It’s tourist season. Wide-eyed, badly-dressed, rolling two massive suitcases apiece, wearing baseball caps, schlubby shorts, and high white socks; these are the people that are seriously fucking up the commute in the morning. From the statistics that I saw, almost 10% of France’s GDP comes from tourism, but man, you can see the natives seething …
If you can’t get up the stairs or on the elevator…
Our run along the Seine yesterday turned into an extended run/hike/run after we decided that we were far enough along and that it was early enough in the morning to make it to the Marché aux Oiseaux (open-air bird market on the Île de la Cité [the island in the Seine upon which Notre Dame …
As it turns out, the washing machine in our nice little apartment, itself located on a nice little street in a nice little neighborhood, sucks; aside from an unholy funk that has proven resistant to industrial-grade washing machine cleaner, it is incapable of handling more than a token amount of clothes at a given time, …
The French version of AT&T, Orange, shocked everybody involved and came through for us. Early. Let that sink in for a minute: the French version of AT&T had our line provisioned and the equipment in our hands a full ten days ahead of schedule. If I believed in Karma banks, I’d posit that our attempts …
The big guy and his friends are now in the air and on their way to us (via AMS). I wonder if Fezzik knew, deep down, that he could fly.
The timing of things worked out such that while we should be able to go knot our apartment today, we can’t do so until later in the afternoon. As the IAH to CDG flight arrives in the morning, we’re currently sitting here, in CDG, trying to both kill time and makes sure that none of …
Packing is hard. Usually, it is not.
Under normal circumstances, I would consider myself a member of the reductionist/wing-it movement; if there is even a hint of doubt regarding whether I’ll need an item, said item stays home. That philosophy changes, however, when one has to pack for an entire year. In effect, one is shedding the vast majority of the material items one owns, and in doing so, to borrow a phrase from Shadow Warrior (the at times strangely thoughtful 2013 release), taking a sort of spiritual laxative.
With that in mind, I’m not sure what to make of our experience of a few days ago; a cat tree I had placed out on the curb for heavy trash day suddenly reappeared in a Bullrito’s parking lot a bit down the road. Having somewhat randomly gone out for frozen yogurt, I spotted the wayward tower out of the corner of my eye. We diverted to the parking lot in question, and there was the cat tree, sitting in the parking lot, looking a bit worse for wear.
An establishing shot of the cat tree in question
The cat tree, looking worse for wear
It’s just a cat tree that used to be mine, that I willfully discarded, in the parking lot of a shitty fast food joint, but I’ve found my mind wandering to this odd coupling over the past few days ; I want to go back, to walk up to the cat tree, to shake it theatrically, to demand of it: cat tree, what did you see?
Part of the La Defense skyline (from the esplanade outside the mall)
A train on the M1 line (the Arc de Triomphe is in the background, Neuilly in-between)
The Grande Arche from the back (Nanterre side)
The huge mall in La Defense, taken from the steps of the Grande Arche
Charlemagne, outside Notre Dame
Guinea Hens from a weekend bird market. I have yet to decide whether you’re supposed to eat them or not…
I flew back to Houston a week ago today. As the blog is entitled Fezzik in Paris and not Fezzik in Houston or Best Little Fezzik House in Texas, I have been quiet. The assumption that nothing is going on would be wildly incorrect though; since I’ve been back, it’s been near-total chaos; between supporting work, …
Fezzik In Paris 