July 5th, Day 6

so, up and about at a reasonable hour on this day. Helen got back from Brussels just as I was out the door for in search of chocolate & banana crepes. (I found all of local restaurants on a walk the night of the 4th.) They were great & I look forward to exploring some with savory toppings too.

When I returned to the apartment we were off to the catacombs. It was really really cool but there are so many bones that it's almost hard to grasp that they're real. The bones are decaying & it seems like in another 200 years they could be gone. You could really see how they are compacting & becoming dirt.I was happy to see them, snuck a moment holding a skullcap that had fallen loose. wierd, creepy, & cool. I would go again, really early in the morning when hopefully not as many people are there.

After the catacombs we walkes up Boulevard St. Michelle, our local freeway to the Seine if you will. We meant to go to to the Pantheon but lost track & ended up at The Chapel St, Severin. It's gorgeous of course & we decided to go to Notre Dame to compare. Notre Dame is like 5 times the size of St. Severin at least! Holy shit, no comparison.
Mass started & we sat for a bit then bailed to have cocktails aboard a boat moored along the Seine. 2 drinks each here & we we off to meet Paul's friend, Bill, at Fish La Boiseonerie. Nice place, an Anglo bar they call it. Dinner was good, foie gras- like butter, rissotto, and salmon with capers followed by pork medallions in a fruit sauce, pigeon (a little rare & the skin wasn't crispy enough for me), and finally I think Helen had a tuna of some sort. Before dinner aas we all got to know each other, we had at least another 2 glasses of wine , followed by 2 more during dinner, & at least one after when we were meeting a ton of Anglos living in Paris & their traveling friends. No desert. I sort of expected to pay for Bill's dinner since I had invited him out. He's done some work as a sommelier & I got a little unnerved when he ordered a bottle of wine from a page where the cheapest price was 85 Euro, & began to pass it around to all of our new found friends. I accepted a glass, & relaxed, assuring myself that he wouldn't ever expect that & proceeded to get even more snockered. Kind of a shame that we lated so late in our meal to get such a nice wine. It's magic was probably lost on our inebriated tastebuds but we enjoyed it none the less. So the cheque came (finally, hours later) and Bill paid the bill. wow. thanks dude. we then went for after dinner drinks at Flore, some hangout where Hemmingway & all those dude used to go. Honestly, I was so intoxicated that I just sat, quietly listening to Bill & Helen banter about who knows what & whom while enjoying my champagne. H & I picked up the tab here- 3 drinks, 50 euro- don't know how a starving artist could ever afford to hang there!

That was it, we were off to bed & sufficiently ruined for tomorrow.