C'est Nice

the pride of the jet-lag gods is not to be messed with: i thought i had this thing licked, but that is becoming increasingly not the case; last night i woke up at 4:45 and was unable to re-achieve REM sleep. Oy vey. My brain feels like a very stupid millstone.

As far as recent adventures are concerned, yesterday, after amalea and I enjoyed a breakfast of baguette, beurre and confiture d'abricot, followed by some hardcore café action (both for necessary caffeine and internet dosages), we really got in touch with our travelling, international, ex-patriate spirit and watched a couple episodes of the West Wing. Haha... but it was good. I think that had we actually attempted any real activity I might have self-destructed. After that, we walked from her place in the 5ème to her language school in the 16ème; it took us a good several hours, but it was fun. I did manage to wear a hole in the heel of one of my socks, and have the beginnings of a blister... from my worn in sneakers. That's just not fair, what I say. After leaving 'Lea at her class, I took the Métro back to the apartment, had myself a snack of baguette, slept a little more... Christ, rehashing my day is even boring me. Scott's friend Dave showed up... this kid's another one of the JTS folk (damn, Jews have big noses... don't they?) who's in London working for some organization that I think has the word Zionist in it... I'm not entirely sure, but it's made me very skeptical of whatever this kid says. Okay, that's not very nice, but I'm sleep deprived, so I'm feeling punchy, heh, heh.

Anyhoo, for thems that know, the best description of this kid is a Jewish Frendan (wha??), who I believe keeps kosher and everything, and will probably someday make some young Jewish woman feel very confused about herself as she relates to his sexuality (damnit... I'm going overboard here) while propagating the species--uh, er, I mean, race.

All right, I need to embrace some more neutral subjects before I offend someone. Well, someone in addition to the others I've already offended. Oh, hey! So we had dinner at this restaurant, which was fine, although it's definitely in the running for slowest service ever. It's always hard for me to differentiate neglectful service from normal French service, but I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. The conversation inevitably made its way to politics and the middle east... territory I felt uncomfortable freely conversing in w/o prior knowledge of my fellow semite's political beliefs. So instead of talking I just kept drinking wine, which I think was probably the best strategy; Dave was channelling this speaker he'd heard a few weeks ago, an Islamic studies professor with a last name Siegel, who held the theory that the war on terror has actually effectively gotten rid of Al Qaeda (by the way, he iterated and reiterated no less than three times that Al Qaeda was actually the streamlined market name of a group called "The Coalition of the Islamic Jihad against all Jews and Crusaders"...) with the bombing of Afghanistan. Thankfully, I was too stupid without sleep to put up a worthy intellectual challenge, although I think that at least 32% of my reluctance was run-of-the-mill liberal cowardice to engage.

After dinner we met up with three british girls whom 'Lea and Scott had met at their language school and, after buying some wine/beer, we hung out in the apartment with them. I managed to buy a particularly nasty 3€ Syrah, which I took three sips of before pouring the rest of the bottle down the drain. They were a lovely bunch, using all sorts of british phrases: "crisps", "lovey", "tube".

Okay, that pretty much sums up yesterday. Oooh, yes! I didn't win the bike on eBay. Thank god. THe thought of trying to get that thing on the train simultaneous with my suitcase was giving me nightmares. Anyway, friends, I miss you all. Today: more Parissing; tomorrow: to Nice!