Another long day...

Galina took off shortly after 9 am, leaving me alone to finish the translation due today.

It eventually was finished and sent off, whereupon I got ready to face the outside world.

I started out by walking over to the storefront of Yvert & Tellier, who are suppliers of philatelic items such as catalogs, stock books, and so on. They had a breathtakingly beautiful, four-color book on sale about the history of French classic stamps, but between the price and its size and weight, buying a copy was out of the question for the near future.

From there, I took the Métro to the Quartier Latin, to the Rue d'École de Médecine in the 6th, to track down the Patisserie Viennoise that David Lebovitz mentioned in his book The Sweet Life in Paris as having some outrageously good chocolate. I missed the storefront on my first pass down the narrow street, which in a way was fortunate, as it gave me the opportunity to browse inside the Gilbert Joseph bookstore, located at the intersection of the Rue d'École de Médecine and the Blvd St. Michel.

There, on the third floor, I found myself looking at a small crowd of people who had obviously gathered for a book signing. What I realized after looking at the book people were holding for the author to sign was that the woman signing books was Ségolène Royal, the most recent Socialist candidate for the Presidency of France.

Apparently, the book she's promoting is something of a platform on which to build another run for office, which may have received an additional boost due to Dominique Strauss-Kahn's recent troubles. (It's one thing to have a mistress, as Mitterand did; quite another to be accused of a sex crime.)

Anyway, on the way back down the street, I did run into the Patisserie Viennoise, and the street at that point is just as narrow as Lebovitz describes it, and yes, a bus runs down the street from time to time. I am not an expert judge of chocolate, but the whipped cream tasted real (and undoubtedly was), and the chocolate seemed to have a little more "depth" than I am used to from powdered drinks in the States. Bottom line: I enjoyed it.

From there, I gravitated to the abbey of St. Germain des Prés, to the ARC conversation session. Unfortunately, today's facilitator (animateur, in French) seemed more interested in talking than in having us talk, so when Galina showed up around 4:30 pm, we left to go look for a bite to eat.

After refreshing ourselves, we walked north, toward the Seine. We passed a statue of Voltaire that, for some reason, had been defaced with red paint. We found the Passarelle des Arts, a pedestrian bridge noted for the many padlocks that are affixed to the railings along its length. The padlocks symbolize the eternal love of the couple that put it there (after which, naturellement, the key is cast into the river). This, naturally leads me to wonder about the significance of a combination lock on the railing...

As we debated what to do next, we came to a quai where one of the lines that runs tourist boats up and down the Seine moors their vessels, so we bought a pair of tickets and spent an hour on the river. The weather was nice and the scenery was a pleasant change of pace.

At the end of the ride, we crossed the Passarelle des Arts once more. By now, little groups had laid out picnic spreads on the bridge's deck and on the few benches that run down the center of its length. The preferred drinks appeared evenly distributed between wine and Coca-Cola. We hung a right at the Institute de France, found the stop for the #23 bus, and used the last of the tickets from our carnet—there are more where those came from, I am sure—to hie ourselves to the Gare St. Lazare and home.

More work has come in. I am not complaining.

Cheers...

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