Futility Now

Here are some photos presented in a less verbose context.

Hazel and I took a day trip to Arles, which is a pretty cool town. Here is a picture of a cat who hangs out at a cafe in Arles.

Here is a forlorn-looking infants shoe stuck on a tree in the square of Saint Chinian.

Here are some prawns we ate on our last night in Saint Chinian

Here are Hazel and Zia in Beziers, where Hazel and I caught the train back to Paris.

Here is a rather handsome metal door in Beziers.

Last Beziers photo: For various reasons that we don’t really need to go into detail about, Hazel and I were sort of exhausted by the time my mom drove on with Zia. Rather than wait in the train station, we went to a rawther rustic bar and drank Ricard.

Then we went back to Paris, where we belong. Here is the sky from our hotel window.

Here is Hazel drinking wine by the Canal Saint-Martin while we wait for pizza from Pink Flamingo.

Here are the pizzas for which we waited. The one on the left is called L’Obama, and it’s ham and pineapple chutney. Verdict: amazing!

Here is some rubble we saw after eating pizza and before we got on the metro for further adventures.

We slung ourselves out of bed as it started getting light in earnest and stumbled around on some trains until we made it to de Gaulle and stood around in some lines. Then we ate some terrible airport food, stood around on a bus long enough to wonder if something had gone terribly wrong, and then the bus took us to our plane and we got on.

We hadn’t really gotten it together to think about what we were going to do in Toulouse, so once we got to the train station and left our bags in lockers there we just sort of wandered around. We found the old-fashioned part of the village and wandered around it until we found a restaurant run by a completely insane Frencman and his relatively placid wife where we had a salad was massive gobs of duck confit in it.

The rest of the meal wasn’t anything to write home (or the internet) about, but that part was really great. Also, it was fun watching the crazy owner (who was also the main server) handle a substantial lunch rush in the inimitable style of his type.

Once we were done we meandered our way back out of the oldtown and to the train station.

This is us feeling reasonably confident that we will make it all day without any disasters.

The train ride was brief and fairly pleasant, and then we were in Bezier, and Zia and my mother met us, and then my mother drove us frantically to Saint Chinian and our awesome villa where we sort of lolled about and sipped rosé until we fell asleep.

More pictures from our innumerable trips to Gare de Lyon to figure out how to get around France.

Ads in the Paris metro sit in metal frames. Sometimes this is obvious, sometimes it’s obfuscated.

Assorted metro scenes.