So it's true: Katie has dumped me for the United States. I just got off the phone with her, and she's landed in San Francisco. We had a lovely time, and her air mattress will miss her.
On Thursday, Katie met me after school and we walked through the Jardin de Luxembourg. This week was actually rather warm, and it was a good time to do it. We walked down a bit to the Closerie des Lilas, a famous café where many famous authors have written famous books. We kept meaning to take an entire tour of Places Where Hemingway Put His Ass, but this was our only day of it. Katie's Frommer's informed us that in Hemingway's poorer student days, he would walk a pram into the Jardin de Luxembourg and wring the necks of unfortunate pigeons, which he would then hide in the pram and take home to cook. He wrote The Sun Also Rises on the terrace of the Closerie (where Katie also studiously recorded things in her notebook).
Making this afternoon all the more lively and all the more French, a student protest was taking place all down the Boulevard St. Michel, which passes both the Gardens and the Closerie. We were separated from a very loud bunch of chanting people by a juniper hedge. Juniper is not a good soudproofer.
Still, we were not nearly as French as the man we passed on the way, taking a break from the protest and chatting with his friends while drinking white wine out of a bottle and smokind a cigarette. French civil disobedience is terribly civilized.