Lazy Parisian days are better

Day 13
Friday, May 28

My favorite Apollinaire poem (caligram):

"Mon coeur pareil à une flamme renversée"

Our favorite shoes. Alas, they are $400

It means "my heart is like a flame upside down." Beautiful, no? Today we decided to do nothing in particular (for the first time since being here). I got up and grabbed an espresso with a friend, then I meandered through the farmer's market that sets up below our apartment every Tuesday and Friday. I bought myself a Chorizo, Oueff, and Fromage crepe and found Diana, and then we both went upstairs, turned on CNN (the only channel we get in English) and dozed in the natural light from our open window. (Sigh). Then, before our Soiree with poet/actress/photographer Margo Berdeshevsky, Diana and I wandered over to Rue de Rivoli and window shopped and found a boulangerie for dinner. 

Paris threw us a curve ball by RAINING for the first time since we've been here. Apparently rain is pretty standard though, and we've just been abnormally lucky to be basking in the beautiful weather for the past two weeks. But it stopped five minutes later, so once again, Paris for the win. We found Margo's apartment right across from Musee Carnavalet (gorgeous neighborhood) and joined our classmates and Cecelia at her place upstairs. She has a lovely home, full of her photography and warm wood finishes. Margo herself is beautiful and earthy. She reads, no, rather she performs her poems with flair, engrossing all of us in her exploration of what it means to "witness." We sip kir royal and eat salty pitted olives and discuss using dreams as a spider-web map for writing poetry. Its all very chic and very abstract. We left with a vague idea of our writing assignment for the weekend, but we figured we would think about that later. 

Oh, herro

Some classmates and I stopped at Cafe Rivolux for a drink and a croque monsieur. Once again, I love lit nerds. Its awesome to talk for extended periods of time about literary things and to gossip about professors in the English department. Where were you people these past four years of school??

We talked about very important things and sipped cote du rhone and then met some interesting frenchmen at the end. They told us that Cafe Rivolux is actually a huge hot spot in Paris. Who knew? Perhaps we'll go back. We made our exit, and Diana and I ended up (again) at L'Embuscade. There we bonded with the bartender and met some musicians that looked like they stepped right out of Portland. The language barrier got the best of us though, so off to bed for us. Voila Day 13.    

Once again, french graffiti is beautiful