We Came Down From the North/Blue Hands And a Torch/Red Wine and Food For Free/A Possibility

August 15, 2010

A few things first:

1: My effort to record each of the events of the day has made it difficult to also make any "big picture" observations about what I'm doing, or seeing, how it is making me feel, or how the experience is changing over time. In fact, I think that it is because I have not been writing those things down here, I have also been considering them less often

2: Typing on a French keyboard is really really difficult. Not just a fez but many of the letters, characters and numbers are not where they belong. It hurts both my brain and my hands, probably in the way it feels for a left handed person being forced to operate as a righty.

3: It is shocking how quickly I forget anecdotes that took place as recently as 2 to 3 days previous. When I get a few days behind on this (as I am now), small but possibly significant bits of my day get left out.

There isn't a whole lot to say about Sunday besides that it was mostly unpleasant (until the end), and caused me somewhat to question my decision to travel primarily by train. I made my 7:45 a.m. train in CPH after my big night out Saturday, made the reverse journey to Hamburg (again had to get off the ferry -- was not in the mood to have my sleep interrupted), and then a long, very crowed, and slow trip to Cologne, Germany, most of the time spent clutching my bags, drifiting in and out of sleep, reading Infinite Jest, and watching the batteries on my iPod and Blackberry drain. The final train from Cologne to Paris was pretty good, although the lady working at the cafe in the food car was very gruff, and due to a delay on the previous train, I had to sprint through the train station to make it. I also felt strangely full from the time I woke up, and thus only ate some gummy bears until about 6, when I had a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and an espresso on the train.

But life got better as soon as I got off the train and my dear French friend Julien (became aquainted in 2005 through my brother, who had met him during a semester in Washington, D.C., our nation's capitol). Headphones still on his head, hair shorter than the last time I had seen him in 2006, he says "Dooood! You've changed!", which I believe referred to my haircut. We took a short metro to his apartment near Republique (nice location!), had a glass of wine and stepped out again for dinner nearby -- steak tartare, salad and Freedom Fries. And discussed his very recent 2 week trip to Iceland (had arrived that same day, saw a lot of the same stuff I have seen over the years, including Askja!), the last 4 years of music we've been listening to and what the heck has happened in our lives. Good times.

The Knife -- We Share Our Mother's Health