The Month in Review

So, today at 11am, I was preparing the hot line for lunch service. Since we are seven hours ahead of Chicago, I can say that it was EXACTLY one month ago at that time that I woke up to be taken to the airport to come here.

A lot has happened in the first thirty days.

Since arriving in the kitchen: my French has improved dramatically; my knife skills have improved a great deal; I am really getting cooking to temperature down. Also though, I have made some friends in the kitchen. When the chef calls the brigade together, I dont stand in the back looking at my clogs. That feels good: to be a part of the team. Further, we have a new stagiare in the kitchen now, and I am teaching him how things go. I showed him how to make a Caesar salad today (we make it with a poached egg, shaved Parmesan, dried Serrano ham and grilled chicken breast over succrine lettuce with, duh, house made Caesar dressing- heavy on the anchovies, with a toast point on the side drizzled with pesto). It was cool to show him that because that was the first thing that I was shown. Neat-o-rama.

Other than that, I am getting much more comfortable with Paris. I like to hang out in the Notre Dame area a lot and discovered the tiny jazz place I have been looking for. Its on Rue Saint-Severain. If you didnt know it was there, you would never see it. I dont know how I did, but I did. There is a trumpeteer coming in early October to play the American standards, so I will definitely go to that.

A month ago, I was saying goodbye to my wife, and now, I am preparing for her arrival. She will be here on Friday, and I am so excited. I have planned out too many things to do, so I think I will just chuck all those plans and we'll fly by the seats of our respective pantalons.

In other culinary news, I have recently heard from my first culinary instructor, Chef Pierre Pollin, and he has forwarded me some names of restaurants that he trained in, while he was living in France. This is a great, great chef, so I am excited to be able to share his experiences. I am going to try and work at these restaurants on the weekends for added experience. Those you of you who know me well will probably call this par for the course: there's Mark filling up his schedule to capacity again. It's true; I have a really, really hard time sitting still, but I think in this case, its a good thing. I dont want to miss out on anything.

Yesterday, I had nothing to do (until 9pm when rugby started, more on that later), so I decided to take myself on a long walk. I took the RER B train and got off at Trocadero. From there, you can see all the sights- the Arc de Triomphe is up the Avenue de Trocadero, the Eiffel Tower is around the corner, the cafes are right in front of the stop, tourists are being gouged for $20 a beer- like I said, all the sights.

Anyway, I got off there and walked clear across the city to Notre Dame. It was an awesome walk. As a side note, I have discovered in my life (as I am sure you have for your own), that there are certain pieces of music that go perfectly with certain places.

For example: driving angry on 290 West in the middle of the night? AC/DC hits to spot.

Crossing the Pyranees from France to Spain, while watching the sun come up over the mountains and forests? Calexico and Iron and Wine's "He Lays in the Reigns."

Losing your virginity to a girl/guy you dont know and dont want to remember, in the bedroom of someone neither of you know, while a fourth party's party rages outside? John Philips Sousa, every day of the week, and twice on Sundays.

(That is not how I lost mine, for those interested, but I always felt like that is how Marsha Brady would have lost hers, if the series had shown that "very special" episode. Marsha! Marsha! Marsha! Wow, that takes on a whole new meaning...)

Regardless of all of that, the perfect song to walk through Paris to, while the leaves are changing, and the sun is setting, and the lights on the Seine are just starting to twinkle awake in the cool twilight breeze: Ray Charles' "Moonlight in Vermont." It is purrrrrrrrrfection.

So, where was I.... so I am walking along, and I spotted a sign posted to a random building. No reason for it to be there, except for me to see.

It read: Bloom where you are planted.

Right on.

It made me thankful for everything I have here; I couldnt ask to be planted in better places. And it made me think that I have got to stop wasting time, and get down to business.

Oh, and right around the time I came to that realization, the proverbial light bulb came on. Here is how that showed up:

It was like magic. All the lights of the Eiffel Tower just burst to life. It was an explosion of color and light, and everyone around just started applauding. I would like to request of God or Buddha or whomever is currently taking calls up there, that every time I have a good idea, everyone around me should just start applauding.
Things would be a lot easier to figure out then.

I have to say this again: I love living here. I do.
A month seems like forever, and a really short time, at the same time.
I think this is the most beautiful city in the world.

So, emotionality aside, what else is new?
Well, my Wang threw a tantrum when he came home from work today. Seems there are often a large number of Korean stewardessessesses who stay in the hotel between flights. These are quiet, demure, perfectly groomed and coiffed women, whose uniforms, I believe, are permanently attached. They walk around the hotel, swishing their heads back and forth like they do when they are checking the aisles of the plane to see if anyone needs a pillow or is throwing up.
And if that wasn't odd enough, these tiny polite women eat like truck drivers. I swear, Hyatt is discussing replacing their spoons with silver shovels.
Well, Will, as you know, is a server in the Apollo. Today was his last straw. Two of said stewardessessesses asked him for a new plate of scrambled eggs, and handed him their plates, while he was walking by with two pots of hot coffee. He obviously could not take their plates just then, but they forced them in his face regardless and may just as well have growled, "More! Hulk must feed! Hungry!" Well, Will, the gracious man he is (ahem...), politely put down the coffee pots, and took their plates. And while he was walking away (this is the part that really set him off), they called after him that they would like some, as he recounts it: "caw-pee."
He was in a rage when he came home. "Wat dee f***! I don have no caw-pee. I have coffee! God damn!" I dont think I have ever laughed so hard.

This weekend, I didnt make it to a jazz club like I had hoped. Esteban might lose his job (because he is "unmotivated." His response? "Ai dios...") so we took him to a neighborhood bar called Millennium to saturate his spirits with spirits.
Saturday I was in Paris, writing and hanging out, but Sunday...
I have mentioned that Sunday I took a long walk, but what I did not mention was the game.
France V. Namibia.
People, this was a game.
It was fast and hard and people were going berserk.
So, to bring you up to speed here, France is crazed about this cup. It is everywhere. I even stumbled across Rugby Village. It is a huge tent near the Eiffel Tower that serves huge Heinekins (6 euros only) and has a restaurant, a lounge, plasma screens everywhere, a cafe and a stage. I saw a guy perform Crash Test Dummies's "Mmm Mmm Song." I didnt even remember that that song existed, but the guy was taking requests and people were jubilantly yelling out every song they could remember. It was German, Irish, French, Argentine, Mexican, everybody celebrating rugby together. I think there might be something to this whole "world peace through rugby" idea I have come up with (applause, please). The French have even hung a huge rugby ball between the legs of the Eiffel Tower:


In any event, New Zealand is favored to win the cup, with England, France and Argentina each posing a threat. But Mark, you wine, where is the US in all of this?
Oh, well, England kicked our asses pretty bad last week, so we're out of the whole cup. Boo hoo, move on.
I was seated in Pub Shywawa in St. Michel watching the game. One of the French players, Sebastien Chebal, this guy is like a train. He is huge and has a long beard and long, long dreadlocks. He looks like a viking. He would catch the ball and just run, screaming down the field.
Two things that I did not mention about rugby in my last report: they dont wear pads, and when you are tackled, the game doesnt stop. The other team just piles on and pummels you until you give up the ball, and whichever side grabs it, they're in possesion.
Well, the Namibians never had a chance with Chabal. He would streak down the field, and when one of the Namibians got in his way, he just kept running. He would collide with these unpadded guys at full speed, and they would either deflect off of him or grab on and get pulled along as he kept going down the field.
To put this in perspective: imagine all the passion that goes into the SuperBowl. You know how people get all crazy and hypnotized by that game? Well, imagine that that game was only played once every four years, and that every country in the world was playing. Like the best players from each team in the whole country play all the best players from every other country, and there are no commercials and the game rarely stops and there is blood everywhere and all they serve is Heinekin by the barrel full and the guy on your team is dragging two other full grown men behind him as he pulls across the finish line and you HAVE to win this game, or as host country, your team is out and you have to watch all the other teams play in your backyard, but you cant join in.
I have only ever heard men scream like this when you turn up the volume to full on your surround sound during the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan.
Men clapping and woofing! Jumping and screaming! Hugging people you dont even know while smashing your pints together every time Chebal explodes across the end zone line, and I found myself among them. I couldnt contain myself!
The final score?

Namibia- 10.



France- 83.

I tell you the felicity in the streets was such that I thought Napoleon might have returned from the dead and was throwing down free frog's legs from the top of the Arc de Triomphe.


I left the pub, horse from my cheering, deaf from the screaming, sore from the bear hugging of strangers, and glad...

Glad to have spent my first month so very, very well.