So this is why the french aren't fat...

Day 4
Wednesday, May 18

Notre Dame

We started our day in Monmartre, where we workshopped our postcard poems. Then Cecelia took us to meet her friend Heather Hartley, a published poet and Paris editor of Tinhouse (literary) Magazine, to go on a walking tour of significant literary and historical sites around Paris. We met her at Notre Dame and had lunch in the gardens (baguette fromage and sable amande). After looping by Shakespeare and Company (where she curates their reading series), we traipsed around Saint Michele (city center), Saint Germain (uber posh), and ended up around le Jardine du Luxembourg. Among the sites we saw was Cafe Due Magots (does not mean magots) which is the cafe where Breton, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Malarme, and Apollinaire dreamed up the surrealist movement. Hemingway, Picasso, Sarte, and De Beauvoir were also regulars at this cafe, and at Cafe Flore next door. I loved the idea of hanging out with the ghosts of the surrealist greats... alas, the area has become tres touristy, and nothing on the menu is less expensive than 30euro. So we made a note to go visit their graves at the various famous and extraordinarily creepy cemeteries around the city. Thats probably more poetic anyway, right?

Luxembourg Gardens

Heather spent about three (awesome) hours with us, and then she excused herself for another rendezvous. But the aperitif hour was upon us! We found a cafe and sat with our beverage of choice (merlot for me), happy to unwind after our loooong walk. Having an aperitif after school/work/whatever time in the evening is a ritual here. Its almost mandatory, like a lunch break. Around 7pm, the French stop what they're doing and sit down at a cafe (outside so they can chain smoke usually); they have a glass of wine or two with friends or family, and they recap and gossip and discuss poetry. I'm not even exaggerating about the poetry--I heard a couple of guys a few years older than me going back and forth about Rimbaud  (American boys, take note).

Success

We headed home to have dinner and relax before going back out. We just made pasta with marinara sauce and parmesan cheese with baguette, but I swear it was seriously delish. What do you put in your food, France? Crack? Its probably because everything is super fresh...I've eaten nothing but carbs and butter since I've been here, oh and wine, and I'm not even fat yet. No one is. Apparently if you walk 7 miles a day you can eat whatever you want. Cheers. I am, however, lame--I fell asleep getting my poetry homework done and didn't make it out. Yes, yes, I'll save you the mocking--I know I'm a nerd. Does that translate? Anyway, Day 4. Voila