Chalk up another one for flexibility – necessitated by a thunderstorm that drifted by in late morning. Just as we were preparing to head across town on the Metro to Notre Dame, the lightning and thunder arrived, followed by a gentle rain, which chased away the tennis players in the courtyard four floors below our window. The day’s intentions shifted to finishing a novel (Lennie) and tinkering with the new camera (Doug).
Later, after the weather cleared, we headed our for the first of two long walks today, this one west on Rue de la Convention around the corner from our place, across the Seine several blocks away over to the right bank, up to the next bridge and back to the 15th district. BTW, this district is so residential in character that a guidebook we’ve been following gives it all of six lines – noting that the 15th attracts few tourists because there are few tourist attractions here. Brilliant.
We picked up a Sunday Times of London on the way, plunking down a horrendous 5 euros for it, a sign of Doug’s desperation to read something in English that he can hold in his hands and not peer at on the computer screen. And just maybe this will be news to our friends and family back in the States:
According to Iraqi sources and the Times, US officials have had two negotiating sessions this month with representatives of insurgent groups in Iraq. It took five or six weeks for the US media to start reporting on the “Downing Street Memo,” the document first mentioned in the London Times back in April or so that detailed the Administration’s efforts to “fix the intelligence” in support of invading Iraq. So perhaps today’s front-page story – US ‘in talks with Iraq rebels’ – about secret face-to-face meetings won’t be reported by the American mainstream media for a similar length of time, and if that’s the case, friends, you read it here first! (Actually, the BBC is now reporting that War Secretary Rummy has confirmed in the Sunday TV shows that contacts have occurred, altho he stopped short of confirming the details as reported in the Times; the paper’s web site is recommended reading.)
After a sensible nap, we took to the street again close to 8 pm with a list of restaurants highly recommended by an on-line journalist we’ve been reading. Della Piazza’s veal bococcini lived up to its reputation, and we finished off the meal with a shared crème vanille glacier avec chocolat – a good ole chocolate Sundae in “American.” After all those calories, we headed up the street for a dozen blocks to enjoy the 10 pm light show at the Eiffel Tower, once again. Hard to get too much of that experience.
We had a close encounter with a would-be purse-snatcher as we neared a good spot to view the Tower. A bicyclist brushed against Lennie just as she clutched her should-hanging purse; having missed the purse, he then made a grab for a man’s video camera bag a few feet in front of us but missed there, too.
Notre Dame is back on the schedule for Monday, but the way we’ve been treating the schedule, don’t bet on it. Something you definitely can bet on is Lennie vigilante.
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