Adventures, off-kilter and on

I'm writing back-to-back posts again so that my faithful readership (hello to all three of you!) isn't kept in undue suspense regarding my day today.  At work I polished and practiced and fretted a bit about my presentation.  Currently, no matter how hard I try, I can't get the time below 13 minutes, and I'm out of non-essentials to cut.  Mélanie thinks I'll be fine:  "When you really present, you'll be stressed, so you'll talk faster."  I guess that's a good thing.  Just one more day in Cachan now for me.  That's strange.  I'll be sad to bid farewell to all of the other lab members.

There was a plan for this evening.  I made it myself, and though it was a bit vague I was happy with it.  I was going to see the Floral Park out at Chateau de Vincennes (the terminus of the M1 metro) with anyone who wanted to join me.  Most of that plan actually happened, too, and more besides!

But for a while things looked doubtful.  We began the evening in a group of four: me, Kierstin, Caleb, and Linda.  In Chatelet station we lost Linda.  An innocent splitting-up of the party became an irrecoverable separation, and our phones didn't work properly in the underground station.  After twenty minutes or so, the rest of us decided to continue the journey and try to get ahold of Linda when we were aboveground again.  Fortunately we soon heard from her, and she was safe and sound and had decided to head back on her own.

Then the metro seemed to get a bit confused, and sat in one station for a few solid minutes instead of seconds.  We had half an hour before the park closed, and I was beginning to release my mental grip on the idea of getting there in time.

But we did manage to spend about ten minutes in the garden, enough to see that it was very pretty, and then we walked in the nearby Bois de Vincennes, a wooded area with sandy trails, for a while before going back to the metro stop.  The whole area was green and park-like, a welcome contrast to the busy downtown.  On the way back, the three of us stopped off at Denfert-Rochereau for a dinner of crêpes salées (well, two of us - Kierstin didn't have one).  Mine was ham and cheese and salt and pepper, the latter two added liberally and unevenly.  On the whole, it was quite tasty.  To put the finishing touch on the evening, we walked back to the dorms instead of taking the RER.  Although the weather was hotter today than any other day so far, by 9:30 pm or so the temperature was excellent.  A detour down a quiet, twisty-cobbled street completely overgrown with flowers gave me an idea of where I'd want to live if I ever stay in Paris for an extended period again.  I'd say the adventures went well.