Food poisoning in Paris 18 janvier 2006

To say that the sky is grey today is like saying that the sky is up. This sky is so grey as to have no real color at all. It vaguely resembles grey and white linoleum that hasn't been mopped in months. This Parisian sky looks like my bathroom floor.

Yesterday I went out to Montmartre, sat in Sacre Coeur for a while because it was too cloudy for there to be a view, then back in the Latin Quarter I had the worst lunch I've ever had anywhere. They touted it as steak-frites, but if that grey leather came off a cow, I'm Laura Bush. Four or five hours after eating about three bites of it, I started freezing, then burning up, then freezing again, and by 8pm was hurling my guts out. That went on till 4am, when I was supposed to get up to catch my train to sunny Provence. Needless to say that didn't happen.

All I really wanted, besides my mommy, was a good cup of tea. I walked to La Mosquee de Paris, where I sipped some delicious mint tea in tiny, intricately designed glasse- for €2.00 a pop. There were little birds hopping from chandelier to chandalier and two Orthodox Jews at the table next to me.

I walked over to the Cluny Museum after that to see the Lady with the Unicorn and the partially excavated Roman baths. The place was full of small school children- fastidiously taking notes; no running, no screaming. Quite impressive.

My mood lifted once I left the musee and wandered in to Le Brasserie Balzar, sometime favorite of James Thurber and later, Adam Gopnik. From the terrace I enjoyed a student demonstration across the street from the Sorbonne, as well as the flattering trousers of the riot police, while sipping a kir royale.

A day that started awfully turned out to be pretty good after all.

Ah, Paris.