling the car. Blois is
incredibly beautiful, along the Loire river, hilly and with nice 
walking strips speckled with ancient churches and the chateau. The
book says Blois is "beguiling" and it certainly beguiled us -- not 
only did we get totally lost, but also we were looking for the chateau 
and somehow didn't see it though we were right in front of it (the fact 
that there's a big sign in front of it saying "chateau" with an arrow 
pointing in the opposite direction didn't help). Instead we came upon 
the "Houdin" maison de magie, for further beguilement. Maybe all this 
beguilement is France's form of revenge against the U.S. or something.
 At night in Blois, we were starving so ate 2 dinners: first appetizers
 in a delicious Turkish place, then we raced next door to just 
beat the closing time at an Italian place.  <br>
For the record, Rick has smushed
together all of my comments during our "lively discussions" in the 
car without mentioning his input, most unforgettably, his 
navigational skills. For instance, his main "map" was a page 
out of our France book with a cartoon of the Loire Valley, dotted with sheep,
goats, grapes and oh yeah, two tiny lines, one of which we 
thought was a river until several hours later, that Rick used 
to guide me onto the highways. Other highlights of his
navigating include the "Go there!" comment with his hand angled
 ever so slightly right in front of him, so I'd have to take my eyes
off the road to see his hand and then figure out which way he was 
trying to point me in, all the while vespas, cars and trucks honked 
and passed us on the left and right. Then
there was the more thoughtful but just as problematic usage of calling
 out hours on a clock ("Turn onto the road at ten o'clock!") as he faced
 out any number of windows, except the front windshield. However, probably
 the most incoherent was the time the road went
either straight ahead or to the right and Rick guided me by saying,
 "Turn left!" which of course meant to turn to the right and then turn 
left at the next intersection. Of course! <br><br>

<b> Wed, Mar 19 </b><br>
Got up bright and early for breakfast (just a croissant and coffee)
in our Blois hotel, then went to the Blois chateau which was incredible. It
was really 6 or 7 different towers joined together, and each tower was
built in a completely different era, so in all it's a patchwork of
completely different styles: gothic, ornamental, renaissance, and classical.
For me it was like an intro lesson to the history of architecture. Also
lots of interesting history about the castle, from 
<img src="twojeannes.JPG" height=150><br>Jeanne d'Arc's visit, to
the site where king Henry III assassinated the <img src="deguise.JPG" height=150><br>
Duc de Guise. The Blois
chateau was
definitely the best thing on our whole trip to the Loire, especially
since it was completely empty and we could explore it in complete
peace. So, it was good
that we spent time leisurely enjoying it.
However, this didn't leave us a whole lot of
time for our other sights
since we had to return the car back in Paris by 8pm sharp. So we raced to
Chambord, which strangely is no town at all but just an enormous castle
supposedly partly designed by da Vinci. It was magnificent, and has a very
cool and famous double-spiral staircase where two people can walk up and
circle around each other without meeting. Also on the way to the castle you
drive and then walk through these beautiful woods and watch the castle
spectacularly appear over the horizon. However, though the chateau was
so grandiose, it was all so symmetrical and
didn't have the charm and variety of Blois, and also was
surpisingly filled with tourists and had a rather annoying audio guide. I
stole some pebbles from the Chambord courtyard so we could skip stones
along the Seine back in Paris. Jean lost her scarf on the way out, and I
ran back to look for it and amazingly someone had found it and hung it
on a fence -- the
French continue to impress us with their morality, sophistication and honesty.
After Chambord we drove to nearby Beaugency, which was just beautiful.
Though it too has a chateau and cathedrale, its main highlights are that
it's the only place where you can really walk right along the Loire river,
and it's also got an important historical bridge, captured 4 times by the
British, before finally recaptured by Jeanne d'Arc. We grabbed some croques
there in Beaugency before heading back through Orleans (a big city
which supposedly kinda sucks) and back to Paris. Though we amazingly didn't get
lost, time started running out and when we exited the Peripherique at Place
d'Italie, the exit ramp was a steep hill and was completely backed up and
not moving at all, which was an extreme pain for Jean driving the
stick-shift car. By the way Jean is becoming quite French, frequently
jaywalking with reckless abandon, and once running through a red light
which was ok since it had "just recently turned red." That's the way it is
here: red doesn't mean stop; it means a few more cars can go through.
After just a few wrong turns in Paris, we made it back to
the rental place JUST in time -- the door was literally closing as we ran
in!  It was an incredibly fun trip, and though kind of exhausting and
somewhat stressful driving, we had a terrific time and really got to see a
lot of cool stuff. And it was nice getting off the beaten path for a bit.
At night we joked about our time in downtown Chilly-Mazarin, a town outside
Paris that's sorta like Barstow or Mojave or something.
<br><br>

<b> Thu, Mar 20 </b><br>
<img src="jessjean.JPG" height=150><br>
Jessica arrived today -- when she got to our place she rang the hall light
several times and somehow we didn't hear it, but I spotted her in the
courtyard fortunately. After chatting for a while
we walked all around Paris, stopping at all the
main sites, including
the <img src="jeannet.JPG" height=150><br>
internet place, the gelati-place, and the cheese place (la Ferme St
Hubert), where we gorged beyond belief and couldn't even finish our
delicious desserts of creme brulee and fontainebleau aux framboises.
Also on the St Germain there was a huge anti-war 
<img src="dogmanif2.JPG" height=150><br>
"manifestation" going on,
with thousands of 
<img src="manif1.JPG" height=150><br>
French people yelling and screaming and doing the wave
and the 
<img src="manif3.JPG" height=150><br>hokie pokie to express their 
<img src="manif2.JPG" height=150><br>
hatred of President "Boushe" and
their hopes for peace. <br><br>

<b> Fri, Mar 21</b><br>
Today, Jessica (that's me) slept in until 13:20 (that's what the time on
the NOOS machine, the cable box, read).  It was a late start to the day,
which had originally been planned as an all-museum-tourtisting day.  Having
slept all the day away, Jean and Jessica decided to scrap the museums and
just go shopping!!!  Besides, rick was at work and had previously expressed
great non-interest in buying lipstick.
We walked across the Seine and along the river to the Samaritaine dept
store - along the river we passed street vendors selling essentixal items
such as 1980's american penthouse magazines and purple nickel eiffel tower
keychains.  The Samaritiane is different than american dept stores in that each dept (divided by brands) is almost like it's own shop.
Jean and I headed up the escalators to the top for the tea room with
windows facing the Seine... stopping along the way to look at darling
housewares, les cadeaux de Paques, and livres en Francais (including a
tome by Jean's former instructor and current stalking prospect T.C. Boyle).
The nice girl at Topary, the dept store tearoom, warned us against leaving
during our 5 minute wait, if we wanted a window.  We waited, grabbed a
GREAT table with a view, and ordered a late dejeuner (3:30 ish) of quiche
vegetariane and salad, capped off with Jean's favorite new French Espressso
drink, une cafe creme.  Our waitress was either new or having problems
with her beau, for she was grumpy and unattentive.  Oh, well.
Fueled with French food and caffeine, we ventured out to buy makeup,
though Jean got distracted along the way and bought a great striped
ugly-cute moroccany tunic sweater.  We made it to the MAC counter, and Jean
convinced Jessica to try on new eye makeup.  I asked the counter girl if
she "parle anglais" and she said, "a leetle" - which was more than the
other girl at the counter.  We amused the makeup girls with one of our
choices, a pink soap pig, and they ended up doing a full face of makeup on
Jessica (who then, in gratitude, bought the eye makeup and the lipglass).
nearly $80 Euros later for Jess (not including lunch) we left the
Samaritaine to go to the French version of Target, Monoprix.
The Monoprix experience included great little bottled French lemonade
drinks (plain for jess, "french berry" for jean) and the purchase, after
much browsing of all 4 levels, of basic household goods for both women.
Sufficiently shopped out for the day, we headed back to Rue Xavier Privas
to see if Rick was home.  He was, and like proud hunter-gatherers, we
displayed our spoils.  He rewarded us by making a very nice rosemary
chicken and garden salad, and we were sated.
We decided to venture out for dessert, and roamed the St Andres des Art
area searching for an open Patisserie.  no mean feat at 9:30 - 10 pm.  We
purchased a few books at this shop that seems to only sell coffee table
books (some of them fairly porno) and looked at the menus in the window
for quite a few cafes until jessica found something that seemed fun (and
not something her cooking student sister had made and brought home in the
past few months).
Our restaurant find was L'Arbuci, a fine dining establishment with seafood
displayed at the entrance.  We were seated promptly in "sans fumer" and
decided on our food selections - a cheese platter and drinks for jean and
rick, chocolat chaud and a chocolate dessert of some kind for jess.
Jean and Rick went first in ordering, which the waiter was very attentive
to.  When Jessica went to order her choices, the waiter first mocked her
prounciation of hot chocolate in french, then seemed visibly upset when he
realized we weren't ordering full meals - HE: "YOu are only getting
dessert" (with a mocking eyebrow).  JESS: (timidly, visibly blanching):
"Yes?"  Once calmed, he explained the desserts to jessica, and walked away
with our orders and his disdain.
the wait for the meal included the loud and angry removal of all fancy
dining place settings, including the replacing of the flatware to be more
appropriate to our abbreviated dining experience.  the food was good, but
the service was cranky.  Until the very end, once Jessica had signed her
credit card slip.  I was carrying my camera, as a good tourist should, and
wanted to get a picture of this waiter, as the dining experience was going
to be a story.  I asked him if we could take a picture with him, and when
he went to take the camera, jean took it and said, no with her.  I told
Waiter that I wanted to remember my Paris experience.  With that, he
grabbed me, put his arm around me and his head on my shoulder, and smiled
for the camera.  He walked away, leaving us befuddled.  I had only one
question left - what was his name?  As we left the restaurant, we found
him, thanked him for the meal, and asked his name.  He said, "Damian - but
i'm not French.  Well, I was born in France, but my father was german and
my mother spanish."
All i know is I have a new boyfriend, and he's a horrible waiter.
<br><br>

<b> Sat, Mar 22 </b><br>
Jean got up and showered, while Jessica read Naomi Watts magazines. Then
Jessica got ready while Jean left Rick a note on the alarm clock saying meet us at 12:30. Jessica and Jean headed down the street to the coffee shop but
got distracted by the local pharmacy where they looked at T. LeClerc
makeup and foreign toothpaste. Deciding not to buy anything right then as
they wanted not to carry big bags around, they ventured down to La
Brioche Doree where they had deux cafe cremes and pains delicieux. Then they
went to Jean's favorite bra store, Women' Secret. Though the Women's Secret
fashion line was impressive, they were no match for Jessica's large
American breasts. As Jean said later, the shopping trip was a "big bust".
Then off to see Jean's favorite public bathroom in Paris:
the laveder-scented pay toilets at the Louvre.
Jessica and Jean browsed scented unguents and shopped for makeup at
Saphora, Paris's cosmetic mecca.
We then went to the center of the Louvre to wait for Rick at the appointed
time of 12:30 and the appointed place of beneath the pyramid. Rick was
nowhere to be found. We did however see the sitting-on-the-floor police and we
waited for half an hour watching people
embark and disembark from the escalators, only to find later that Rick and Mme
Peacock were probably sitting on the other side of the bench.
Having waited half an hour for Rick, we came to the assumption that either
a) he overslept, b) he came and left, or c) he just didn't love us anymore.
We were delirious with hunger, so we decided to venture out and promenade
through the Jardin des Tuilleries, then sat around the fountain at the
jardin, where we saw a crazy freaked out duck that reminded us of Bella
and came and sat next to us, strangely
responding to "Ducky Ducky" but not "canard".
Having bid "adieu" to our ducky friend, we headed to Rue de Rivoli to
Angelina's, the best cocoa place in the world, according to Carolyn
Hampton. Jean had a lovely lunch of un sandwich club and Jessica had un
sandwich fromage. For dessert, Jean a gateau de almond and praline, and
forced Jessica to have a death by hot chocolate, which Jessica downed with
pleasure. It was like chocolate sauce with whipped cream, heavenly.
Jessica was very intrigued by the 50-ish blonde waitress in a French maid
outfit and a severe bob.  That's when we started becoming real tourists:
Jean took a photo of Jessica drinking hot chocolate.
Jean warned Jessica that she should ignore people in the Jardin des
Tuilleries would try to give tours, so when a perfectly innocent couple
asked Jessica to take their photo, she completely ignored them and just
kept walking.
Then off to Musee D'Orsay, to see Monet and other impressionists,
so we started on the 3rd floor
and gave ourselves a self-guided tour using our french books and reciting
the French badly. Very amused by the obviously American mid-Western tourist
woman who kept yelling "Get a picture of
this one, Larry!" The impressionist figure sketches sparked a
discussion between Jessica and Jean about the geometry and gravity of
female breasts in impressionist art. We then asked Larry to get a picture
of them.
One of the paintings in the later part of the exhibit looked like Emma
Thompson laying on the grass. Jean pointed out that in her first life,
before she was dead again, she was in French art.
We also saw Kevin Kline, 
Leonardo diCaprio and Russel Crowe in a Manet painting.
When we finished with the troisieme etage, Jean was parched and decided to
stop at the cafe where we both enjoyed a citron presse with two full tubes
of sugar and still no relief from the bitterness. Then they kicked us out
of the cafe and then basically out of the museum. Jessica rushed through
the sculptures on the 1st floor, catching a glimpse of a painting of Spanish
actress Penelope Cruz. Jean then bought a gynecological postcard in the
bookstore.
We crossed the Seine again, and finished our walking tour of le Jardin des
Tuilleries. Then we went to Place de la Concorde where the fountains were
on for the first time, and anti-war graffiti everywhere, and in front of
the obelisk we asked a red-haired phish-listening hippy guy sitting on a
bicycle to take
a photo: he became Jean's boyfriend -- first of the day. As we were walking
toward the champs-elysees, Jessica was telling Jean all about Memphis and
how the zoo had been preparing for two pandas to come. She said she was
very excited to see them, but would wait for all the "panda pandemonium"
to calm down, and tried to save herself from the cheesy sentence by
saying "as it were" but Jean caught her on it.
We stopped to admire the grand et petit palace as well as the wonderful
view at the Pont d'Alexander and the Invalides.
As soon as we arrived at the
Champs-Elysees, Jessica wanted to visit the Gap, for she can't get enough
of those in the USA. Working there was
Isaac, from the U of Sheffield, and the wonderful 21-yr-old
thought we were 19. We continued along the Champs, stopping here and there
for clothing and chocolates and nasty pure-sugar candies.
Then to the Arc de Triomphe. Getting to the arc was so worth it -- made all
the day's journey and walking inconsequential. All Jessica could think of,
strangely, was the American National Anthem, and Jessica had a moment,
getting a "just transcendent sense
of history and yet your smallness and bigness all at once."
It was there, in her moment, that Jessica intimated for the second time of
the day that she wanted to make out with Jean. We hopped on the metro where
we met Jessica's 2nd boyfriend of the day, the accordion player on the
metro. She tried to discretely take a photo of him, but ended up having to pay
1 euro just to capture his image. Then arrived home at 10pm, to find poor
Rick who'd been searching aimlessly all day for them.
Ok now Rick talking: this journal entry is getting so ridiculously long,
so I'll keep it short. I was at the meeting place from 12-3pm; don't know
how I missed les femmes. Met this woman in blue (Madame Peacock) and
talked to her about a jacket someone had left there, and played lots of
solitaire -- maybe all that distracted me.
Then did some errands and then back to the Louvre for
another check, then back home.
Now back to les femmes, who say they want whoever reads this to feel they
were along on the journey, every step of the way.
Upon returning home, les femmes announced to Rick that we'd decided we
wanted Mexican food, at the restaurant next door called Tampico's, because
what's more of a Parisian experience than Mexican food.
The doorman at Tampico's was quite surprised and glad to see les voisins
there in the restaurant.
We were promptly seated and serenaded by two non-Mexican French speaking
Spanish-singing Ecuadorian and Puerto Rican-born tableside singers. They
were impressed with our enthusiasm to say the least, and wouldn't leave us
alone, singing 4 songs right in our faces, including two renditions of
Bomboleyo. The experience of "Super-Nachos" with all 12 corn chips, and
kidney beans, and "Mexican avocado mousse" was topped only by the
experience of Parisian versions of Mexican food: a gruyere quesedilla,
surprisingly non-creped tacos and enchiladas.
The serenader was boyfriend number 3 for Jessica, serenading her with an
Elvis medley, and "Quando quando quando"; 
she got jealous when he later sang it
to someone else.
An hour later we payed our check, ventured out to find les desserts, a
crepe du banane et grand marnier, and walked by the Notre Dame. Then home
and had giggle fits while writing this journal -- no dominoes to be done.
Fin. <br><br>


<b> Sun, mar 23</b><br>
another day of getting separated from each other. this time i barely
missed jessica and rick in front of mariage freres for our brunch
reservations. they had left earlier in the morning to see musee marmottan
(monet museum) and the tour effiel while i slept. they enjoyed so much the
art and architecture and jessica made sure to buy a handful of tour effiel
keychains, that they were running late and to meet me in the marais, but having waited for forty-minutes already and not
seeing our reservation for laforge on the list, (sadly our french is so
bad that later we realized that the reservation was under the name laforghe) i left after forty
minutes. while i went looking for the other mariage freres and checking
email at the internet place, they came back to the apartment and left a
note for me, saying they'd wait at the first mariage freres until i showed
up. about an hour later, and a sunburn for jessica, we finally met up with
each other. enjoyed a lovely brunch upstairs in the restaurant, a
dangerous place as it was empty up there and they sat us right next to the
dessert plates. it was such a beautiful day that we decided to forgo the
louvre, once again, and walk around the city and go to mass in the
evening. ended up around the pompidou where tons of people and street
performers were out. once again, rick and i had a hard time appreciating
parisien street 'theater' so we sat down next to a couple of guys singing
and playing guitar. jessica was singing along with them and before we knew
it, the guys had pulled her up there with them, where she sang elvis
and classic rock songs. we realized that 'love me tender' is her theme as
both these guys and the musicians last night at tampico's serenaded her
with it. however, none of them really knew the words and instead of the
lyric, 'my love won't wait' they sang something like, 'a vos swai' which is
what the french say after someone sneezes. these guys were truly enamoured
by jessica and her american-ness: they kept on wanting to sing 'american
pie' and called her j.lo.
made it to the evening mass at the notre dame where jessica treated it with
all the respect and awe of a true catholic by promptly falling asleep.
then we found a dinner place for jessica's farewell 'croak sans jambon.'
<br><br>

<b> Mon, Mar 24 </b> <br>
Woke up bright and early to the soothing sounds of the neighboring
restaurant drilling and hammering into the wall right by our bed. This
after I (Rick) was so overtired the night before that I got upset at
Jessica's criticism of my lack of knowledge about Chris Rock's musical
career during a late-night game of Botticelli. She nicely apologized in
the morning, though the only reason I was grumpy was that I was so
overtired. So the three of us went for a coffee to wake up, choosing
Segafredo this time. Segafredo is well-known, but
Jessica decided the vote for best coffee in Paris goes
to Brioche d'Or. Not sure if it was the desire for companionship, or the
worry about getting lost, or possibly for one last shot at a lesbian affair
with Jean, but Jessica so desired Jean to take the train to the airport
with her that she even paid for Jean's roundtrip train ticket. After an
emotional goodbye, Jessica left for Tennessee. After I came back from work,
Jean and I walked to the Fontaine de 4 Saisons, which is just in the
middle of town, and when we got to the address it was just an apartment
building, with a door locked to the public. We tried to sneak in behind
this woman but her friend was waiting outside and said "Non non non!" So
we asked her where the fountain was and she said it was in the Jardin de
Luxembourg. After some discussion, we finally realized there are
2 of these fountains in Paris: one in the Jardin de 
<img src="fontainedemedici.JPG" height=150><br>
Luxembourg, and the other
here at the TOP of the facade of this apartment building. After admiring it
a bit and figuring out which season was which, we went home
and went to bed early for some much needed
sleep.<br><br>

<b> Tue, Mar 25 </b> <br>
The last two domino games have been unbelievable -- yesterday I was
"sur la ligne" and tonight it was like 95 to 45 but both times Jean came
back and won. This morning we went to la cimitiere du Pere Lachaise to see
the graves of Camille Pisarro, 
<img src="rickandjimi.JPG" height=150><br>
James Morrison, Frederic Chopin and others.
We looked for a long time for Monge, a mathematician whose street in Paris
we walk down a lot, but couldn't find it. Mostly we just wandered around
the cemetary making fun of the dead people's names. Nice, I know. Today
was the first day it was actually hot, I mean hot like hotter than you'd
want it to be. Amazing how much it's changed since when we got here. After
the Lachaise we got a much-needed drink and some fromage blanc at Cat Cafe,
then I went to work where I ran into Emmanuel Roy one last time -- who
said the hot weather this time of year was very unusual -- and after the
seminar talked with
<img src="rickjacod.JPG" height=150><br> Jean Jacod,
saying goodbye to both since I probably
won't see them again before I leave.
I gave Jacod a bottle of some cherry-flavored liqueur, to which he was very
appreciative. Meanwhile Jeanne had metro'd with me to work from the Cat Cafe,
and was walking and shopping from Place d'Italie all the way home.
Jeanne and I decided that for the rest of the week we'd speak only French
to each other -- we really should've been always doing that but we've been
too lazy.
<br><br>

<b>mercredi, mars 26</b><br>
the most amazing things happened today! we were walking around the opera
house area, a pretty swanky part of the rive droite, and we ran into
<img src="delanoe.JPG" height=150><br>
bertrand delanoe, the
mayor of paris! he is kind of known as being very creative and even a
little eccentric and he was so nice, he even stopped to take a photo with us.
then we heard someone yelling in italian and looked up at it was roberto
<img src="benigni.JPG" height=150><br>
begnini! he was so excited to see us and even reached out to hug us. then
we went to this sports hall of fame center and who was there? 
<img src="zidanerick.JPG" height=150><br>zidane! he
was nice, but a little stiff (maybe he had just worked out). we stopped at
a busy cafe and who did we see having a drink together? hemingway and
serge gainsbourg! by this time, i was feeling quite comfortable around my
celeb friends and sat down to have a drink with 
<img src="sartrejean.JPG" height=150><br>sartre. he said some things
that made me think. while i was busy thinking, rick was quickly making
friends with <img src="pabsyrick.JPG" height=150><br>
picasso, or pab-sie, as he now calls him. at another table was
<img src="jeanvoltaire.JPG" height=150><br>
voltaire and some friends. i felt inspired in his presence and joined him
to jot down a few words.
very happy with our experiences, we left the wax museum (musee grevin) and
did a little shopping around the grand boulevard. our favorite cheese
restaurant was closed (of course) but we found a terrific little cafe,
'chocoline,' with
the freshest fruit tarts we've ever tasted. later in the evening we saw a
french/japanese movie, 'stupeur et tremblements.' again, rick snuck in his
popcorn contraband and it was as quiet as a library in the theater.
by the way, i've turned completely euro. i finally found a pair of 
<img src="jeanshoes.JPG" height=150><br>shoes
that are comfortable, but they are blue and brown and don't match any of my
clothes. i'm really blending in now!<br><br>

<b> jeudi, mars 27 </b><br>

another busy day of relaxing in paris. after calling A Parisian Home to 
arrange our checkout, 
for some reason our phone would not turn off -- even after we unplugged it! 
it must be cursed. we think it's a talking tina telephone and some day 
it'll try to strangle us with the phone cord while we're using it. 
After that 
we took off for a wonderful lunch 
at brasseries balzar, a typical french brasserie near the sorbonne. then we 
went to the 
<img src="rickjarluxe.JPG" height=150><br>
jardin luxembourg so rick could finally use the 
<img src="rickbasket.JPG" height=150><br>
basketball 
shoes he had brought all the way from la. the gardens are all crowded now 
that the weather is so unusually hot. the french, however, still like to 
play sports in long pants and long sleeved shirts or sweaters. 
it seems that teams of four are organized beforehand so rick had to wait 
until a group of single guys were together. it turns out that the french do 
not know how to play defense as rick and his motley crew lost after just a 
few minutes. dommage! did a little shopping at a nearby fromagerie and 
walked down onto the sidewalk near the seine where we skipped stones (ones 
rick had picked up in chambord).
then went to restaurant Olivier for a free acoustic guitar concert/poetry 
reading. the music was very good but we had no idea what the poet was 
talking about. they literally tore the house down though; 
chunks of roof 
fell into our hair and sweaters as we watched, for some reason. later, we saw 
the performers in the restaurant and the poet asked us 
if we understood what he said. we told him that they were 'tres amusant' 
and he seemed to appreciate it. we stayed at olivier's for dessert and 
realized that it is basically just olivier running the show. it was kind of 
late so he was eating his dinner and we just served ourselves dessert from 
the gorgeous dessert buffet. when we wanted to pay we had to interrupt 
olivier's dinner and without even getting up he just nonchalantly said, 
'vous avez mange deux desserts? dix euros, s'il vous 
plait' as if he was just making up the price that second. 
we walked to rick's bureau and he gave me a little tour of the 
place -- it's very nice and modern and extremely well-heated. we ran into a 
few hurdles there though. first being that i couldn't get in because my 
name wasn't on this piece of paper that allowed rick to get in afterhours. 
only after we put on our confused, we're americans face did the security 
guard let me in. then we dropped some of our stuff and it rolled under a 
big filing cabinent. we locked ourselves out of the office. finally, when we 
had to leave (since we told the security guy that we'd only be fifteen 
minutes) the computers stalled, leaving two computers frozen 
on rick's website. oh well, the next two people get to enjoy this journal!
<br><br>

<b> Vendredi, 28 Mars </b>
After a leisurely morning, Jean went to do some shopping and I played 
basketball again at the 
<img src="jrjarluxe.JPG" height=150><br>
Jar-Lux. Afterwards we did a little more shopping 
together, then at night met up with 
<img src="jeanlaurentfatougelati.JPG" height=150><br>
Laurent and Fatou to have dinner at 
Fish La Boissonerie. Jean's jambon curee apetizer made us a little queasy 
but other than that it was good, and it was fun to talk to 
<img src="rjlaurentfatou.JPG" height=150><br>
L&F again, us 
speaking mostly French and them mostly English. Fatou is trying to get her 
driver's license, which they say is very difficult in France, and 
apparently she's not the best driver and is having a lesson tomorrow so 
Laurent warned us to "stay inside tomorrow!" We talked about cars a bit, 
and how we'd gotten totally lost in our trip to the Loire, and Laurent 
talked about one time he'd gotten overheated in the African desert. He 
said that old French cars didn't have coolant, and instead used wine! Jean 
and I were laughing, and Laurent didn't understand what was so funny -- 
after a while we realized he was trying to say "wind", not "wine". They 
also told us about Poisson d'Avril, April Fools Day, and how everyone here 
gets into it, even the newscasters. One time Laurent saw on the news that 
there was a law stating that people who were driving convertibles had to 
wear a helmet and he thought it was real and had to ask someone if it was 
true or not. Also, they said that people try to stick stickers of fish on 
your back on April 1st.
After dinner we all went to 
the nearby gelateria, where the woman working there recognized and chatted 
with us a bit. The lines there are extremely long now, about 20 people 
long I'd say, probably since the weather is so warm now. 
L&F both went for meringue while Jean and I tried our last new flavor 
(bright green 'menthe') -- actually that's not true, there's still coconut 
but I don't think we'll go there -- and then we walked 
around the Seine and talked some more, enjoying the global warming. 
Speaking of which, isn't there a movie called "Paris is Burning" or something? 
Yesterday, when Jean and I were walking along the Seine at night, 
we saw a huge blaze atop a building that quickly got extinguished, and as 
we walked toward it we found that it had been a big fire in a restaurant -- 
they'd cleared all the customers, cooks and waiters out, 
who were all standing around and watching. 
<br><br>

<b> saturday, march 29 </b><br>
what a great start for my birthday weekend. went to the place de la 
concorde where we met up with thousands of others to take part in a big 
<img src="rjmanif.JPG" height=150><br>
'manifestation' against the 
<img src="jeanmanif2.JPG" height=150><br>
war. we got there a little early and had the 
opportunity to get all decked out in peace-loving paraparenelia. we bought 
pins and stickers and posters from all of these different political 
groups, colors as they are called here, and then we began to march with 
everyone across the seine into the rive gauche. although we had tons of 
anti-war stuff on, we didn't really fit well into one color. we even got 
kicked out of the communist group. however, we felt welcomed by the jc, the 
jeunes communistes, and so we walked with them. later we joined in with 
the socialists. all that manifesting made us hungry and we ducked out of 
the march and went to get some gelati. an ironic moment was when we went 
straight from the young communists group to an atm machine.
the streets were busy everywhere as 
the france v. 
<img src="welsh.JPG" height=150><br>
wales futbol game was here this weekend, too. came back home 
for a quick nap and then rick surprised me with reservations at our 
favorite cheese restaurant, la ferme, where we savored our last 
chance for really unique cheese -- so much so that we didn't even need 
to smuggle the leftovers in my purse since we had eaten everything. walked 
home along the seine and tried to get to bed early for our morning bateaux 
mouche tomorrow. <br><br>

<b> Dimanche, 30 Mars </b> <br>
We missed the boat! 
After getting up bright and early and wishing Jean a happy 30th birthday, 
we stopped in a little coffee-house on the way to the bateaux mouches, 
thinking we had plenty of time. As we were sipping our coffee and tea, 
we noticed a nearby newspaper with a chess puzzle, so I grabbed it. 
Ironically very satisfied with our intellect at solving the puzzle, the 
next instant we looked at one of the headlines which indicated that today 
was daylight saving time! So instead of being 20 minutes early, we were 40 
minutes late to the boat. 
So, we strolled over to the 
<img src="burghershot.JPG" height=150><br>
Rodin museum and walked around the 
amazing 
<img src="rodinlawn.JPG" height=150><br> gardens, 
which now had 
<img src="jeanpenseur.JPG" height=150><br>
Le Penseur back from its Berlin exhibition. Then we walked 
all the way home and then up to the marais for lunch at Mariage Freres, 
always a winner. After lunch we decided to try to catch the sold-out 
afternoon bateau, since we figured maybe there'd be others who like us 
didn't know about the time change. So we metro'd to the boat landing at 
Parc de la 
<img src="jrvillette.JPG" height=150><br>
Villette, but got there just about 2 minutes too late, and saw 
the boat leaving as we approached. We stayed in the parc, stopped into 
"Quick" for some so-called fast food, where we spent literally 40 minutes 
in line -- one customer in front of us took 22 minutes; 
I'm not exaggerating at all.  Anyway, it was a beautiful day so we spent 
it here in the parc where millions of kids (and adults) were playing and 
enjoying the beautiful weather. 
After some card playing and napping there in the sun, 
we walked all the way back from the parc, which was off the map -- must 
have been around 4 miles back. Delirious on the walk back, to keep our 
minds off our blisters and aches and pains, we invented a game 
where you have to think of a song lyric with a word in it, then take the 
next word and the other 
player has to think of a different song with that word in it, etc. 
Dead tired from the ridiculous amount of 
walking this weekend, we just crashed at 
home -- we're not young twenty-somethings anymore! <br><br>

<b> Lundi, 31 Mars </b><br>
Our last tango in Paris! Very sad, but we really lived it up, and ate 
better than ever. We got up 
early, had some homemade crepes and cafe cremes, and 
went to try to chase down the 
3-hr Paris Canal (again) but the guy on the boat shook his finger and said 
"Pas aujourd'hui." So Jean and I split up and did some last-minute errands, 
(when I noticed this 
<img src="busreader.JPG" height=150><br>
bus driver caught in traffic, reading a book -- how 
French!), then BARELY caught the Bateau 
<img src="jnotremouche.JPG" height=150><br>
Mouche as it was just about to leave. 
It was surprisingly a lot of fun actually, and we enjoyed listening to the 
quatro-lingual explanations (French, English, Spanish and Russian). It 
<img src="jeiffelmouche.JPG" height=150><br>
went 
pretty far down the Seine, even to the Statue de 
<img src="libertemouche.JPG" height=150><br>
Liberte which we hadn't 
seen before. After the 
<img src="mouche2.JPG" height=150><br>
Mouche we had a delicious (as always) lunch at 
La Ferme St Hubert, followed by dessert at nearby Chocoline, which was good 
but not magnificent since they were out of their delicious tarte aux fruits 
de bois. Then we did some more errands, 
and were amused by a poster at the nearby 
magazine store announcing that the guy who plays 
Admiral Whatever, the fish-guy from Star Wars, was coming to speak. We saw 
a bus driver and a bicyclist get into a big fight, with the bus driver 
barely restraining from punching the biker in the face. We asked this old 
woman what had happened, and she didn't know but proceeded for 10 minutes 
to explain to us, in incomprehensibly fast French,  
her thoughts on life and communism and anarchy and 
on how Paris is going downhill in general.  
Then we went off to dinner at my restaurant prefere du monde, 
<img src="jcigale.JPG" height=150><br>
Cigale, also known 
(to us) as Souffles 'R' Us. Again it was unbelievably delicious, and we had 
some great conversation with the funny French 
<img src="jamiscigale.JPG" height=150><br>
couple right 
next to us who were admiring our food-sharing. 
The husband was the cousin of Cigale's owner, and spoke some 
English but his wife hardly any. 
The wife runs a chateau near Cognac and was telling us all about it and 
even showing us pictures; it looks beautiful. 
The couple downed 2 bottles of wine and a lot of Grand Marnier, and the 
guy was telling us that his wife talks too much when she drinks, so the 
wife turned to me and said "What did he say?" and I for once remembered 
that in France you should never say anything honest or 
serious so I replied "He said 
you're the most beautiful woman in the world." 
They informed us that seated two tables behind us was 
a famous French actor and actress, and the actor had dated Princess 
Caroline of 
Monaco. We asked our neighboring couple what 
the guy's most famous movie is, and they couldn't think of any, so the woman 
whispered to Jean in French that his most famous role 
was his affair with Princess Caroline. By the way, the table right behind us 
brought their 
<img src="rgelatidog.JPG" height=150><br>
dog in to dine with them, which is no big deal here; however 
this one barked in the middle of 
dinner. 
A perfect last day -- perfect ending to a perfect 3 months.
<br><br>  





<b> Mardi, 1 Avril </b><br>
 After staying up til 3am packing and trying to somehow finagle the best way
 to cram our 400 pounds of stuff into something resembling legal luggage, Jean 
 and I got up bright and early for some final packing and cleaning. Someone 
 from A Parisian Home was supposed to show up at 9:30 for a final inspection but 
 didn't arrive by 10, so we just left. The taxi driver was sonice and totally 
 parked illegally and helped us so much with our bags, buton the way he cursed 
 himself when he realized he'd forgotten to turn themeter on during the 5 
 minutes we were loading luggage, and also forgot toswitch it to the higher 
 rate when we crossed the peripherique. So in theend the meter read only $27 
 or so, and I pretended I only had $25 to givehim, then after a second I 
 said "Poisson d'avril" and gave him another $20.He was very happy and was 
 cracking up. Then, we checked in and though the luggage check was fine, we 
 realized we'd left our posters from our manifestation outside by the taxi, 
 so I went running around looking for them but they were gone. Jean checked 
 too, but to no avail. Then we very nearly missed the plane because they kept 
 checking and re-checking us andall our bags; I guess we looked suspicious. 
 We tried to explain that wewere in a hurry and that they were calling our 
 names on the loudspeaker,but that didn't stop the guy from checking my carryon,
 taking out our nutella jar, and saying "You can't bring this on" so many times 
 that I finally started to believe him, and then he finally got to the 
 punchline: "You can't take it, because it's for me!" After that very stressful
 check-in and a pretty smooth flight home next to our very French neighbor
 who seemed to deeply disapprove of us, and after being the butt of many
 jokes (about our bags, our food, my snoring, etc.) from our French flight
 attendant, and after again trying to "bring back the clap" but getting just
 a few takers on our connecting flight from SF, we were back in LA.
 Immediately taxi'd to mom & dad's place to see them and Bella, and made
 them some crepes which for some reason took forever to cook. After that,
 went back home where Cia had made the place beautiful and even 
 left flowers and a welcome back note for us. Nevertheless depression, culture 
 shock and especially jet lag kicked in. The weirdest part about being back 
 though was that everything in LA seemed exactly the same -- that although we 
 had gone through this whole experience, nothing here seemed to have changed 
 at all.<br><br>
<br><br>