It's a little after 8 a.m. Saturday morning, 31 March. The end of the month, end of a season and end of our trip in Paris, indeed in Europe. Today we fly to the United States to begin the next leg of our trip abroad, to begin a new season, a new life.
Yesterday was cold and rainy in Paris, actually not a bad way to spend your final full day in the City of Light. Such weather makes it much easier to leave frankly and Saturday morning dawned chilly and overcast so we're pretty much ready emotionally I suppose.
And we're ready to go in virtually all other respects as well.
Our bags were pretty much packed up by the end of Friday, excepting those last minute items such as razor, toothbrush, computer, you know, the necessities of life.
About 12:30 We met up with our friend Beth G. for lunch at Higuma, a wonderful little noodle bar near the Musee Louvre. (Beth is finishing a stage here at one of the posh hotel restaurants.) We chatted for a couple of hours about food, life, trips, future, food and of course food, particularly pastry. We also talked about coming down to NYC to see her later this summer -- pretty much a necessity in fact since we shipped some of her stuff home with our household goods earlier this month!
The rest of the day went well. I ran some last minute errands: getting an ink cartidge for the printer so we could print our own boarding passes and champagne for our last evening meal in Paris -- at home.
Meanwhile Susan went back to Pascal's one more time -- I tell you the girl cannot stay away from that place -- to say goodbye to Misato and to pick up her letter of completion of her internship from Pascal. Naturally while she was there she could roped (not unwillingly I suspect) into helping them make, you guessed it: barquettes!
(Just before we left for Italy last week Susie brought a dish of brownies to Pascal's as a way of saying thank you. Pascal was not there at the time but later that day he called Susie at home and said the brownies were terrific and that he wanted the recipe for his shop! Pretty cool we thought.)
After spending two or three hours hanging around pastry cream and choux pastry Susan finally called me and said she was getting out of there before nettoyage (cleanup). She not only got the letter from Pascal but also his willingness to let her come back whenever she wants to work on whatever she'd like.
Pretty good deal I'd say.
So this morning we finish tidying up the apartment, shower and pack our last things for the haul to Boston and beyond.
Drea comes by at about 11 a.m. to pick up the keys and finalize the utility charges and figure the balance of our deposit.
About noon we haul our bags downstairs and wait for the blu-van shuttle to take us to Charles de Gaulle airport (Terminal 2B if you must know). The shuttle is door-to-door but quite a bit less money than a taxi. With three huge rolling bags, one duffel bag and two large carryons we thought we'd skip a last ride on the Metro/RER out to CDG thank you.
So there you have it. Simple, clean and neat. Like most separations should be I suppose. But I think this one won't last long. . .
Wish you were here,
Steve
No comments:
Post a Comment