a cathedral of green

i did not take one picture today. fail! i really should have taken some shots while in the jardin de luxembourg, but ... well, i was too busy enjoying it, i guess.

deb went to the asian museum, so i was on my own for the afternoon. my day began weirdly: i walked out of the hotel to find it surrounded by police tape. a cop directed me to go left instead of my usual right (which goes toward place st. michel), so i had to take a detour while heading to rue de rivoli to begin today's shopping adventure.

there was a lot of commotion on the main drag and the bridge. cops everywhere, in cars and vans on the street and also directing the traffic. after i crossed the st. michel bridge, i saw, several blocks to my right, some kind of gathering and people holding orange flags. i thought it might be a demonstration of some sort and considered checking it out. decided, given my tendency to get swept up in chaos even when i'm just standing around, not to. shopped instead.

i was hungry after all that retail madness, so i got a chorizo & cheese crepe from a corner stand. it was draped with thin slices of the spanish-style chorizo (hard like pepperoni, though bigger; not mushy like the mexican chorizo i also love) and magically delicious. clutching it in my hands, i headed off down the street to the jardin de luxembourg. the above photo is from that vast and lovely park; i found it on this website about paris tourism.

had to make a quick stop at a smaller park along the way to eat the crepe, however. it was too hard to walk and munch at the same time. while there i watched an old man feeding the pigeons. he held bits of stale bread or crackers or whatever he was feeding them in his hands, and they landed on him and ate from his fingers. pigeons are totally gross and disgusting, but it was sort of neat to watch. i felt kind of sad, though. it was like a scene from a movie where a lonely geezer has no friends but the birds in the park.

presently i made my way to the J de L, and i actually managed not to get lost. as soon as i walked in, i was enchanted. there is, of course, the famous fountain in the middle (not to mention the palace), ringed with chairs for people to hang out in and quite chill in its own way. but i was much more taken with the pathways around the perimeter, under the trees. the leaves were the most marvelous spring green, nearly translucent when i looked up, like stained glass against the dark brown framework of the branches. it was cool and peaceful on these pathways, with not many people around.

i put snow patrol's eyes open on the ipod and started my rather manic stroll, thinking about 00soul while listening to this album that seems to be about the same breakup with the same girl who provides the emotional drama on the previous album, final straw. anyway, i did walk down by the water, but the sun was too bright. retreated to the trees on the other side, where i kept on ambling around winding paths dotted with statuary. i saw kids riding ponies, running and playing ball, and raging on the playground. but mainly i kept away from the humans and enjoyed the relative calm of this lovely place.

then i went back to the hotel and waited for the squirrel to return, while catching up on this blog. we had some drama over where to eat dinner, but whatev. ended up back at cafe clement, cuz she wanted oysters. the place seemed sort of devoid of servers ... we decided that might be b/c france was playing holland in the euro cup. (they were blown out, 4-1, c'est dommage!)

it rained a little bit while we sat on the glassed-in patio, an excellent vantage point for watching the world go by. including soccer fans with little flags of france painted on their faces, one guy dressed up like a soccer ball, and a couple of people wearing one red and one blue shoe (again with the non-matching shoes of my dream...). just across the way i watched a young couple sitting in the doorway of a closed juice bar. both had plastic cups of beer. the boy, dressed all in black and with a black cap on too, was working hard to impress the girl -- he talked and talked and TALKED, gesturing with his hands and doing his best to entertain. she nodded and smiled and laughed, but i was frankly amazed at how she couldn't get a word in edgewise for at least an hour. she did finally begin to converse, but pretty soon he was doing all the talking again. deb and i amused ourselves greatly by making up various scenarios about this encounter. they were still there when we left, and i think our meal took about two hours.

anyway ... the squirrel got her oysters, and i FINALLY got a truly medium rare steak. it was actually fairly bloody, but ohboy it was good. for dessert we had profiteroles with ice cream and drizzled with homemade chocolate sauce. OMG, nirvana.