When we last left my Parisian tales, we were in an Irish pub somewhere between the Tuileries and Place Vendôme. I was mere steps away from a chilled martini glass in decadent, plush surroundings but alas, it was not to be. Somehow, we miraculously managed to convince the boys to leave and come with us to Shakespeare & Co.
(Actually, we convinced them to walk with us over there, and told them that while we toured the famous bookstore, they could do whatever they wanted... within the immediate vicinity. Sidenote: some of you might be wondering why Mrs. London and I didn't just go off on our own and left Gregory and Mr. London to their own devices... well that would be a catastrophe of epic proportions. We'd probably never see them again if we did that. Ever. We really need to look into some sort of lo-jack scenario.)
Mrs. London and I walked through the literary doors and had a nice long route around the place. If you happen to like books and historical bookish people like Hemingway and Joyce, then you really should pop in for a visit.
We left the shop and met up with the boys in a pub around the corner (because where else would they be). They both asked us what we bought and were completely flummoxed that we hadn't come out with bags of books. We tried to explain that we didn't go there to shop and they just looked at us like we had five heads (in fairness, they usually look at us like that anyway).
We rambled across the Seine onto our next stop, Notre Dame. The lines here were just as long as the ones at Musée d'Orsay, but we were perfectly content to walk around the outside taking it all in. The Cathedral is quite impressive in person, and I'll admit it, she gives La Petite Notre Dame a run for her money (I've decided that cathedrals are girls).
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That night, we decided to hit the town, but since we're old, and tired (5:00 in the morning trains will do that to you), hitting the town simply means going out to dinner. And since Mr. London picked the restaurant, it means a fancy pants dinner.
The restaurant was kind of ridiculous in that poshy-posh kind of way. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a gourmet meal and good wine, but snobby waiters and coat check girls aren't really my style. That said, we did have a fabulous evening, but in fairness, the four of us could have a fabulous evening at a McDonald's playground.
Sitting around that over-hyped restaurant table did feel incredibly surreal though... it was one of those, "how the H-E-double-hockeysticks did we get here" kind of moments. I mean really, there's French Gregory, who just happened to find himself in Dublin one day and met me, his American wife, who happens to have an English cousin who happened to marry a guy that was born in Trinidad but ended up playing rugby in France. Say what now?!
So there we were, celebrating our family and our friendship at this snooty-tooty place in Paris. Life is truly bizarre indeed, and at times you can feel like you're a million miles away from where you started from.
And then we walked out of the restaurant and saw this car with a license plate from heaven knows where and I knew that I truly was, far, far away from Le Petit Village, and I missed it.
