This is a lovely (former) hotel located just across from the Nîmes railway station. What does that sign say…?
…oh. It’s the Hotel Paris. I wonder if the pigeons flying in and out of the open window were pleased with their accommodations.
Fezzik apparently needs a drink. Perhaps two.
Sometimes you just need to commune with the mineral water.
The demon cat and the disablement pétillante water: a match made somewhere on the plains of Baator.
One of the windows on the back side of our building was open.
To this point, we had ignored their existence (largely because they are rarely open).
So, more than two years later, we discover that our building actually has a bit of a view.
Years from now, when I look back at our brief time in Lyon, I’m probably going to remember two things: first, that it was hot (surprise, surprise, more-southern France is indeed toasty in the summer) and second, that we hiked all the way back across town to retrieve a wooden lion that I had purchased from the top of Fourvière hill, but which was unceremoniously left (along with a sachet of Lyonnaise candy, two bars of savon de Marseille, and our bright orange bag from il Duomo in Florence) in a Subway of all places (French subway: still a shitty place to eat (full disclosure, because for once I was not responsible for picking the shitty place at which we ate: I wanted the pasta place next door, but the Purrito had hoped that a salad from Subway might be more palatable than the one on display in the pasta place)). The bag, which had apparently slipped down beside the chair, was only missed when, some 20 minutes later, we walked into Printemps, I took off my sunglasses, looked at her shoulder, where the bag should have been, (as I had intended to put my sunglasses said bag), and said “where is the orange bag?”
This was not the point at which we decided to rescue the lion, however; I admit that my original intention was to abandon him, owing to the heat and our general fatigue. The Purrito offered to hike back and retrieve the bag, but I objected on the basis that I could return to vieux Lyon and be back much faster than she could; in the end, we grabbed cold water and headed back to our hotel on presqu’ile, where I again resolved to abandon my lion to Lyon.
Sitting in the air conditioned room, I reflected on my lion; a silhouette of wood, with dark stain to outline his mane and a piece of rough twine for a tail, he was not even vaguely worth the 18€ that I had paid for him at the cathedral’s gift shop. Even when the Purrito reminded me about the candy and the soap, I found myself relatively unmoved, though it was at this point that I began to check my phone for the estimated distance back to the terrible dungeon in which my lion was now presumably being held. Ultimately, it was probably the combination of 45 minutes in air conditioning, the increase in blood sugar due to the consumption of a Lyonnaise pralinated bread, and the Purrito’s observation that we would be returning home with nothing from a place named Lyon (and yes, lions are on everything, including the city’s seal) if we did not go back for the orange bag. Having confirmed the presence of the bag via telephone, we headed in the direction of vieux lyon once more.
Alternately, I may just remember that Lyon is host to a number of Roman ruins (and a very nice gallo-roman museum) and a funicular, which we (unsurprisingly) rode.
It has been three weeks since we went to Kraków, and still I find myself far away from having anything intelligent to say about the place. It is not as if it was a bad trip; indeed, we wound up staying for an extra day after EasyJet moved our departing flight up to an unpleasantly early time (thank you, accommodating Airbnb hostess).
We visited the castle, bought (too many) Wawel dragons, had a very nice meal (Pod Aniolami), ate at a local burger place called Moaburger (we bought shirts!), drank an inordinate amount of vodka, and went to several museums, so it is not as if there is a particular lack of things to talk about.
This is rapidly approaching blood-from-a-stone territory, though, so here are the pictures.
While I finally took a look through the pictures that I took while we were in Poland last weekend, I have made essentially no progress on writing either the associated post or the captions.
So here’s a picture of a screaming octopus kite, taken last night as we sat on the esplanade in front of les invalides in celebration of the Purrito’s not-quite-birthday (oh, the vagaries of scheduling).
Rage on, little blue octopus. Rage on.
We headed to our home away from home (it is almost embarrassing: this was our sixth time in Rouen) in search of cheap shopping (soldes is even better when the prices did not start out at Parisian levels), the swimming pool, and air conditioning.
We found all of the above, though getting there (multiple canceled trains) proved to be a bit of a chore.
Having cancelled our reservations to Ralph’s due to illness on my part, we decided to give Deliveroo a try. The restaurants in our quartier that participate are largely of interest, and we recognized immediately that the service might prove to be dangerous when we confirmed that they deliver foie gras, toasts (I should write a post about toasts and their relationship to foi gras and how they’re lovely all by their lonesome, but this is not a food blog, and I am not a food blogger; I just enjoy bitching about food), and wine. Yes, kids, that is correct. I can, in any state of inebriation, decide I want more wine, go to a website, click a few buttons (or, you know, paw at the screen if it’s the Purrito who is ordering), and a hapless 20-something on rollerblades or a bike will bring wine to my door.
This is peak civilization. Ten thousand years of civilization, and it peaks with shaved monkeys exchanging something with no intrinsic value (yes, our collective delusion around fiat currency continues to blow my mind. No, that does not mean I want to talk about gold. Shoo.) for wine via a network of electrical impulses.
What is this, if not (glorious) hubris?
I seem to be in a food-related rut here, so here’s a cat picture:
Incorrect order; send that thing back.
The pictures below are not entirely from this past Saturday, but the Saturday before, whereien we hopped back on three horses: we resumed tackling activities on The List, we lifted the moratorium on buying books (which, in hindsight, was probably a bad idea), and we had a very expensive-but-lousy lunch.
The item from The List was the Carambolages exhibit at the Grand palais. Situated somewhere between visual stream-of-consciousness and simple curatorial masturbation, any given piece was supposed to be connected both to the one before it and the one subsequent to it. While I am sure that there were other justifications for particular sections of the exhibit, in practice, this meant that there were multiple sections that looped back on heads (or skulls) and eyes.
The less we say about our jaunt to WH Smith, the better; there is now yet another pile of books that will eventually have to be either carried or shipped back to the US.
Suprisingly, we resumed our expensive-and-inexplicably-lousy lunch pattern at the Ladurée tea house. Yes, I know that the name was purchased by a multinational food corporation, and I know that their macarrons are not made in the same shop in which one buys them. I also know that they are often delivered frozen. Fuck you food hipsters (and yeah, seriously, you guys are assholes; if I want to eat something, I want to taste said something. I want to taste my salmon, not wonder why the fuck there are chunks of a fruit that I don’t even like [chutneys: I loathe them] all over what would have been perfectly tasty fish), their macarrons are good (which is not to say that I don’t appreciate a good artisan macarron [passionfruit excepted. What the flying fuck?]. Good macarrons and good chocolate should be indicative of a good place to eat lunch, correct? No, that would be a logical fallacy, and the pedant that mentioned that droned on about correlation not implying causation would be correct, as my lobster club sandwich was bad, and the Purrito’s omelette had a decidedly strange texture. Oh, and Orangina is 8€ a bottle. I would make a sideways crack about the makeup of the tourists that typically eat there, but we overheard quite a bit of French while we were eating there, which would mean that if I were to make said sideways crack, I would feel disingenuous.
This past Saturday, we fell back off of the horse, but we rationalized this deviance by noting that we had partaken of various cultural engagements during the week: we hit the Muse concert on Tuesday and went to a play, Moliére malgré moi, Friday evening. I feel compelled to note that we ate moules after said play, and that I enjoyed said moules, lest anyone accuse me of disliking food in general (surprise: I do).
This past Saturday, we went to Galleries Lafayette (soldes d’été). Very little food was involved.
Fezzik In Paris 