What a day.
I promised Cristal I'd be up and ready to head out by seven in the morning. When I called her at seven-thirty she was still in bed. She stayed there until nine or so, but it gave me reading time.
By ten, we were at the Canadian embassy, and I did my best at a Kebekois accent to cajole just a little more kindness out of the clerk.
She eventually told us what we already knew, that Cristal needs to have a confirmed job already before she can get a working Visa, but she can head out to Canada on a visitor's pass, find a job, then fly back here and get the papers signed.
Just like I did for my french work visa.
By eleven we were heading up towards the Champs Elys�es, stopping at this shoe-store filled with careening stiletto-ed beasts with uneven tips and ankle-patterns with jagged toothy edges.
And then the morning tilted on its ear.
Two young men with spiky hair and charm oozing from their hair-gel approached us and asked us if we had time for a survey.
"How long does it take?"
"An hour and a half."
"You're KIDDING."
"No, you have to watch TV..."
That's the point where I started backing away, but when they promised Cristal gift certificates I got swept up in the current.
We spent the next two hours watching TV shows, TV commercials, and filling out questionnaires. They made the mistake of sitting me by the window, and I memorized the celtic patterns carved into the yellow stone of the building across from us. Two patterns, one square and one swirling, mightily swirling in the bright noonday sun...
Then I discovered the fast forward button well hidden on the VCR and we finished the questionnaires.
I'm sorry, but I don't NEED two entire minutes to read a multiple choice question.
Just as I was breathing my first sigh of relief at the most TV-watching I've done all year being OVER, and apologizing for having answered no to all the questions because I'm just not enough of a consumer...
...the questionnaire girl asks me about perfume and I give her an honest answer about what I think the current trends are.
"Do you think you could answer another survey, this one's quick..."
Of course, it was about women's magazines... I ended up insulting her unintentionally when she asked why I didn't subscribe to any and my response was "that they're for silly girls who need to be told what they want".
Apparently she subscribes to a few.
And then we were off, and mingling amongst american tourists on the Champs again. Wandering into Sephora for the facewash I'd run out of, we stopped to try this perfume, and that nailpolish...
And then that other nailpolish...
I did the fingers on my left hand, Cristal did my right, and right now each nail is a different colour. Yellow, orange, lime-green, pink and white on the right, blue, purple, forest green, charcoal grey and black-with-white-tip on the left.
Two girls from London stopped to tell me how cool it was. I pointed them to the rainbow array of testers and they said "oh, well, yeah... uh..."
So much for my jaunt into english conversation.
We lost ourselves in the Virgin Megastore, they should really rename the Champs Elys�es the "American Superstore Boulevard", bought DVDs for Seb's surprise birthday party tomorrow night, shocked the hell out of a well-pierced salesmen who followed my tattooed arms through the entire punk section, watching me with raised eyebrows as I picked through this or that old-school OI, and then pranced straight into the opera section.
I listened to a surprisingly inexpensive recording of Bizet's Carmen, and realized why it was a fifth the regular price.
The lead mezzo was TERRIBLE. Disappointingly, stomach-churningly, terrible.
I made Cristal listen to it and then we both sang it for the clerk to show him that even we couldn't sound that bad.
We left him grinning and scratching his head.
At the fnac, my torturously earned gift certificate bought me the new album of my favourite french group - Les T�tes Raides.
We sang for the clerk there too.
We also sang, while sitting at the caf� table on the Champs, surrounded by harsh american drawls.
We sang through a few of the nasty clothing shops that Cristal dragged me through at Rivoli due to their low, low prices.
We sang all the way to the movie theatre at Montparnasse, where we stopped singing long enough to watch MIB II in french.
When Martha Stewart showed up on screen, I involuntarily screeched, and afterwards everyone asked me who she was.
I like that about France.
We sang through the credits.
We stopped to hug goodnight, and when Cristal tried to hijack me into going out for dinner at ten in the evening, I pointed out that I love her dearly but fourteen hours straight is a lot for me with any person.
She reluctantly let Seb and I wander off, with a promise that I would call before heading to the bank tomorrow.
On the ride home, Seb and I talked of fears and serious things, and for a moment our friendship was what it was in early January.
I hugged him goodnight and he smiled honestly rather than enthusiastically.
Then I wandered up my stairs, lost in my head, and wandered back down two flights to my floor.
My satin nighty is waiting for me on my bed.
I am painfully tired from having spent today engaging in "normal people" activities as best I ever could, and yet somehow
I don't want to let go yet.
I want it to be three weeks from now already, and yet I don't want those last hugs and grins from this evening to end.
Not the playfightig with Herv�, the random self-effacing geek jokes with Dominique, not the affectionate cuddles from Cristal nor Seb's sudden turn for the human.
Goodnight, Paris. Goodnight world.