04/09/12 — 00.08 — Monday — Hotel la Bourdonnais

Dinner tonight was a jambon and gouda sandwich with mayo on baguette. I prepared it myself on the counter in the bathroom. They say don’t shit where you eat, but I ate it on the bed in the hotel room, so I should be alright. There’s a supermarket right next door to where I’m staying, and I bought a steak knife to cut the bread and spread the mayo. Didn’t occur to me until I walked back in here that I probably could’ve just asked for one at the restaurant and they’d have given it to me, perhaps with the same rolled eyes I’ve gotten across the board here, but still. I’ve got two extra steak knives now because they came in a pack of three. I don’t think I’ll try bringing those in my carry-on.

As regards the rolled eyes, Paris reminds me of New York in that. You’re a jerk any way you slice it. I can deal with that, though. No stranger to being a fucking idiot.

Should probably also mention the bottle of wine that I bought to go with dinner: a ’99 haut-médoc that was passable but not great for a grocery store selection. I wanted a low-key night, staying in on account of the weather — but doing it in Paris — and I guess falling asleep halfway through that bottle qualifies. Ha. The internet in this room has been in and out (it still is as I’m trying to post this), but I thought it was me violating the terms of service by trying to download last night’s episode of Game of Thrones, and that doesn’t seem to have been the case. Just shitty service. Sometimes it’s not about you.

The wine and the sandwich were right on (I said out loud to no one, “so that’s what gouda should taste like”) and I’ve got enough left over for breakfast tomorrow before I head back to Gare du Nord to catch a train to Schiphol in Amsterdam. I’ll probably have to connect in Belgium to do it — at least that’s how it went getting to London from Schiphol in 2010 — and then onward to Eindhoven where, barring disaster, I’ll catch Trippy Wicked, Stubb and Stone Axe at a joint forebodingly called The Rambler. Should be an interesting day, one way or another.

I’m trying to finagle staying over here for Desertfest Berlin (the fucking awesome lineup of which you can check out at this location), but I’m not sure if it’s going to happen. According to The Patient Mrs., whose patience may have just met its match on the issue, United wants to charge a grand for changing my flight, and between that and the extra hotel time, it’s more than I can even pretend to afford as much as I’m pretending I’m not burning through my savings by being here for as long as I am now. It sucks, because it’s just a money thing, and I don’t know when I’m going to be able to be back in Europe at all, let alone for a two-week stretch. I feel like, if I leave here after Roadburn next weekend, I’m splitting before the trip is over, but I can’t see a way how I can make it happen. Maybe it’s the bottle of wine and that innate French sense of hopeless tragedy seeping in, but yeah.

I’ll deal with that one way or the other, and if I only get to see two killer fests on this trip, I can hardly complain about how fucking hard my life is. The Sound of Liberation crew putting on the Desertfest in Berlin were kind enough to include me in their presenting sponsors. I feel like I should be there.

I also feel like I should’ve bought a second bottle of wine. So it goes.

Tags: Desertfest & Roadburn Adventure 2012, France, Paris

This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2012 at 5:55 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.