Our plans called for us to head straight to Mont St. Michel this morning, so of course we changed our minds and decided to toodle around Brittony instead. It was probably the tides or something.
Our rental car was magically upgraded to a Citroen C3, a bubbly yet sleek convertible. It wasn’t the most powerful, and it’s Sensodrive(tm) transmission was a bit confusing — if they had seen us trying to get it out of the parking stall, they might have gently plucked the keys from our hands, and suggested the train.
The story of Duckies’s trip actually starts at Denfert-Rochereau. I had figured out a foolproof plan to meet my guests in Paris, instead of at the airport, and I’ve been putting it into practice. In theory, I send you (the guest) a phone card, and detailed instructions on how to take the train into Paris from your airport and terminal, as well as detailed instructions on how to contact me on my mobile phone.
In practice, your plane is late, or your luggage gets stabbity stabbed, and you leave me two or three messages in my voice mail because I missed the ring and you called the next time while I was checking my voice mail, and your voice sound dangerously at the edge. And we never actually know if we’re going to meet up until you actually step off the train, and at that point, it’s okay because we’re so happy to see each other!
Then we go to the Fête de Vendanges in Montmartre.
Sunday morning, I woke up with ashes in my mouth. I had slept in four hours longer than normal, which meant I had at least five hours of sleep. The sun was pouring in my window, so I gulped down the water that I left at the bedside the night before, wrapped my head in the sheets and pushed myself back into sleep.
About an hour later, I had to get up for more water. Again, my mouth was dry — but my headache was well within normal operating parameters. I wouldn’t say I was stable, especially if I took my intestines into account. I got lots more water, and then some coffee.
A few days before, we had reserved dinner at Au Limonaire, a wine and song bar. We reserved for two hours before the music was supposed to start, and we got there two hours early last night. Eloise and Sing-Sing (although we had yet to be introduced) were tuning, and checking the sound. The bistrot was empty, and they led us to the little table directly in front of the stage. There was a slip of paper with my name on it.
This part is pretty clear. I remember there were olives and toothpicks, and the menu board was still full.
We both ordered the same thing — to start, a terrine de foie de volaille, which is a poultry liver pâté. Theirs was served in a cute terracotta pot, and had blueberries in it. It was tasty. Then the rôti de veau (veal roast) with tagliatella. It was also tasty, and luckily there was a lot of it. I asked him to bring us a bottle of red wine that would go well with the meal.
About this time, everything started getting just a little fuzzier, and warmer. They started erasing plates and desserts off of the menu board. Le Meg came over and introduced herself. She and Lady K had been chatting online. She’s been doing exciting and wonderful things in Paris, and we’ve been stealing her ideas. I hope I made a good impression at this point, because it was really one of the last solid moments of the night…
Yeah, after the first bottle of wine, we ordered another 50cL (two thirds of a bottle). I remember that the second bottle was a Côtes du Rhone, because I thought I could pronounce that one. There was dessert — I had fromage blanc with roasted nuts, and Kelaine had a Alsatian prune tart.
And then the lights went out. My head was seriously spinning, and Sing-Sing took the stage.That’s his stage name of course. I know his real name, but I’m mad discreet. And how!
Wow — it was him and his guitar. It was great. Really great — it made my head spin, which was perfect because everything else was still spinning in the other direction. I clapped very loudly. His guitar was a brilliant blue that some of my readers (if you’re out there!) would have appreciated highly…
After Sing-Sing was finished his set, he introduced us to Benjamin. He was quieter, and he played us narrative ballads that seemed so incredibly impressively clever on so many levels; I can certainly vouch for the music, and I really had the impression that I was catching 100% of the French, but that might have been the overconfidence of the wine. He made an excellent connection with the audience.
Then it was Eloise. She came up and sang — a beautiful voice, straightforward and honest. She was accompanied by Sing-Sing (who composed their music). She charmed us all, especially when she stepped away from the micro and sang Russian to us. Her set flew by rapidly, although I can’t imagine that it was any shorter than the others…
OK, at this point, the lights come back on, and people start milling about and ordering more drinks. I obviously shouldn’t be drinking more at this point — at this point in my life, I know when I’ve had enough. And besides, we really should be thinking about catching the next métro home.
Or we could go over to Le Meg’s table, and meet her husband, and Tom, and Jorg and Cynthia. They’re expatriates, and tourists, and tourist-expatriates, and teachers and students, and bloggers and poets. I can’t say enough nice things about them, and it’s not just my soon-to-be famous discretion, nor my absent-minded inebriation. Sometimes when you’re talking to someone, it just hits you: they care. The world can be an apathetic place — and France can have a particularly properly sophisticatedly formal front.
It might have just been the wine (oh yeah, they had announced that they were closing the bar, so we ordered a few more bottles). But I don’t think it was.
Eloise, Benjamin and Sing-Sing came to our table, obviously the happening group. I wasn’t speaking much to them at this point, being engrossed in the conversation. Man, I hope I was charming — I remember what they said, I really do. I really have no idea if I was making sense from the other side. I hope I was.
So what do you do when the bar closes down and you get shushed away? You follow the musicians to the next bar. So we did. There was some food, but I didn’t actually eat any — that harshes the buzz, you know — but there was also more wine. I think. Yeah, I’m pretty sure…
Hey, wasn’t there some sort of weird deal, where I was actually sitting at a different table than everybody else? Yeah, that’s right — not really at a different table, but kind of behind one of the rows of people and twisted around. A surprisingly good seat. I could see everyone, and then I was chatting with Eloise at my table for a while… Man, I really hope I was charming, or at least tolerable — it was a good talk, meandering over life and motivation, and work and art and audience. Good. Great!
Well, maybe I don’t hope that I’m charming-er when I’m less sober. Do I? How’s that supposed to work?
The night ended and we walked along the streets looking for a major route to send people home by taxi. Lady K and I walked a bit farther than the others, and realized that if we waited twenty minutes, we could just take the first métro home. And that’s what we did.
(Eloise is singing, Sing-sing is playing, Le Meg is filming. Thanks Le Meg!)
I started this trip to Amsterdam by taking the first-class train — rubbing elbows with high-powered businesspeoples, celebrities of wit and glamour and the latest stars of pornography, only without touching elbows because the seats were far too large and spacious. That didn’t prevent us from hobnobbing, however, smoking our cigars and sipping cognac around the fireplace, exchanging bon mots and throwing back our heads in peals of laughter. Oh, the first-class times we had!
We had a rough start to our trip, because we had unwisely chosen to pick up our rental car on a holiday. Anticipating the increased demand, Hertz decided to open their agency two hours later than the officially posted hours. So we started out on the route to the South of Brittany well into our precious daylight hours.
Well, summer is winding down, and I’ve been scrooging my vacation days away for Christmas. Apart from the business trip to Washington (where I stayed locked inside the hotel room) and a couple of weekends with Mom and Dad, I really haven’t done much travelling this year. Fortunately, Justine and Shelley had already organized a trip to Prague this weekend — all the arrangements were already made, and all I had to do was book a flight.
I just realized that I moved in with Kendra and her family back when I was the same age that she is now. Time flies — and I’m glad it does.
Kendra used to be my little cousin. Now, she’s legally an adult and (having graduated from high school) is bumming around Europe with her friend Brenda.
I told an Alsatian that my parents and I were exploring a corner of France that we had never visited before. She replied, with a sniff, that we weren’t visiting France — we were visiting Alsace.
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