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Published: October 7th 2007
So I’m in Lille. It’s 9PM. I’m at the hostel that I’m apparently sharing with two girls whom I have yet to see. I’m guessing they’re French university students (one has a Lille 3 bag; Lille 3 is a university here). I’m also fairly certain that they are friends, as they took two beds right next to one another.
But let’s start at the beginning.
Well, the airplane ride was just fine. Then we arrive at the airport in Paris. Appropriately enough, the taxi drivers are on strike - how French - but we finally find one. The problem then becomes that the taxi drivers who are on strike - and about 99% of them are - are parked so that they are blocking every single exit out of the airport. The police are trying to get them to move, but there is power in numbers, and their efforts are thus far doing very little. After about an hour and 30 Euros, we end up right back at the airport, at which point we exit the cab and take the RER, which is the Metro that stems from Paris out to its many suburbs.
However.
We finally arrive chez Benoit, my Parisian friend. He has a one-bedroom apartment up on the 3e étage (4th floor). His apartment is nice. He has an interesting mix of décor. His couch, made of a heavy, expensive-feeling, canvas-like material, is adorned with real leather pillows. His coffee table is Japanese in style, sitting low to the ground with beautiful floor pillows in red-orange fabric. The kitchen is small. An old oven with a rickety door and four small burners sits across from a brand-new refrigerator (that is substantially narrower than the typical American fridge). There is a little table with two chairs that is pushed back into a bench built into the wall. On his shelves, there are no boxes of Kraft Mac n Cheese. You see no packages of Ramen noodles or any cans of Spaghetti Os. Instead, he has a few small boxes of different kinds of pasta, a bottle of olive oil, some spices, and a few other things that require no microwave (he doesn’t have one anyway) and generally some actual cooking.
I should also mention that he has a floor-to-ceiling window in his living room with heavy shutters that he shuts every evening before bed. The window also has oh, you know, a view of the Eiffel Tower. That’s right, as he sips his freshly brewed coffee each morning (attention: order a café here in France and you generally get a tiny cup of espresso. If you want a coffee like you’re used to in America, ask for a café crème or a café au lait - it’s a little closer), he can casually glance out his window and his eyes will graze over the Tour Eiffel, no big deal.
Anyway.
Une soirée agreeable (a nice evening). We briefly saw most of what you’re “supposed” to see when in Paris. It was David’s first time in France, and he was simply glowing. It was great to see him so happy. Then we went to a teeny little restaurant, of which Benoit knew the chef.
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Beau
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The Brits!
Hey dumbhead, tell us about the Brits and they're slang!