pilgrimage

I got one pleasant day of sun in Paris, bookended by days of cold rain and angry winds. Museum days. Hole-up in cafe days. Regardless of the weather, however, I made my annual pilgrimage to Rue Mouffetard, a market street in the 5th, that slaps you with the smells of roti-chicken, fresh melons and sour cheese all at once. The water running down the sides of the cobblestoned-street is saliva, really, as you've got to be dead to not get hungry here. My mission was straightforward -- a coffee and croissant at one stop; fois gras, fresh and tinned at another; a basketful of cheese, primarily goat from the Loire area, and two loaves of pain de campagne. And then done (but not before contemplating a Charentais melon, but then figured that its uncanny resemblance to a petite bomb and my pending airplane flight probably didn't go well together) and off to huddle cafe-side for an hour or two. And now at Orly, as charming as a Grayhound bus station and about as delicious.

So next time, the plan is: sharing all these treasures with John not after a long plane flight but on the ground, renting perhaps a small studio in the 5th so we can shop and cook for ourselves on these alternating rainy days, and travel by train, so we can hoard bottles of painfully cheap Sancerre and Saumur and enjoy popping corks on the long, slow journey home.