Desperately Seeking Dinner

Essentially, there were three parts to my day, so let's make gratuitous use of headers:

Part 1: The Awakening

After getting home pretty late last night, I slept in till about midday and then tried to get myself together. I did the shower thing, I tried to nibble on some more bland food (still recovering from the food poisoning) and started working. In particular, I had a virtual pile of emails sitting in my inbox, overdue for reply. It seems as if, ever since I got to France, my email correspondence has become much more involved. I can literally spend hours replying to mail and still not be done.

Anyway, I did my best to clear out my inbox (with no success), and then headed out around 17h00

Part 2: Drinks at Solférino

I had an appointment with an anthropology prof that I had taken a really fantastic course with last winter. She was in town for a day before heading off with her partner to Barcelona, so I arranged to grab a drink with them near their hotel. We wandered into a brasserie near the Solférino métro station and ordered some drinks and a platter of oysters. It was really nice to catch up with her as well as bounce my ideas off of her. It was also nice to summarize my project again and get some probing questions; I had been forgetting to think about a lot of interesting questions that she brought up, and I have a few new books to read now.

Part 3: Finding Dinner

I got a call from DJ just as I was taking the métro back home. Apparently, he was planning to go out for dinner, but his dinner date had cancelled on him. Flattered to be his Plan B (just kidding, DJ), I headed back over to the Left Bank and waited for him to arrive. The plan was to go to a crêperie near Odéon that he was very fond of, so off we went, following his lead. A few minutes later, we come upon the creperie and they're closed.

That's OK, we're not too far from the Panthéon, and I know of that fantastic Italian restaurant, Terra Nera, right near there. So off we go, walking another mile or so. We get there a while later, and THAT restaurant is closed, too. Well fuck. Strike two.

I'm about to throw in the towel, when DJ points out that we could get moules frites (mussels and fries) at La Gueuze nearby. La Gueuze is a very Belgo-centric brasserie, serving a huge selection of international beers--but especially all the Trappist, Lambic, Gueuze, Faro and Fruit beers you can imagine. We each got a huge order of mussels and fries "paysanne" (i.e., with mushrooms and cream and lardons) and stuffed ourselves. Sooo, delicious.

Afterwards, we both headed back to our respective homes, we me realizing as I arrived that I still had a big pile of work to do. Oy.