Day 3: In Paris

Today begins exactly where the previous one left off, unpunctuated by sleep. We’re three hours late, and our bags (precisely: their bags; I did not check any) are missing, and there is nothing we can do about either of these realities. We decide to go to the hotel; there is a driver waiting for us, and he deftly wends his way through the capillaries of Paris to our destination hotel, where the Edwardses are waiting for us. We go have coffee, and the go to an awesome lunch on the parents, which is fantastic, and I instantly fall in love with our waitress. We then proceed to the Notre Dame and see that. Hannah Johnson is very excited about this. Lots of pictures and cigarette smoking proceed.

Hotel Jeu de Paume, where we were put up, is incredible. It seems that there are about ten rooms, and the rest of the hotel is devoted to being well-designed and open-feeling. The rooms were breathtaking, but the interior space of the hotel itself resembled a work of modern art. This was a boutique hotel, surrounded by restaurants, cafes, and foie gras specialty shops not a tenth of a mile from the Notre Dame itself. Incredible.

The rest of the day was spent in somewhat of a haze; we napped, got up for coffee, and went to the local mart and bought cheese and fruit. We took it back to the hotel and dined in their courtyard, wonderfully quaint and accompanied by a fine bottle of champagne that the Edwardses had left for us at the hotel bar for a gift. Tom and I then proceed to pass out, while the ladies go out and take in the Notre Dame at night. Our car will arrive at 4:00 AM, bound for Orly, to take the EasyJet to Athens.