Domestic Adventures: Concert, Paris Sightseeing and a European Nerd Camp Reunion

Last Wednesday night, Noah and the Whale came to Bordeaux. This was exciting because I like the band and had recently heard the album they were touring for, but also exciting because it's the "major" show I've seen in Bordeaux. I finally got to see the venue called Rock School Barbey, which is advertised all over town pretty much constantly. It's over in the dubious district by the train station where all the night clubs and peep shows live, and the venue itself was strangely tiny. It claimed a capacity of 600, which it might have had if you reckon such things with the French concept of how much space one needs. Which I guess they do, since it's France, and since in general-admission crowds you never end up with personal space anyway. The stage was inset in the middle so that the crowd rose up on tiny stairs around it. They alternated tracks from their first and second albums, to balance the mood, and the entire set was a lot more electric and rocky than the albums were. This was probably a good thing, as their opener was about the most minimalist and depressing thing I've heard live. I spent quite a while talking to their merch guy, who turned out to be the photographer for their album art, and whose band Planet Earth I keep meaning to look up. I'll do that one of these days.

We took one of the last trams home and I had a painful 9:30 a.m. class, though truthfully it's always pretty painful, since it's three hours of unrelieved poetry in which, if we're lucky, we discuss two poems. Mostly it's one. My teacher's manner of directing class reminds me strongly of Dr. Gerber, whose sophomore-level English class numbered among the worst-taught classes I'd experienced, until her second-semester replacement arrived. Okay, so that's not super relevant. My point is that the morning hurt a lot, but also that it hurts every Thursday morning.

I took a 5:30 p.m. TGV train to Paris, then navigated the metro toward the Luxembourg garden and started asking people if they knew where Rue LaGarde was. The first pair I asked had no idea. The second attempt was to the man working the crepe stand by the metro exit, and who told me, in a very thick accent that told me he spoke Arabic, that it was his first night and he didn't know where anything was. The third guy looked at me confusedly and then told me he didn't speak French, or English, and then asked me if I spoke Portuguese. We had no common languages so I asked the next guy, who had no idea but who stopped and looked it up on his iPhone for me, making sure I knew all the turns and side roads. That guy was one of the nicest random Europeans I've yet met.

I met up with Mel and Meredith in the street, and Mel's cousin and her boyfriend, who were nice enough to let us stay at their apartment in the 5th arrondissement, made dinner for us. We discussed the oddity of eating salad after the main course, among other things. Meredith wasn't feeling well and went to bed pretty soon after dinner (granted, that turned out to be about 11 p.m.) Mel and I went out for a drink and a lot of nostalgia.

The sky dripped rain all weekend. Friday was for the Louvre. That afternoon Mel and I went to Notre Dame while Meredith tried to get some rest. We ended up calling a doctor to see her that night, which was really interesting to see. French doctors do house calls, which feels like something from an old movie. They really carry the exact black bag you'd imagine, too.

Anyway, I didn't get a lot of pictures at Notre Dame because there was a mass going on when we walked in, and I felt kind of obnoxious. We heard the end of that one and decided to sit and listen to the next one. It was short, and interesting for me. I think Mel enjoyed it, though she didn't understand what they were saying and you can't exactly do a running translation when you're supposed to be quiet. Plus, echo-y buildings make my French shaky anyway.

Afterward we got a coffee near the Cité tram stop and went back to the apartment. Post doctor-drama Mel and I headed out to dinner. We ended up at a little café in a student-heavy district where we had French onion soup (really it was just onion soup, but, you know, French -- this was an object of great amusement to us, for some reason), some duck in this amazing yet unidentifiable sauce -- Mel's first duck experience -- and two variations on apple pie. One was pretty much exactly what I was used to and the other was a tatin -- much more interesting.

There's a lot more to tell, but since it ends with me getting two and a half hours of sleep and then hopping a train back to Bordeaux to make it to class early this afternoon, I'm going to postpone it until a later time.