The hotel man­ag­er is some­thing of a bum­bling old man who bare­ly speaks a lick of English and wears a check­ered sweater and cap even though it’s boil­ing out­side. When I asked him for his name, he said, “Monsieur ________”. “And you”, he said, “are Mr. Laenin”?, as the room was booked under Karin’s name. I laughed and shook my head. “Better you with a girl than a boy with a boy”, he said, touch­ing the tips of his index fin­gers to rep­re­sent some non­de­script rela­tion he did­n’t approve of. Even though it was a com­plete­ly homo­pho­bic com­ment, his Parisian charm almost let him get away with it. Almost.

Every time I see him now, he asks me if she slept over last night. I think he assumes I came to Paris for some kind of booty call.

 

Most of the restau­rants by Sacré-Cœur are geared towards tourists who don’t know any bet­ter, but even an under­whelm­ing and over­priced toast­ed ham and cheese pani­ni is bet­ter than much of the sand­wich­es avail­able back home.

 

Soft apple cake. Not too sweet and very moist, the lat­ter of which is impor­tant as a small tray of sesame seeds and cin­na­mon is pro­vid­ed for dip­ping.

 

Mangosteen mel­on tea. Mélange trés fin por­tant une pointe d’acid­ité. Cette eau de fruit sur­prend par ses saveurs inat­ten­dues. Great on a hot day.

Homemade rose­wa­ter marsh­mal­lows, cov­ered in sug­ar. Super soft and light.

 

I’m already used to the time dif­fer­ence, prob­a­bly cause my sleep­ing sched­ule was all over the place back home. On the plane I caught an hour or two here and there, no thanks to the con­stant elec­tron­ic din that per­me­ates the fuse­lage, and it cer­tain­ly was­n’t enough. When I final­ly fell asleep on the first night, it was for a sol­id sev­en and a half hours; I can’t remem­ber that last time I slept for that long. My mind is tired and the heat adds to the exhaus­tion, but I can make it the whole day with­out a nap, which nev­er seems pos­si­ble back home.

I’m begin­ning to won­der how this trip is going to affect my life when I return. I’ve already accept­ed the fact that the bread will nev­er be as good as it is here, and that alone is dif­fi­cult enough to live with­out.