(52) is Saturday, 27 February 2010
I met a playwright this morning... his name is Alan Rossett, and he's an American expat who's been living here for a long time, directing his own plays on small budgets and in what Vassar students would call "alternative spaces." I got in touch with him through the Vassar-Wesleyan program, ostensibly in search of an internship. He didn't have anything to offer me, but we chatted for a while (apparently, back in the day, this guy once played Iago to James Earl Jones's Othello) and he agreed ("avec plaisir"*) to read some of my material.
I then headed back to my house for a nap, but I decided to stop for lunch, which turned into strolling, which turned into taking my Vassar advisor's (James Steerman's) advice of riding a bus for the hell of it to get to know the city. Four times.** I left my meeting with M. Rossett at about 12:45. I got home at about 4. Such a good suggestion on JimmySteer's part.
I then napped, and went out to dinner with Izzy and Carryn*** at a restaurant near Mabillon called "Coffee Parisien." It's basically an American diner in the middle of Paris. The food's quite good-- they've rather captured the American technique-- but I hesitate to recommend it because, well, it's American and it's expensive enough to make you wonder if it's imported.
General announcement: I'm likely going to be out of computer contact for a few days. I'm going on vacation (no classes this week... seriously, I don't go to school). I will return to Paris on Thursday evening.
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Just when you thought I'd never do another footnote...
* "with pleasure"
** Here is a map of the Parisian bus system, if you want a more visual sense of how I took the VERY long way home. I got off the train at Trocadero and wandered to the northwest of Charles de Gaulle-Etoile (that's the Arc de Triomphe), where I hopped on the 43 bus (in red on the map) all the way to Gare de Nord. That's more to the northeast, where many buses converge (trains, too, since "gare" means "train station"). I then switched to the 38, which took me down to the very south of the city (Porte d'Orleans). From there, I connected to the Tramway 3 going westward across the bottom of the city. The Paris tramway is a sort of cross-pollination between a Paris metro train and an above-ground San Francisco trolley; it looks like its chic mother and drives above ground like its father. At Porte de Garigliano (end of the trolley line), the PC1 bus took me across the Seine and back to metro line 9 at Porte de Saint-Cloud (it's not on that map, but it is near the southwest corner of this one). From there, I took the train one stop to Marcel Sembat, which is home.
*** Pronounced "Car-in", not "Care-in."
