Paris Journal, 31 December 2005

31 December 2005
Saturday

Slept WAY in today. We missed the 11:00 cutoff for breakfast at the hotel, so we went for a walk in the opposite direction down boulevard Saint Germain than we had walked in the previous few days. We encountered a café that was open, so we sat down and had omelets, wife a fines herbes, and I a fromage. They were pretty good, though I wasn’t too crazy about the runniness at first.

We walked to find Alcazar, the nightclub/restaurant where tonight’s dinner was to be held. It was generally in the same place as Ze Kitchen Galerie and La Grenouille. Afterward we walked to Notre Dame again to take the kind of picture I wish we had taken when we were here in 2002. Of course, this time the sun was partially out, and made for a weird, uneven lighting, and so our photos look like we’re in a studio with a Notre Dame backdrop hanging behind us! But it is still better composed than the one co-worker number one took three years ago.At Notre Dame. There are probably shots with better, natural lighting, but this is the best pose. Please don't tell wife I put her photo on the net!! (Photo credit: Farrago)



We walked from there and tried to find the Cité Metro station, but it didn’t appear to be on Ile de la Cité where the map showed it to be. It’s there. I know it is. We just couldn’t find it. We walked across the bridge to Rive Gauche and the Chatelet Metro station. From there we traveled to the Concorde station. We went up to Place de la Concorde, and then we walked down the Champs Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe. We figured to use the last day of our museum passes, but when we got to the entrance of the arch there was a sign on the door that read, in effect, that the museum had closed at 4:30, due to the holiday. The funny, unfortunate-translation-of-French-to-English part of it was that the sign read, “…will be closed exceptionally…”C'est moi au-dessous l'Arc de Triomphe! (Credit du Photo: Mme. Farrago)



This is an unretouched photo; the sky really was that blue...in this photo. The white balance was set for incandescent light (yellow), so the blue really popped. A hint for you photo novices out there... (Photo credit: Mrs. Farrago)



We took a lot of photos of and with the arch, and then we headed back to our hotel via the Metro. There must have been half the population of Paris riding the Metro because we couldn’t even get on the first train that pulled into the Charles de Gaulle Étoile station. The next was just as crowded if not more so. When we finally wedged ourselves in, it was like being in a stampede, only no one was moving. In the crush I lost the eyecup to the video camera I borrowed from work. We finally reached the Saint Germain des-Pres station, and we went to our hotel to get ready for dinner.

We called co-worker number two to see when he and his girlfriend were leaving for the restaurant. He told us they were going to leave around 7:45. We knew that it was at the very least a 15 minute walk, and if one doesn’t know where he’s going, it could be even longer. He could not be convinced that they should leave earlier and declined our offer to walk with them. He said they couldn’t be ready in time, anyway.


We were a private party, sectioned off in a semi-soundproof loft, and just about every one of us had a camera. we were snapping photos, and the regular club folk were being kept away from our room, so the rest of the club wondered what famous celebrity(ies) were partying in there! Just us nobodies! (Photo credit: Farrago)

Wife and I were the first ones there, by about 15 minutes. The waiters gave us champagne and hors d’olives (yes, you read that correctly). The rest of the crowd all trickled in by about 8:30, and the slow procession of dinner commenced. There was a duck foie gras, and then a serving of scallops, then the roast “breast of fowl,” followed by a strawberry/raspberry/meringue thing that really wasn’t all that good, except for the whipped cream on top. Wife got a little buzzed and was snapping crazy photos with the Nikon, and most of them turned out to be really funny, interesting photos…if you could get around all the ones where co-worker number one was mugging.One of wife's champagne-and-wine-inspired shots. (Photo credit: Mrs. Farrago)



At midnight there was a mysterious voice on the P.A. system counting down from ten, and suddenly it was 2006. Except for the shower of streamers and confetti that fell from the ceiling at the moment, it went almost otherwise unnoticed.

As the dinner was cleared and the restaurant cut off our champagne supply, a contingent from our group was organizing for a walk to The Great Canadian, but wife and I were pretty tired and fuzzy, so we called it a night.

Happy New Year!


dassall! Maybe more later...