Rendering distance obsolete

09.06.2007

Sorry I haven’t written for awhile—2 trips this past weekend and 2 presentations and an interview this week.

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Don’t worry, this isn’t a treatise on science (philosophy maybe).
It’s merely some shoutouts of the people I’ve seen in the past 3 weeks who don’t live in Paris, but are part of my life…

…to Steve Gorodetskiy for traveling with his family and having to do touristy things with Russian tour groups. Believe me, we’ve all been there. I always happen to see Russian tour groups on the bridges between Quartier of Boulevard St. Michel (Latin Quarter) and the Plaza in front of Notre Dame.

…to Ben Brabston for studying in Paris for a month, living on the Seine, and having a great time overall.

This one requires a story: “Serendipity” or “Just another day in Paris”

So Monday night, nothing to do, I decided to go with a friend from the foyer/program to Monmartre. I hadn’t been, and it was around nighttime and I figured it’d be cool. All of the metro stops west of Monmartre are surrounded by Cabaret establishments (eg. Le Moulin Rouge, and other Moulins) and noticeably strip clubs and sex shops.

We climb the ‘mount’ of martyrs or whatever, the Cathedral Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart) is amazing, at night even. Plus, from there you can see the whole center and south of Paris, breathtaking. There was also mass at 22h00 for some reasons, but, you know, why not?

Leaving the cathedral, we find the square where you can get your portrait drawn, and then turn down the other side of the hill. A couple blocks, and sufficiently far from the tourism, we turn into a dark looking road. Walking along, I start staring at a girl walking on the other side of the street. My companion tells me to quit it, that I should ‘leave the poor girl alone’.

However, it turned out to be Mariel Vinge from Minnetonka. How’s that? Shit like that always happens to me, serendipity. She was en route from Amsterdam to Bonn, Germany.

I’m all for chance encounters.

Ching-Ching to all further encounters. (The French say ‘à la santé’ –to your health, or tching-thcing (the sound glass makes if it gets hit together) when they drink, brilliant).

...More encounters to come...soon.