I am a whirlwind tourist

I went to Paris this past weekend and left the day that the French Open kicked off. Despite the bad timing, I was delighted with the city and once again more than satisfied with the French delicacies that I gorged myself with during the trip. This time, instead of staying with family friends, we (myself and Snezana) stayed with complete strangers. We found them through a website for travelers who welcome people to stay in their homes. They had a cozy little apartment on the outskirts of the city with three rooms, three dogs, a gerbil and plenty of marijuana growing on the balcony. The guys who lived there both spoke Russian, one French, one English, and neither German. As a result, Snezana spent a lot of time explaining to me what they were talking about. They turned out to be great, though. We brought home (what else) bottles of wine at night and ate dinner with them and their Russian friends. The two guys who live in the apartment came to Paris to work, and they live what seems like a pretty lax lifestyle, working only when they have to and enjoying every bit of their free time. They considered it very French. They asked me questions about Bill Gates and the fence that is being built on the Mexican border. They said the riots last summer in Paris were nothing worth mentioning and that it was just the media seeking out a story and making something bigger of it than it really was. There were an incredible amount of tourists there. I would like to think I am not included in that group, but alas. I spent a lot of time being dumbfounded by some of the things I heard from the American tourists (and others) that we ran into. Oh well. One of the best parts of the weekend was renting bicycles at Versailles and trying to catch the giant catfish that were in the pond in front of the Palace. In true Parisian fashion, we also had a barefoot picnic of bread and cheese in a park and laid in the sun.

We each bought tickets for the Paris Metro the first day we got there. We had quite a time with these little devils. On more than one occasion, they refused to let us into or out of stations. Either we didn’t completely understand the system or we were sold faulty tickets. I want to think it was the latter. Anyway, as a result, we did what we saw many people do when they encountered the same problem: we jumped the turnstile. A lot. We were only asked for our tickets when we were traveling legitimately, though.

I have lost more than a little weight here, and I don’t know why. For those of you who have seen me in person, you know that is one thing I do not need to do. I play basketball and soccer almost every week, but that is no different than at home. Maybe unbeknownst to me I am cooking very lean and healthy food for myself. I did buy a kilo of chocolate at a chocolate factory in Switzerland yesterday, though. That should add at least, well, a kilo.