Okay, Angelina was a definite and we made it! Le chocolat Africain was just as I remembered it, the rest wasn’t so good. David proposed that we split a complete brunch which seemed like an okay idea, but we got there near closing time and they were running out of stuff so we didn’t have our first pick of pastries and some of the other options. We definitely ended up trying some things we wouldn’t have otherwise which is always good for the world traveler. But to be honest, I would have been fine with the chocolate. David caught sight of something sort of funny: a waitress picked up the cash payment from a table put it in what seemed to be her personal wallet and threw the receipt away. That left us with a feeling of intrigue which proved somewhat entertaining. The best part was when our waitress told us that they were out of fruit salad, she pointed to a bowl of fruit on display and said we could pick whatever we wanted. Seemed fine to us, for my part I assumed that we’d name our preference and then she’d go back to the kitchen and ask them to chop some of our choice fruits up. We’d have a customized presentation of fruit in the elaborate Parisian style brought to our table. Not so much. A couple minutes later a man who appeared to be the manager came over and told us pretty much the same story. We said no problem and requested an apple. He went over to the bowl in our view, plucked out the apple, scoped out a plate from a nearby wait station and brought over the apple sitting in the middle of the plate. We were amused but not enthusiastic about actually eating the apple, it was a golden delicious and didn’t look too good (and the manager assured us we would be poisoned if we ate the skin). To be polite, we tried it after carving it up with a butter knife and our suspicions were confirmed.
Off we went to fulfill our other “musts.” It was about now that the second bike’s 24 hour rental time had expired. We’d already gotten David a bike earlier but mine had a little more time since we’d gotten them at different times before. Here’s where our tale of disappointment makes it’s final climb to deliver us to tourist wipeout. As many times as we tried (every kiosk we passed), we couldn’t cajole those damn automated kiosks into supplying us with another bike. We were confined to a pretty small area as such. True, we could have made a trip to la tour eiffel with some ingenuity, but our patience and determination were wearing thin and we just didn’t have it in us.
There was still the matter of scarves, and maybe a dress or two. What can I say, everywhere we went in Paris there was the possibility that I might find some special little something that keep me from leaving this fashion mecca empty-handed. In our zigzagging of the streets from previous days, we’d noticed a mall that seemed to offer fashions at bargain prices. Thank goodness, for my moral at least, I managed to score a few scarves. That made me feel more Parisian and I was content. We passed a couple other stores that I wanted to visit and resolved to return.
In retrospect I can fully admit that most of our troubles stemmed from my constant ambiguous quest for some sort of fashion find. David, generous soul that he is accompanied me patiently as I scoured the stores. Take, for example, our trip to la louvre. Alexa had taken a picture of some pretty napkins back in 2005. I had thought that I might be able to track them down and give them to her as a wedding present. I was pretty sure she’d seen them at one of the shops outside the entrance to la louvre. Truthfully, I should know better than to go searching for something that specific in a place so big. I’ve made that sort of mistake before. But I plowed ahead with all the naive hope I could muster, until the impossibility of my quest was completely apparent (sorry Alexa, I tried). Had I not been on some sort of absurd mission to hunt down linen napkins from 4 1/2 years ago, we might had gotten to the ticket kiosk before the cut off time. Yes indeed, we got to museum, made it through the throngs of people to find that we couldn’t enter. It was 5:07p and it closed at 5:30p. No more tickets for entry were available. Now, that’s not to say that our disappointment was that great, luckily we didn’t REALLY want to go inside. 20 minutes was all we realistically needed. It was more the mere idea, that once again our plans were foiled. David had had it. He was no fan of Paris and he didn’t mind expressing his opinions.
To add insult to injury, I had to visit the loo. The sign said public toilets. We followed the sign and found ourselves in a very fancy lobby. These toilets were certainly not going to be free. Not that there’s anything wrong with charging for toilet usage, but at least post it on the sign was David’s valid point. His complaint fell on deaf ears, after he paid my euro admission I was swept away to the cleanest toilets I’d ever visited. There were all sorts of amenities installed to make this a state of the art toilet facility. My favorite part was that after somebody vacated the stall, a worker would go in and clean the whole place up so that it was pristine upon entry. All germs and odors were wiped away. Lovely. I walked out feeling completely fine about paying to use the toilet and was even entertaining the idea of purchasing some of the designer toilet paper being displayed for purchase when David gave me a firm “NO” and directed me to the exit.
With our trip to the tower and the famous museum knocked off the list, all that remained was my hapless quest. Now I was becoming a bit desperate. There was the whole image of Paris to maintain. I couldn’t leave without feeling at least one part of the visit had been a success. By the time we attempted to return to the stores I wanted to visit, they’d closed. Our options were looking pretty slim, I had exhausted my shopping opportunities. It was not a complete failure, I did end up with another pair of my favorite Parisian brand of shoes and some very Parisian scarves, but I’d hoped for more. Ah well, just reason to return another time right? I think I’ll be going alone though. A couple good crepes aren’t sufficient to lure David back again.
As seems to be the case with days such as this one, oozing with fatigue and disappointment, we were blessed in the final hour with the company of some friendly strangers and an amusing waiter. We found a little restaurant that looked tasty and not overpriced. We were seated right away and put in an order. I had a really tasty lasagne, David wasn’t so lucky. It seemed that we’d stumbled upon another bad French chef, can it really be true?! His meat was carelessly over-cooked. He suffered through it though. As we were finishing our meal we struck up a conversation with the people at the neighboring table. The man right next to David was actually from Dublin, a fun coincidence since we were headed back there in the morning so that we could fly back to San Francisco on Monday. We had a fun talk with him and his very polite French friends. It felt like coming home to a comfy little country cottage after tromping through a big abrasive city all day. Our new friend gave us a very helpful tip about catching our ride back to Dublin. We were flying out of a distant airport (52.6 miles outside of Paris to be exact) called Beauvais. David, of course, hadn’t realized this as the airline had deceptively billed the departure city as Paris (sort of like saying the departure city is Oakland, CA and carting people out to some random little military airport in Morgan Hill). At least we were armed with a plan and for my part I felt fortified by relating to some nice down to earth humans for a least 20 minutes (other than David that is :)). The anonymity of the big city had left me starved for some sense of normalcy.
Getting our check out of our waiter proved to be quite a challenge. It’s a story best relayed by David in person, but I’ll put it down here for posterity’s sake. After we’d been sitting and chatting with our new friends a while David got the waiter’s attention from across the room and put in his first request. We continued to chat. About 10 minutes later, David put in a second request, again, from a distance. We continued to chat. Another 10 minutes, David was growing mystified and a bit impatient. He put in a third request. This time the waiter came by and asked in an amusing tone, “Are you SURE?” David was indeed sure! Next came a bill. It wasn’t our bill. We had ordered two meals and a glass of wine, this had double the amount of stuff. David called the waiter over AGAIN, to put in a request for OUR bill. Then came another bill, still not ours. But as our new Irish friend helped us to determine: it was close enough, actually even a couple euro less than ours. We paid and made for the door on the wake of well wishes from our new friends.
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