Paris Journal

Paris Journal 4
Monday 13 nov
Yesterday I got up early and talked with Steffi, one of Tess' roommate for a while. She works at the Ritz and was on her way to work. She lent me a book called The Power of Now which is very interesting later on when she got home.
Later in the morning, I was talking to Ekaterina, Tess other roommate, another wonderful young lady. Like Steffi, she is german, although Steffi grew up in Canada and Ekaterina was born in Bulgaria. We talked a bit about Varna. I was telling her about a couple of weeks I spent there in the summer of '96.
At around 11:30 or 12 we went for a long walk and wound up at the Sacre Cour in Montmartre overlooking Paris. We went up through the west side, beautiful houses and beautiful little streets.
After we got back to the apartment later on, I didn't go out again. Hung out in the house reading, talking to Tess. We called Antonio via Skype in Cabarete and I finally spoke with Onno after about a year. I was really tired from so much walking.
Tess opened up this great bottle of wine with chicken dinner. It was good!

Tuesday 14 Nov

I got up early, had coffee with Steffi. After she left for work I walked to Bastille to try to get in some phone calls. Apparently I went too early for the place was closed. Bastille is about a 20 min walk up the Rue de Rivoli from where I am by Hotel D' Ville. I bought a pain au chocolat which I've always loved. ( In Santo Domingo I would buy Napolitanas in one of the bakeries with a french name but they never got close to the ones in Spain and here ).
I was going to leave at 5am the next day for the Beauvais airport.
I went back to the house and hung out with Ekaterina and Tess.
Tess told me that I could make phone calls to landlines in the US and Europe from the house and it was the same as a local call.

Ekaterina had to go to some 3 castings in the afternoon so she left at around 2.
Tess had a meeting at around 6:30 at an agency so I accompanied him to the place. We got out at Champs Elysees and walked a couple of blocks past the President's house to the area of the meeting. Afterwards we went to see the shop windows at Galerie Lafayette and another store beside it. They compete every year for best window in the public's eye.

We got back on the Metro this time another line, that resembles more the Cercanias trains of Madrid. It was just one stop but I thought I was gonna die from the heat and all the people. Have never been comfortable around crowds and in crowded train cars. ( My favorite Metro that I've ridden is actually the one in DC, clean,smoothand comfortable.)
We got back to the house.
I'd communicated with Alexandra, Alex Ferreira's roommate from Madrid who had moved back to France. She was in Lyon but was returning to Paris that evening.
She said she would come around 9:30 since I was leaving in the morning.
I went out and walked around for a while at the Ile de St. Louis. Curiously, as I was crossing one the many bridges, this one between the Hotel D' Ville and Notre Dame, there was a guy playing electric guitar with a mic sitting right smack in the middle of the bridge. I looked at him and walked past. The tune he was singing seemed familiar and the chord progression, and for a moment I thought, "this guy sucks. Why is he playing 'In my Life' that way" when I suddenly realized that he was strumming and singing "All of Me", one of my favorite songs of all time which the day before I had been trying to remember on the piano. I walked back and dropped a few coins and the song was in my head for about 10 mins. I startedto kind of mutter it aloud as I often do nowadays. Sing to myself as I walk down the street, not in a loud voice, but it's a great way for me to concentrate on melody and lyrics since I don't have an instrument in my hand.

After walking around for a while I headed back for the apartment. I had remembered my first trip to Paris in july 1988 when I went to a concert of Pachelbel 's Canon either in La Cite or Ile de St. Louis. Don't remember. Don't even remember the girl that accompanied me, another dominican student from L'alliance Francaise. I saw her a couple of time afterwards in DR.
It's strange how now you keep in touch with everybody in one form or another, through the internet, pictures online, chats, emails. In those days you had to make a real effort and technically speaking the only person who I've been in touch with since that time and whom I consider a great friend is Emile.

Alex came over at 10pm. Tess opened up a great bottle of wine. We talked for a while and they talked a lot in french as I tried to follow ( very difficult for me when they speak so fast, I catch just words). The conversation centered on phography and Santo Domingo.
I bought another ticket for Bergamo, and will stay here til friday.

Today ( wed. 15) Tess has a photo shoot. My flight to Bergamo was at 8:30am, but they convinced me to change my flight, which I did, for friday.
At around 12, we walked Alex home, she lives in Bastille. As we got to her corner, Sandra, the new roommate and a couple of her friends from sunday night were coming out of a bar. After a couple of minutes on the corner we all decided to go to a bar. We hung out there for a while. Had this awful glass of red wine ( awful, because besides the bottle Tess had opened in the house, this tasted like vinegar) and then I had a draft Heineken which was pretty good. Hadn't had a beer since my second day in Amsterdam.
After about an hour we left. I walked Alex to her door so I could see where she lives since we are to have lunch on wednesday.
We said goodbye to the other girls, Tess and I walked home.
In the house I got online and promptly fell asleep with my laptop on my (DUH) lap.
It was about 2:30am. I had been up since very early, had walked a lot and was very very tired.
But it was a good day, and I'm staying in Paris 2 more days, will get to see a fashion shoot and hang out with friend. Yeah.