Rush! (Stream of consciousness)

Enormous Energy High.

Need to get out and see Paris. Now.

Grab book and DVD (unwatched) to return tot he centre. Print, dash, think. Realise I need Keynes in my essay too. Hurriedly scan book and scribble notes. Must finish before I get to centre. Scribble Scribble. Adrenaline fuels my reading engines. Arrive, return books and DVD, collect French Journal. Efficient. Gotta love the centre. Decide against exploratory food outing and head back to Fontaine Sully for confit de canard. Rush. Transfer trains at Gare de Lyon, nose is captured and enraptured by freshly baked goodness. Grab a pain aux raisins on impulse. It's so good. Sugar high. Toss the bag, train pulls in. Perfect. Love Paris Trains. Descende a gauche at the Bastille stop, doa photo tourist thing for a quick while, find Fontaine Sully. Sit down (inside this time, because the sunny day is opposite to the last rainy day i'm here, and i'm hot from all this running around). Order. I'm in the corner. Ambivalent towards corners, but this one affords me a view of the whole restaurant. Waiter gives me a funny look when I order white Alsace Gerwuztraminer with the duck. Whatever, you're not keeping me from my favourite wine of this trip. Individualism and self-determination. Food arrives, this time I remember to take a photo.



Gerwuztraminer subtleties completely overwhelmed by the duck and garlic, as expected. Still good, though. love observing the interplay of food and wine. Doesn't matter! Duck is wonderful.

In this most French of French bistroes, with the old man sitting quietly in the corner reading his paper alone over a cup of coffee, the radio plays "my humps". The elder sophisticated Asian woman at the far table studiously busies herself with her food, unaware of the voyeurism of my pencil. I sip my Gerwuztraminer, which has levelled up in tasste, while contemplating the dilemma facingthe European democracies in the interwar years. The train of thought quickly shifts to the dilemma of the history of Europe student who wants to see more of Paris. Elderly Asian woman orders a dessert (not salty please). I ruminate on my potato bits. She orders a tarte aux pommes. i feel a deep affinity with her already. Germany languishes on the sidelines. I run out of space on the paper, my essay plan completely overrun by my blog post.



So i lied. I still have another 6 pieces of paper from the ridiculous 8 pages of quote printouts i have (but no organization!) which arose from kiasuness over having to return my source (see above) before my thoughts crystallized. The alcohol has depressed my biochemistry. Old man orders a port-looking thing. A third glass in addition to the two already at his table. I begin to do curious things like cut my salad into bite sized bits. I refill my wine glass for the 2nd and last time. There's now probably about 3ml of alcohol in my blood stream. Not terrifically a lot, but I still need to write a paper here.

which, i guess, i will do now.