Aufgabe zehn: Aber noch nicht

Okay, my goodbyes were a bit too soon.

My flight out on Monday was not until late, about 7:00 PM. I had to check out of my room at noon, so I had most of the afternoon to kill. There's no easier way (although some might say better ways) to kill an afternoon than Quo Vadis. I did do a lot of sightseeing, shopping, picture taking (finally... I also got my card reader to work again so I can upload them). But after I did that (I had been to Cologne before, so there wasn't a burning to desire to see much I hadn't see before), I had a few hours to kill. Quo Vadis isn't known for it's service. After waiting an hour, one table gave the waiter an ovation for finally bringing their food out. I myself have never had an order come exactly as I ordered it. (Mine was the wrong breakfast, but it was bigger, so they gave me it to me for the lower price.) But the food is okay, and it's a gay café, so it's full of people who, much like me, were recovering from the weekend. There was an assortment of people from Germany, Italy, England, Ireland (I was the only "Ami", or American, as we're nicknamed). I grabbed a copy of Die Zeit (The Time) and read up on all the news of Germany and the World, much of which is so rarely covered in the American press.

"May you live in interesting times"

Angela Merkel was sworn in this week as Germany's first "Chancelorin", the first female Chancelor, their head of state. They've already nicknamed her "Angie the First." More fascinating yet is that her "win" was only through a coalition of opposing parties, so while she has the chancelorship, other parties have other cabinets. She also spent the week meeting with various heads of state, including England's Tony Blair and France's Chirac. Her new "Ausserminister" (we call it a Secretary of State) met with Condi on Monday as well. (Oh Joscka, how we'll miss you.) But her ability to govern will be impacted by the fact that she had no clear mandate from the people (only a third of the vote). But as she's known as the "Ingeneurin" (her education is actually in engineering), I'm sure she'll find a way. Exactly what way, we can only watch and see.

So I read the news, chatted with various others. I often forget (but am then presented with) that there's not only a language, but a culture barrier. I was chatting with some Brits, and (as gay men go), the subject came on the matter of sex. And then they asked around "Have you ever had sex with a woman?" Apparently if you ever had, there was some status that applied to you. "I made it once to first base," I answered back. They kind of looked at me. "Is that like some sports reference?" "Oh, right, baseball," I replied back. I had to explain both the game of baseball and what their different base references were as applied in this subject, or at least as well as I could remember. Not being "my game," I explained it as best as I could. :-)

Et bienvenue a Paris!

So I went off to the airport. My plane was about 45 minutes late, although I had arrived in plenty of time. There were a slew of gay men who had also been in Cologne for the weekend and heading back to Paris. I had started chatting with a very nice couple from Paris. We were kind of looking at each other, not exactly sure what to say. (They thought I was German, and they didn't know German.) I finally just said "Hello." They said "Hello" back. And then the English won out. We sat together on the plane and chatted the whole way. Their apartment was in the same neighborhood as my hotel, so we got off the subway at the same station and they showed me the way to the hotel.

I had searched online for hours for this hotel. Not that hotels weren't available, but I was rather specific with my search. I wasn't looking for anything extravagant, but not a rathole either. I wanted something fairly close in the city (mostly easy to get home from the bars and clubs at night, when Metro service is minimal, and getting to sights is easy by Metro during the day). I found a place in the 5th district with a double bed, my own full bathroom. I ended up a place with exactly that, and a balcony. (Check out the pics.) It's on "Rue des Ècoles", or street of the schools. There's many schools and universities along it, including many American students, and I'm told it's very safe. It certainly seems that way. Oh yeah, and the smallest elevator I've seen in my entire life. It fits either two people, or one person and luggage.... if you hold the luggage vertically. I've seen pantry closets bigger than this. But it suits the purpose. The hotel is only about 50 rooms on 6 floors, with a typically French narrow floor plan, and I'm on the fifth floor, which is actually the sixth floor by American standards. I'm quite happy my "cherche" was fruitful.

After I got my stuff in, they invited me out to dinner with a friend. It was a very heartful welcome to Paris. I remember why I like this city. And the French people aren't so bad either. I had heard them once summed up perfectly, by a French man themselves. Some people are peaches. Their soft on the outside and easy to get to, but they are very hard on the inside. Others are cocoanuts, with a hard shell on the outside and soft and sweet on the inside. The French are cocoanuts. If you get past the hard shell, they're very nice people. I couldn't agree more. :-)

Afterwards, I was surprisingly awake. It was probably just the excited with the fact I was back in Paris. I went out to have a beer to settle down. I had left all my maps in the room, and yet I didn't need them. I was staying in a completely different neighborhood (in the Latin Quarter, last year I stayed in the Marais) and yet, my feet just knew the way. I found one of my favorite bars directly and without a map. I chatted with a couple guys visiting from Toronto. We had a couple beers, checked out another bar not far away, then I headed back to the hotel to get some sleep. Moi premier nuit en Paris wasn't starting out so bad after all. :-)