Marianne and Andrew arrived today, and after a bit of time spent at the Dissard house, we set out to roam the streets of Paris. Eventually, Marianne led us to the big museum of modern art in Paris, where we saw the works of the modern masters, mostly between 1900 and 1960. Marianne favors the works of Matisse, and Andrew was very much impressed with the Dali paintings there. Afterwards, Andrew and I went out for a drink at Le Progress, a bar in Monemarte, and eventually, as we were walking past La Cigale, having caught the eyes of a table of nice ladies, a boy stopped Andrew and I to tell us "Thank you, that was perfect." Fortunately for us, the initially confusing situation was clarified by a man at the table next to him.
"he thinks you are the fleet foxes." (the band that had headlined La Cigale that night) he said, and then went on to call us just another couple of bearded American hippies. Dede was quick to inform him that was not exactly the case, and we invited ourselves to sit and have a drink with him, in the clear line of vision of the table of nice ladies. As it turns out, the guy's name was Mike, and he was from Wakefield, Canada, where Marianne had just played in January, and he was on tour with a band called Acorns, or maybe The Acorns. Furthermore, he knew Marianne, and soon we were comparing notes with he and his band mates and we sat swapping tour stories until the last of the unoccupied chairs on the patio had been whisked away and we were told very plainly, "we are closed."
To continue with the strange luck, along with the group of other musicians, we met a few guys who we'd jammed with in our dear Amy Rude's living room, as well as a Native Tucsonan steel player, named Bill. As I was picking Bill's brains about the nuances of playing pedal steel, growing a strong nail on the pointer finger, the way Tucson used to be, and Andrew was struggling to find merit in some unknown bass player's logic, we drank Stella and had a grand old time. Eventually we made our way to the other side of the hill to gather a few hours sleep before we had to catch the train to Brussels.
The morning came far too soon. I was still quite under the spell of sweet Stella as we made our way by taxi to Gare Du Nord, or Gare Du L'Est and boarded the 6:55 to Brussels. The flat, grove pocked country side north of Paris made its appearance as always, the morning coming in in handfuls of the color blue. So it seems to be, always, the morning first shines blue here between France and Belgium. I did my best to behave, but could have done better. After a spell of staring, hunched, out the window of the cafe car into the oncoming morning, i decided against an early morning chicken sandwich. The chicken sandwich is my definite meal of choice while traveling through Europe. Only once did it do me wrong, but to minimal disasters. We arrived in Brussels and after Andrew and i took a brief stroll about, during which i lamented my troubles and he decided he could live in Brussels based on its age and slight filth. Not finding what we didn't know we weren't looking for, we headed back to the train station to meet our posse, and start the drive to Bremen.
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