Tonight, I’m going to meet the Conversational French Group at a café located right next to La Place de la Bastille. It’s a group of English-speaking Francophiles, some of whom live here year-round, and others like me, who come and go. We sit and chitchat, with each other and the host helps us with any/all French language questions.

These meetings take place weekly at a café which donates the space to the group, and in exchange merely asks each of us to order something to drink.

Meanwhile, Jennifer texted me with news that she secured two tickets for us to the ballet tonight – which happens to be right next door to the Café. That sounds great, but I really will have some time to kill in between the two events. I’ll figure something out. Stay tuned.

Tomorrow, I’m doing a photography stroll around Notre Dame with a group. It feels strange not having a « real » camera, but my iPhone is actually more sophisticated than my (dinosaur) Nikon dslr at this point.

Friday, Jennifer and I are seeing works by Matisse au Musée de l’Orangerie. We were lucky to get tickets! The show’s about to close.

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Yesterday afternoon, I took two metros – line 4 and line 1 – to get to the meeting place à la Place de la Bastille, for the Conversational Group. I went to the café we met at last year only to discover it was shuttered. Closed. Oh my! Re-checking the email, I noticed a new address, and thankfully it was only 500 feet away.

It was a large group with a mix of French/English-speaking people. We took up a full room in the café and sat in small groups at the café tables. I was the first to arrive and sat with the leader Martine, and another French woman, Sybille. They were lovely and we spoke in some French and then they seemed to want to speak in English to me (Sybille was quite fluent in English!) and so we talked World Politics for about an hour or more. It was delightful, I mean not exactly what I’d come there for, but just an excellent discussion and right up my alley.

Then, a woman from England joined us, and she was B2 certified in French, and QUITE fluent. She spoke confidently in French and I understood almost everything she said. She is a librarian and wanted to talk politics, too, speaking of the current American phenomenon of banning books in schools, so we had a lively table. She’s none too thrilled with Brexit, either. The French being French speak frankly, not rudely, and reminded her the people voted for it. She spoke to how the people had been lied to — which allowed me to interject media mogul Rupert Murdoch owning media spewing lies, damaging our countries.

I was stunned to learn how bad it is in England right now, too. They are so isolated. She said the people are only now (post-Covid) starting to realize what Brexit meant. They have no freedom of travel. They need Visas now wherever they go, and as Europeans, they were used to traveling freely throughout Europe. It’s so changed, she said, and while visiting London for vacation you might not notice, she said living there is quite different now, so she left.

But I digress because that’s what we did for two hours nonstop. Discussions. Facts. Some opinions, yes, but always offered as opinion, not fact, which was refreshing to my ears. I miss those days in my country.

Another woman joined our group. She was the epitome of French female elegance. Just gorgeous. She was older, dressed with understated flair, and she spoke so beautifully. It turns out she is a retired French teacher. We had such a lovely discussion, we ended up exchanging phone numbers because she wants to help me on my quest to become fluent, or at least reach level B2.

On that note, my classes start soon. I missed the classes offered in May because I stayed home to see my brilliant daughter graduate with her Master’s Degree (in Science in Clinical Research development). It was a lovely day in Philadelphia, and my son was able to join us because he happened to have a layover in the city (Philadelphia). He is an airline pilot, if you didn’t know. Afterwards, my daughter and her wonderful husband had made reservations for us for lunch, and the celebration continued. It was very nice. So yes, the delay in coming to Paris was worth it to be able to watch my girl walk across that stage for her degree/hood.

I know I’m jumping around, and I apologize.

I had some time to kill after the Conversational Group ended and before Jennifer would arrive for the ballet. She “dropped me a pin” via Google Maps, suggesting a nice café for me. It was perfect. J’ai pris un verre de vin rouge, et j’ai attendu Jennifer.

The ballet (Opera Bastille, not Palais Garnier) was wonderful. The company performs in two locations and I hadn’t yet been to this one. They are completely opposite in period and in every other way. This facility was modern and with clean and interesting lines. It was lovely. We really lucked out getting two tickets together at the last minute earlier in the day, because it was sold out, as they all are here — even with two venues. This was three pieces set by Maurice Béjart, ending with Boléro, which brought the audience to its feet. Always nice to see ballet so well-received by an audience. Polite throughout the performances, they were truly and unabashedly enthusiastic and appreciative of the work/art on stage by the end of each piece – taking photographs of the bows at the end only, of course.

Ironically, Jennifer and I had seen quite the unique version of Boléro here in Paris exactly a year ago by Mats Ek.

We decided to get something to eat afterwards, and since we were in Jennifer’s neighborhood, I followed her. I’m sorry I forgot to take photos, but trust me it was beautiful and delicious. We started with seafood croquettes as our entrée, and the sauce with them was amazing. I didn’t leave a morsel behind. Then, we had a white fish for our main dish (le plat). We shared everything. We finished with a warm chocolate cake, that oozed melted chocolate inside, with a small spoonful of vanilla ice cream on the side. It was not sweet. It was not even too rich. It was perfection. I’m not a foodie at home, but here I will literally try anything.

We walked by a wedding gown store and played “Which one would you wear?” We chose the same one.

Jennifer walked me to the bus stop, and as we were checking the schedule on our phones – the bus went by. Oops! I looked at my other options, and was thinking maybe a taxi, when a different bus came by, and I quickly calculated that it would work for me with just a short walk from the bus stop to my apartment. I promised Jennifer I’d text when I got home, and I did. It was 12:42 a.m.