Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

thoughts

too good to be true

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A terrifically well-reviewed and relatively rare-to-see Sondheim is playing (and is completely and utterly sold out for the entirety of its run).

At the end of our block there are two high-end camera shops, facing each other, both of which carry Panasonic cameras (neither carry the one I’m trying to find).

Around that corner there is an entire street of guitar stores, in the middle of which sits a sheet music store that carries every domestic and imported sheet music book I have ordered from Amazon in the last three years (there is literally no sheet music I have left to buy).

Across from Hairspray is a terrific Mediterranean restaurant that serves breakfast until 15:00 (service was paralyzingly slow, even when we were the only people there).

Our hotel is so high-end that if you switch on the Do Not Disturb light they call your room to see if you actually don’t want to be disturbed, and if you don’t answer after three tries they break into your room to replace the heated towels in your NYC-apartment-sized bathroom (I had some sharp words with the duty manager, who informed me curtly that you have to call to tell her if you don’t want them to enter your room while you are away, and let them know when they can next enter your room. Is this a four-star thing I was previously unaware of since I only stay at crappy hotels? Nowhere in their extensive bedside literature does it mention this, and we had left all of our clothes, gifts, electronics, and money in plain sight when we left, since we took explicit care to light the Do Not Disturb. Now we have to go through everything to make sure it’s accounted for and not damaged).

best […] ever

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[British Belgian restaurant]
We found an amazing Belgian restaurant where I had truly phenomenal mussels. The couple beside us told us they come from outside the city just to have dinner there, and then go home.

[American bragging rights]
Every conversation we’ve had so far in London includes, “What do you think about Obama?” to which we reply in chorus, “We love him!” We have a pretty set script we’re working from at this point. In France it was more polite questioning, but here people have been probing a bit more.

[away-from-home mattress streak]
The wedding hotel mattresses were absolutely heavenly. Like, even the night before with all the nervous energy and whatnot I slept like a rock. I would have tied one to the roof of our car if I could have. Then in Paris we had the sort of ultra-firm Ikea futon mattress that we have at home. And now we’re on a comfortably soft, well-appointed deluxe queen. Seriously, this is highly improbable success.

[water served below room temperature]
Finally, water with ice. I mean, Paris was definitely the best place ever, but I can only drink so much room temperature water in any given week.

[honeymoon timing]
France’s public transit workers and teachers went on strike about an hour ago. We were about four Metro stops from anything of interest; we would have been stranded if we had stayed an extra day.

[drunken plans to write a musical of a movie we watched on our first date seven years ago]
We got sortof drunk over dinner on Beglian beer and, much to the delight of our neighboring couple, debated at length how we would go about writing and staging a musical of The Princess Bride. We got as far as breaking out the songs and their titles and arguing over appropriate voice parts. We’re very into the idea at the moment, but let’s see what happens when we sober up in the morning.

Anything you’d like to add?

… – – – …

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left paris stop chunnel was uneventful but bags very heavy stop guest house in london frightening dreadful gets t for troll refuse to sleep there stop am current ly throwing money at problem will next write from four star hotel full stop

La Matrice

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On our first night Cèline showed us the DVD player and indicated a modest pile of movies. We managed to get out to a brief dinner, but when we returned we were out of steam and decided to watch a bit of Matrix, en Francais. We were asleep before they broke Neo out.

Our day of sleeping in terminated in a long walk, and when we got back we settled in for some more Matrix. We nodded off just before Neo watched the kid bend the spoon.

Last night after Louvre and our homemade dinner I didn’t even make it to Matrix – I fell asleep watching BBC news.

Tonight, after the Jeu de Paume we walked to (and up) Eiffel, and then took the Metro to Latin Quarter, where we went around and around, before finally Metroing back to the flat. We are watching the Matrix before going to bed.

I don’t know if we’re ever going to watch this movie in English again.

abandoned thoughts

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We have yet to see a single obese French person in Paris. Even the roundest, jolliest French-speakers we’ve seen look healthy.

We still have yet to be served anything with ice. Elise cannot figure out what lattes are called here. My club sandwich at Louvre was not club in the American sense, and came on the whitest white bread ever.

There is a distinct lack of disposable stuff, in general. Paper towels are petite compared to their American compatriots – like a single liter of soda next to a 2-liter. The toilet paper is thin and perfunctory.

Our flat has no apparent heat; it’s warmed by a radiator and an installed wall plate at either side of its length. Is this typical of French buildings?

Every single restaurant/bar has the same facade, no matter what they serve.

French cable has a channel for every possible iteration of nationality. We watched Romanian and Armenian television earlier. Does US digital cable get a lot of Romanian channels?

I always thought it was amusing that different languages have different words for the noises animals make, because animals don’t obey language. Children, though, that’s interesting. All of their little wheezes and whoas are completely different. And, I have yet to see an awful mess of a child, the sort you constantly find yourself sitting next to on SEPTA.

We haven’t yet had an opportunity to order escargot. At the Franprix they have a frozen dinner of them, but that’s not how I imagined my introduction to them.