The rest of Spring Break

I've not been posting very frequently, and a lot has happened. By Wednesday Gideon had arrived and we got something to eat and drink near the Pantheon. On Friday Kat arrived, and it was very very good to have her here. She was here until Tuesday morning. On Friday I also moved into the Cite Universitaire residence, and on Monday started classes.

For lack of a better way, I’ll organize my record by place/thing rather than chronologically, just because I will remember them in that order. Maybe at some point I’ll try a more narrative style.

Place de la Contrescarpe

I learn from my copy of A Moveable Feast (which I bought last week and enjoyed reading in various pretty outdoor places) that Hemingway lived above it. It’s a nice square — bustling in the evening with lots of people eating or going out. Since there are a lot of inexpensive restaurants / street-food shops, it’s a good place to sit at the fountain, eat, chat, and people-watch. I had a panini here with Gideon Wednesday evening, and a gelato (from a shop of a famously good chain that I forget the name of, but it’s right there on the square) with Kat Friday afternoon.

L’As du Falafel

In the Marais. Had lunch here with Kat on Friday. Delicious falafel.

The Marais

Old Jewish neighborhood and now also an artists district. Lots of small, generally free art galleries, cheap Middle Eastern food, Jewish bakeries. On Wednesday I walked around it and stopped in the Galerie Dialogos, owned by artist Vea Xiradakis and presently showing her own work. The docent (or whatever you’d call the person overseeing/attending an art gallery) is a friend of an artist and talked to me for a bit about her and her art, and about Paris (she lives in the Latin Quarter but prefers the Marais — prefers the young artistic people to the “intellectuals”)

There are tons of little art galleries in Paris, and I would like to spend more time in them. I stopped in another one sometime last week on Rue Mazarin, which had a bunch of them on that street alone.

Angelina

Came here Sunday with Kat for hot chocolate. This hot chocolate was one of the most joyful things to consume that I have consumed in my life. So rich. So delicious.

Market at Porte de Clignancourt

Went Sunday with Kat. Huge open air market — hundreds of stalls with people hawking clothing, bags, jackets all sorts of things. The sort of place where you haggle for everything. Fun to just see the vendors and crowds. I bought a messenger bag that I’ve found quite satisfactory. Haggled someone down to 80 euro from 250 on a really nice leather jacket — I only had 50 at the time, but I might go back for it. I also had my second-best crepe so far from a stand here.

There’s an indoor portion of the market that looks amusingly like an indoor mall that was abandoned and then taken over by squatters selling furniture and artwork. It’s brightly lit from a translucent ceiling and eerily subdued compared to the outside.

There is more from this period, but it’s late. I will put in more later.