La finale

Ah, la finale. Maggie and Tom left Paris this morning, bound for Bayeaux and the beaches of Normandy. It was really great having them here, I had a ton of fun and sometimes I can't believe that, despite long passages of time and distance, our friendship holds true. If you want to look at some of the pictures they took while in Paris, I've uploaded a couple batches onto Flickr, first my site and then the site of my dad. If you look at the sets you will see the pictures in the order that they were taken, rather than the inverse order, the way are displayed on the Flickr Home of each account. Both of those accounts are maxed out as far as uploads, so you'll have to wait for Maggie and Tom to get back to the US to get a link to the rest of the pictures they want to share on the server they use.

So, as for the other finale, Paris is really gearing up for Sunday's match. I hope they win! In a spooky coincidence, I accidentally stained my recently synthesized polymer with blue marker ink that refuses to come out. Allez Les Bleus!

I am thinking of going to part of a 3-day concert weekend that is part of a festival to benefit the fight against AIDS: Solidays. There are 60 different concerts over the span of the weekend, and people even have the option to camp out there the whole time. The weather is perfect right now, although it might rain a bit this weekend.

Happy Fourth of July! Well, it wasn't a big deal at all in Paris, but Tom and Maggie were generous enough to go with me to a chain restaurant called "Indiana" which serves American food. There were no fireworks, but there was an artery-clogging bacon cheeseburger and pommes frites, eaten on the Place de la Bastille, appropriately enough. I was satisfied to see that they put up some American flags on the Hôtel de Ville for the occasion.

We preceded this comfort food with a visit to Willi's Wine Bar, where we savored some great French red wines and stinky cheeses, so I think we did okay in the balance. It's a really great place to go for wine, with a kind of calm atmosphere that I have never seen before in Paris! The three wines we tried were a Nuit-St. Georges, a Domaine de Chevalier Bordeaux and a Chateauneuf de Pape. All were excellent.

Last night Maggie and Tom and I sat and watched the sun set behind Notre Dame de Paris, over some rosé and cidre, bread and artichoke paté. It was a warm summer night, but along the banks of the Seine it was breezy and perfect for a picnic, among Parisians and fellow tourists alike.