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The Last of Paris and a Finished Trip

On Friday I went and saw Sacre Coeur and Monmartre before meeting my sister at 1PM after her classes. We went and ran some errands, sent off some post cards, chilled at a cafe avec un cafe then ended back up at Cite to move the last of her stuff to her 16th century apartment. My trip to Paris can be easily be described as 4 days of moving suitcases, either mine or hers. In the evening, we went and got Chinese food from this place right across the Seine from Notre Damn then went and tried to get ice cream from Bertillon (which I heard multiple times in Paris that it serves the best ice cream in Paris, perhaps even Europe), but it was closed so we got gelato at Amorino’s on Ile St Louis. After hanging out at Notre Damn, watching people failing to juggle fire and rollerbladers jump poles, we met up with my sister’s friend Alan (sic?) and went to get more gelato from another Amorino’s. Quite the day of good eats. After hanging out a while longer, my sister and I went back to her place, watched some TV then fell asleep so we could wake up to go to the Ganpathi temple in the morning.

Friday 9AM rolls around and we’re on our way to the 18th by way of Gare du Nord to check out little India of Paris. Actually, it’s a bit hard to tell if it’s a little India or more of a little Sri Lanka. Much of the goods in the grocery stores were Sri Lankan. We went to the temple, did our pooja thing, my sister bought some groceries (like Maggi and chewda) and we went back to the Ile. After finishing packing, we made it to Bertillon and I had a framboise ice cream/sorbet thing and my sister had a mint leaf ice cream. By George, those were good. Hands down the ice cream I’ve ever had. After doing a little more shopping on Ile Saint Louis, we jumped on the Metro for Chatlet to change for the RER B, my sister heading for Cite and me for Charles de Gaulle.

After 14 hours of flying, I found myself back in San Francisco. Charles de Gaulle is the worst airport in the world. It’s huge, confusing and poorly labeled, even in French. I ended up circling the place something like 3 times in the damned bus until I got off at the wrong exist and had to walk with my bags to the right terminal for American. Immigration and customs in Dallas was painless, although I was a bit disappointed that my passport didn’t get stamped in either Paris (in and outbound) nor in Dallas. As expected, the Dallas airport was full of hicks and people with American flag tshirts and the like. Gag. I killed time at TGI Friday’s at the airport watching Cops (call it Texas ethnography) and happily ended up back in home-sweet-liberal-San Francisco at 10:30PM. And with a bit of sadness to see it end, so finished my September 04 European trip.

New (and final trip) picture albums: Cite Universitare and Ile Saint Lous, Musee Rodin and around Paris, Sacre Coeur and Montmarte.