Honeymoon 4: The City of Love

If l had my way
I'd just walk out those doors 
And wander
Down the Champs-Élysées
Going cafe to cabaret
Thinking how I'll feel when I find
That very good friend of mine.

Joni Mitchell, Free Man in Paris

After a night out for dinner (the unusual Burger & Lobster) and theatre (Everybody's Talking About Jamie, an exuberant coming-of-age drag queen musical) on Monday night in London's West End, our Tuesday morning 7:55 Eurostar departure from St. Pancras Station seemed VERY early.  Nonetheless, we arrived within the prescribed one hour security and Customs window before departure, boarded the train, and were off through the Chunnel to Paris for the day.

Arriving at the Gare du Nord just before lunch, we hopped onto a Hop On Hop Off tour bus, and made our way down to the Galerie d'Orsay, where we hopped off for a few hours, browsing through the little street-side stalls near the Seine, strolling through les Jardins des Tuileries, where we enjoyed croque monsieur and Kronenberg for two at a little outdoor cafe, and then wandering down the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe where we once again hopped onto a tour bus.

Sadly, the base of the Eiffel Tower is being sealed away behind bulletproof glass and tall steel fences in response to fears of terrorist attacks, and we didn't want to invest the time in standing in line to gain entry - thereby dashing my hopes of a tower-top re-proposal.  We finished the balance of the day with more bus sightseeing, caught our train, and were back in London by ten in the evening:  all in all, a wonderful day out for two in the City of Love. 

During our time spent shopping beside the Seine, I noticed a French paperback collection of H.P Lovecraft stories on sale for an affordable three euros, and decided to pick it up on a whim.  (Which resulted in a brief French transaction with the bouquiniste - because if I didn't speak French, why would I be buying a French book? Fortunately my limited French was easily up to understanding, "Trois euros," and "Merci.")

The joke is that Lovecraft is famous for his archaic and obscure English - lord knows what the French version will look like.  Regardless, I'm looking forward with a certain degree of curiousity as to the Gallic equivalents for "squamous" and "eldritch", although with my limited French, that will be the least of my problems in actually reading this book.

- Sid