Virtually Home

I feel incredibly conflicted. The last few days has passed in a haze of nostalgia and trying to see everyone before they or I leave. After the British girls left, I met up with Lucy and some English/Italian friends at Jardin Publique. The weather was beautifully hot, and I stayed in the shade so as not to make my sunburn worse. I went to open mic night at the Connemara for the last time, which was pretty sad. I played "This Year" by the Mountain Goats and U2's "One", that last with Lawrence Collins and my friends Nath and Clémentine singing along. It wasn't the best rendition, in part from my lack of preparation and in part from their lyrics covering my tab on the music stand, but it all worked out. We played some more guitar in the park across the street after the bar closed. I walked home. It stormed a bit that night, and a cold front came in. It's now in the mid 60s at midday and pretty cold in the morning and the evening. Last night was Wednesd...

Grace decided to come visit me on her spring break. And so she arrived, after having missed her international connection in Atlanta due to weather and about five hours late, for a pretty calm evening. We walked around the city a little. We ate delicious crêpes (galettes, really) at a place very near my house. We drank cider. And then we slept until she no longer felt tired. Her resiliency to jetlag, on a first time abroad, was to be commended. That afternoon, we had a lunch of thoroughly French cheeses (some of which were growing Penicillium) and bread, and Vianney met us, complete with rollerblades, at my place. He brought a milk bottle full of canelé dough, which was delicious and which inspired us to get some canelés while we were in Bordeaux. We climbed the 231 stairs of the Tour de Pey-Berland, which is associated with the cathedral right next to my apartment. The view was spectacular, though there was some considerable haze obscuring the horizon line. We walked to Place des Q...