I picked up a little map of Paris in the train station at Austerlitz. It was clear to me that the distance from there to the Cluny museum where the unicorns live was walking distance. I went through the gardens of the Natural History Museum, and then found myself on the street, Rue des Ecoles, where JF was living when I came to Paris to find him. We'd met in Asia, and parted in Bangkok. He went to France, to get his Master's at La Sorbonne, and to find a woman who was "like me, only younger, and not divorced, and French." By the end of six or eight months, I started getting letters from him from Paris. He was enchanted with the place and was sure I would be too. Paris was the center of the world. He lived at Rue des Ecoles. I think it was 26. I took a photo today of 26, Rue des Ecoles. You could see Notre Dame cathedral from the window in his toilet. His sister answered the door, and I was flummoxed...who was this girl? obviously living with Jean-Francois? I learned soon that she was the sister.

It is with this same sister that I'm staying tonight. I left my bags in the left luggage and decided not to go back today but to leave half an hour earlier tomorrow to pick them up. Who needs to brush her teeth first thing in the morning anyway?

I paid my ten dollars at the National Medieval Museum...the Cluny...and picked up one of those audio sticks you can carry around with you in museums these days. There was a time when I'd have disdained such an obviously touristic thing to do, but you really can learn a lot from the audios...and so I walked around for about an hour, listening to things and seeing more than I ever would have otherwise.

The unicorns! They are such incredible tapestries for me. JF's mother did a copy that is hanging beside the dining room table, and so I saw them for years before I ever saw them for real. They keep them in dim light, since any kind of light damages them. I also took photos...

Coming out of the museum, I realized I'd left my little map on the entry table and of course it wasn't there when I went back for it. I wandered into one bookstore after another for another hour. I found books about Perigord or Dordognne, the part of France I want to travel in this fall with the Stewarts. Fois gras country. Everyone agrees it's the best food in France. I should get Judy's cruise friends to come along so they can take the photos of all the great meals we eat...

I found a book that details trips around Paris for kids, and bought it for the boys. Then I picked out one of the trips, a meander through a whole series of covered passageways, starting with the Palais Royale and ending about an hour and a half or longer due North. I took a bunch of photos and will post them. I bought a rock for Raf and some stamps for Udaya, and picked up some stamp catalogues for him as well. I browsed and meandered and had a grand time. I bought Terrine Forestiere for supper, which is just a pate with mushrooms in it. But totally delicious!

Tomorrow, I'm off early, since I have to go back to the train station to pick up my bags. I'm wiped out, totally, but also very happy to be in Paris. I can't begin to tell you how beautiful this city is. The photos may help. I tried to capture my day on film. It'll probably be some time next week before I'll be able to post the photos, though. Unless I find a Starbucks with wi-fi in the airport at Charles de Gaulle. And I think not.

Well, it's back on the conveyor belt, taking me from one world to the next. Tomorrow, I get on the train to Paris. I'll put my bags in the Left Luggage Room and spend the day sort of wandering around. I never got to the Unicorns the last time I had a few hours in Paris, and this time, I'm determined to sit with those incredible tapestries. I'll spend the evening at Vero's-- JF's sister and her family-- and on Friday morning, I'll take the train out to the airport and start the trip home. Raf will pick me up at the airport. I'll be home for Saturday and most of Sunday, and then I'll head to Texas to spend a couple of days with my dear friend Scott, who is dying of cancer and who is one of the greatest inspirations of my life. 

I was telling Natasha tonight...when I left Nepal, I walked around...took a bus...ended up in the airport...all with this sure and certain knowledge that I was leaving one whole world and entering another. The airport at Bahrain was sort of a weird way station in that world-changing reality. I haven't written about it...There were all these men in long white shirts with those strange head-gear things. And a store selling black robes. And I knew that I was in THEIR place, just as I know I'm in the Nepalis place when I'm there...and now I'm in France, which is partly my place but not really. 

And by the end of the day on Friday, I'll be in "my place," and wondering how I manage to actually live there. The camping trip next weekend with Pam is going to go a long ways to getting me "home." Those of you who live there, please please call and come visit and make plans with me. I need so very much when I come back from one of these long trips to feel that I can somehow re-integrate back into your lives. That the hole I left has not been totally filled in and plastered over and there's no room for me any more. I know, that's insane, but there it is...

I'm ready to get back to work, I can tell you that. I do need to do this trip to see Scott, but I've been feeling "too much vacation"-- not really because it's been a real vacation exactly, but because, since we left Darjeeling in the wake of the general strike there, I really haven't had "work." 

I was also thinking today that the last time I really packed my bag, I was so laid low with this bug I got, I couldn't actually pack. JF packed my backpack for me, and I leaned on my umbrella all the way to the airport. And finagled a comfortable armchair in the airport reserved for "the disabled." I felt disabled. I'm better, though I'm still coughing. I needed this cocoon in the arms of my in-laws. 

Off to pack. It's one a.m. I have about another hour of packing to do. See you all sooner than you think...

Daughter Natasha is heading to Stockholm in the fall to begin two years of a Rotary Scholarship. She'll be studying museum curating at an art university...I forget the name... She's looking for housing. Anybody got any ideas? She tells me that there is a very fair and democratic system for getting into student housing, except that all the locals have their name on the list practically from kindergarten, so that while names are called strictly in order of how long you've been on the list, there's no chance her name will come up in the next year.

In fact, any advice, ideas for cheap restaurants, best stores for this or that, really anything Swedish that could help her get along on a tee-tiny budget in her new country would be appreciated.

Began the day yesterday with strong coffee and toast, with a little butter and peach confiture.

At lunch, we had a salad with corn, cooked carrots, bib lettuce and a black olive. Then green beans and these funny little potato things that look like smiley faces. Sort of tater tots for kids. After that, a mutton steak. Followed by fromage blanc with fruit: apricots, kiwis and pears.

For supper, JF had requested boudin. This is blood sausage and some other kind of sausage. You eat it with baked apples. We started with a green salad and finished with cheese and fruit.

In the afternoon, Natasha and I walked around town. It's "les Soldes" in France. It turns out that twice a year, the entire country goes on sale at once. Not sure how long it lasts, but anywhere you go in France right now, you get between 20 and 50 per cent off the price. Na and I went lingerie shopping. Earlier in the year, she had a dream that she and I were in some kind of second-hand store surrounded by fabulous fabrics and that I paid for everything. So I had fun yesterday telling her I was paying for whatever she wanted.

The main attraction around here these days is food, food, food. We had an evening "snack" on arrival on Friday at a Lebanese restaurant, where we are plates of meze. Meze...which is called tapas in Spain but comes from the same tradition, is smallish quantities of various appetizers: Stuffed grape leaves, cream cheese with herbs, hummous (mashed chick peas), baba ganouj (mashed eggplant) and tabouli salad (bulgar wheat, parsley, tomatoes and onions). Those are the ones I knew the names of.

The next day we all attended nephew Hadrien's first communion and afterward, we had hired a little restaurant all for our group. I had some kind of mashed shrimp as an entree, and then salmon lightly poached and then baked to perfection over a vegetable medley and then a light strawberry pie. Of course there was champagne.

Let's move on to the food we're eating now. We have taken the train south to Chateauroux, home of JF's parents. Natasha is here with us. Raf stayed in the States because he had to work on Friday.

Last night, we had endives wrapped in ham and then baked with lardons (sort of like bacon) and cheese. For dessert: Fromage blanc and creme fraiche with pears. When we're at home, JF approximates this with sour cream and yogurt, but it only comes within shouting distance...

The night before, Robert, JF's father, served escargots (snails), one of my all-time favorite French dishes. They are packed in shells with garlic/parsley butter and then baked. We had simple steamed veggies with them.

For lunch yesterday, we ate spaghetti that JF fixed, plus a carrot/garlic salad with homemade vinaigrette sauce. Then fish medallions with scallops and some kind of sauce...not sure what the sauce was. Then pastries from the local bakery...I had half a coffee eclair and half a pear tarte.

Having finished all the books I had on hand, I've started on "Jesus Lived in India." It's actually more interesting than I expected. The thesis, that there was a settlement of one or more of the "lost tribes of Israel" in Kashmir, that Moses is buried there, that Jesus spent time there during the 15 years we know nothing about him, that Jesus got a lot of his theological ideas from Buddhism, that he didn't die on the cross, but went to Kashmir where he finished a long life and died a natural death, is documented with all sorts of documents and photos. It's a fascinating idea, whether it's true or not.

I'm sitting in the bedroom of Veronique's apartment...the one she shares with her entire family, including her painter husband Ramzi and their two kids. So why do we always call it Veronique's apartment? Go figure.

I'm taking a break from speaking French, from a party that started at nine-thirty this morning. It is nephew Hadrien's first Communion, and that means first of all the church with the whole thing there, and then a restaurant for lunch, and now five or six more people for a light supper here. In between, lots and LOTS of walking around the neighborhood, to pick up the apple tarts and the three different kinds of breads and the tablecloth from Vero's first communion luncheon, and...and...and...

Natasha and I are loving the sheer liveability of Paris. Just lovely neighborhoods that are filled with relatively normal people who just happen to live here. Paris hasn't totally become a ghetto for the rich yet. Well...the US Dollar is at 1.77 vis a vis the Euro...that is, every Euro takes almost TWO dollars. This makes Europe and especially Paris an extremely expensive place to be. One hesitates to eat. A tiny cup of expresso is 3.3 Euros. Multiply that one. Cough.

I would like to express my profound appreciation to those of you who chimed in on my job rumination thing. James, I consider you to be one of my techie gurus, so your advice is especially prized. We had been thinking I would do VISTA for another two years before hitting the Real Job market...but maybe it's time to start the search. I'm looking forward to mentoring and hand-holding...And also to getting paid for what I do well.

In the meantime, I do plan to go back to West End Ministries. I just won't be able to afford to STAY there, I fear. Not and finance a young man's MA at State. All options will be explored.

Oh, and it turns out that my Indian clothes are the height of fashion in Paris. Ha. Moi, the height of fashion? And why the heck not? The haircut, by the way, is much better with a bit of gel. And I know the guy in High Point who can make it totally round, the way they did in Bangkok.

It's 10:30 am and there's another transport strike in Kathmandu. Which means that getting to the airport is iffy. I read the book I bought yesterday all in one day, leaving me only with "Jesus Lived in India." JF enjoyed the book, so I'm sure I can get from here to Paris with it, but I was hoping for something a little more...narrative.

I started a discussion this morning with JF on the topic of my work and his work and how to mesh the two. Tech jobs, especially nonprofit tech jobs, are pretty nonexistent in High Point, and we are now looking at a couple of years where Raf may be in a graduate program at State (fingers crossed...not tempting fate or anything...), so I may actually be called upon to make a real salary. What to do? Live apart while I work in the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) and share a place with Raf? And come home on the weekends? Get an international job and come home when I can? Give up entirely and just be the little housefrau who does charity work? How serious is he about supporting this work? How serious am I about taking it to the next level? What would it mean for us? For Raf? How could I pull it off?

The other topic that is at the forefront is my haircut. I don't like it. That torturer woman left it slightly longer on top which definitely gives me that mohawk suggestion that I'm so averse to. With my oblong face, it just doesn't work. JF promises to pay for a decent hairdresser in France to rectify. She charged me double what she had originally quoted, too. I was so discombobulated from the thread treatment on my face that was throbbing away that I couldn't even question. We're talking the diff between $5 and $10, of course. It's not the end of the world.

I need to go pack. I bought some cough medicine today...Aryuvedic/Herbal, which may or may not actually accomplish something. The cough I have had the past three days got really awful yesterday, racked my body...JF and I talked about what we accomplished here, and while I'm disappointed that I didn't get more done, I can see that we ran smack dab into a political situation that nobody could have dealt with any better. Still...I'm so passionate for technology work.

Tomorrow we'll take the plane in the evening and end up in Paris the following morning.

We'll spend a week in France this time. Natasha is coming over because her godson is having some kind of communion...There are apparently several kinds.

I end up back in the states on July 4th. If my dear friend Scott in Texas is still with this world, I plan to hop in my car and head there. I don't plan to stay long, but I know that the one thing I really regretted before we left was that I wasn't able to make the party he threw when he learned his cancer was inoperable and incurable. So I've decided to put off the start of my job until I've been to Texas.

I'm still pretty weak, but feeling better today. I probably still have a low-grade fever and my cough is still wicked, but at least I'm able to get out and about for meals and the internet.

Now this is one weird coincidence...I'm not sure that's what I'd call it. In '78, when I was in Bombay, I was staying at the YWCA, recovering from a kidney infection. Various women came through my four-bed room, but the most memorable was a flamboyant, demanding, obnoxious, loud, colorful woman by the name of Shakuntala Devi. She boasted about how many books she'd written. She received phone calls about various apartments she had up for rent. She pranced and preened and acted like the Queen of the World. I was both fascinated and repelled by her. I went to a book store after that, looking for her "many books," and found that she was indeed a published author...of books about math puzzles. Okay, fast-forward to me sitting in my little sickroom at the hotel, reading a book by Rohinton Mistry (the same guy who wrote the brillant "A Fine Balance.") In the book, he says something like, "Oh if I could only be a math genius like Shakuntala Devi..." And this isn't the first time I've run into references to this woman and her "math genius." Oh, a brush with celebrity! Anybody want to touch the hand that touched the hand of Shakuntala Devi???

This one speaks for itself.

This shows the side .bunks. The darling girl you see there came with her parents on the BusRide From Hell. It was her father, Santosh, who kept the driver from plunging into a ravine.

I've just posted a sort of grab bag of several photos...from the train, a couple from Calcutta and several from JF's visit to the Garden of Dreams, designed by our friend Gotz. I'll do a whole show on this garden when I get home. It's spectacular.