Summer in Full Swing

Blog

It seems like a lot is going on, but there really isn’t. I guess that is the feeling you get when you have a lot of stuff planned out. We pulled off the quick Paris trip this past weekend without a hitch. We did virtually zero sightseeing this time; only stopping at Sacré Coeur since we hadn’t been there before. We were warned to stay away from the little tourist area behind the church where the portrait drawers were very aggressive, but we are proud tourists and would never be able to resist something that has been described to us as touristy. That isn’t to say we actually get our portraits drawn but it is fun to see the scene. My new thing is to just babble incoherently to people who approach me. Not a big difference, I know.

We spent one evening at apartment of co-worker with a small group of his friends. We were told to bring some wine. We’ve been getting a little bit more into wine, but we still might only be on par with the average 5 year old in France for wine knowledge. When Chizzy asked what type of wine to bring the dude replied that he was pretty easy but he preferred wine from ‘the south’. Forget Spanish, Italian, or Australian wines here. We also knew the boyfriend of the sister of the co-worker fancied himself a bit of a wine connoisseur so the plan was obvious… ask the apron clad owner at the local wine shop. He was disappointed he had to break out his English, but ended up being very helpful and led us to some bottles that he said were very well respected and famous in France and that we would be the hit of the party. I wouldn’t go that far. The first thing the boyfriend did after examining the bottles we brought was to pull out a huge map of France to find the location of the vineyards. I don’t mean to give the impression that he was being a jerk about it. He wasn’t. He was just continuing his wine education and my theory is that there are just way too many wines in France to know them all. We drank a lot of wine that night. And to continue in true stereotypical fashion, the cheese plate was introduced into the fray at some point. This actually ended up sending a massive shock wave through the apartment because the host didn’t have any bread. Not only did he not have any bread, he declared he doesn’t even normally eat bread with his cheese. I tagged along with one of the guys for a late-night bread run, which I was really fascinated by because I wanted to see how people deal with food emergencies in a land where everything closes early. I thought his first instinct was absolutely hilarious. He could only think to try the ‘tourist’ bakery that was really popular with the visitors but loathed by the locals. Of course it was closed. It isn’t like French people don’t own and run the place. That must have been his last instinct as well since he had no other ideas for bread, but figured we might as well get some more wine while we were out which did end up being pretty easy to find.

I also am pretty sure I saw my first celebrity sighting on this trip. I didn’t get 100% confirmation with an approach and confront, but if the dude sitting in the café outside the apartment was not Tim Roth it was his identical twin.

Chizzy finally got her wish and we spent a decent portion of Saturday actually shopping around Paris. She was on the hunt for a business suit and found a very nice one at the monster Printemps department store.

In other news, Tobin has come through in a big way with those World Cup tickets and I am now joining him, his lovely wife Paty, and Reid (another Seattle soccer buddy) to see the US vs Czech match on June 12th in Gelsenkirchen. We are making base camp in Cologne that weekend leading up to the game. Very exciting. Very, very exciting.

But the next trip is actually just around the corner where I have been invited to meet up with Mr. Piro in Dublin for a weekend. He is there on business. It took some creative travel plans by Chizzy to find something reasonable, but it’s officially on. I suspect Piro will just want to walk around and take in some art museums and stuff. I don’t anticipate he will want to check out any pubs.

I’ll also randomly throw out that I went to an Iggy Pop concert here. I know nothing of him or his music. The solitary bit of information I had in my head before going was that I thought of him to be shirt-averse. That turned out to be true. He doesn’t strip down as the show progresses either. He just comes out shirtless from the start. The show was really great in a small venue. If you have any Iggy Pop information you want to share, I’d be happy to hear it.

What is Chizzy doing while I have all this fun, you might be asking? Working, of course. At least she got a new suit.