Paris, the Final Days:

I did not want to leave.
Sebbe came back in the early evening on Monday. I was able to squeeze in a visit to the Picasso museum (I took a few pictures before someone said I wasn't allowed to. But I swear, I took a picture while a guard was sitting right in front of me and he didn't say a word!), a walk through le Marais, a stop at Berthillon for some of the best ice cream so far, and a nice rest, sitting on a stone wall gazing over the Seine before heading back to the apartment to await his return. We had a nice, relatively quiet evening, with 2 friends, Lebanese take-out, beer, and apple-flavored tobacco smoke swirling from the new hooka S had bought in Tunisia. French was spoken for the greater part of the time, and even though I wasn't doing a lot of talking, I was still able to participate and enjoy the company. Of course, Sebbe couldn't keep his hands off of the guitar, which was a welcome addition. He's quite good! Around midnight, our company left and we talked and brushed our teeth and talked... but we were in bed by a pretty decent hour. We planned to sleep no later than 10am, because we were going to have a full day of fun together!

It was almost exactly 10am when I got out of bed, sleepy-eyed and met Sebbe on the way to the bathroom. "Well, we said 10!" haha. Good timing!
We drank some tea, watched some French news and just an hour or so later we were out the door. We headed to Kitchen, a vegan restaurant co-owned by one of Sebbe's close friends, Amaury. They had written a little message to Seb on the blackboard (it was his birthday a few days earlier). The food was so good! We both had the quinoa salad... OoH, goodness, I felt like I was back home in Williamsburg, except better: in Paris! AND, it didn't have any of that slightly weird, bitter taste that quinoa sometimes has. It was perfect. And the cookie wasn't too bad either. It was the best I've had in a long time. Tons of oats and chocolate chunks and all kinds of yummy, gooey goodness. Ah. OK. I think I've raved enough.
After lunch, we walked for a while, heading over to a shopping center because Sebbe had an errand to run. His watch wasn't working and he needed to take it back to have it looked at. That was quite an excursion. There was a lot of back and forth, "no we didn't sell it to you, so sorry but it's not our problem" kind of stuff. Even though that's where he had it fixed the last time it stopped working. So finally, we go to a different watchmaker and they replace the battery and Voilà! It works. They replaced all 3 batteries and it cost less than 12€. Not too shabby!
So when we were finally done with that, we walked over to le Jardin des Tulieries. On the way, we stopped by Sebbe's ex's work, she came down and introduced herself (they get along really well) and gave him a shopping bag. Which, I later found out, held a box with brand-spanking-new Ray Bans. You know, the black & white ones you can decorate yourself? Ya.We also passed by Pierre's office, but he was busy with a client and couldn't come down to say hello. So in any case, we went and sat by the pond/fountain/whatever-you're-supposed-to-call-it, kicked up our tired feet and enjoyed the breeze. Did I mention it was the hottest it's been since I arrived in Paris? Super hot. So we sat there for at least an hour, talking about life. Sebbe is so cool, it feels like he's my older brother, not my uncle. I have this tendancy to adopt siblings, or at least place people in that light, because I was deprived of any real ones. So Seb, you're now my big bro.
Eventually, we left, making our way East. I had to pee so badly. We stopped at a Franprix for a bottle of champagne; we were on our way to a little birthday get-together. We stopped at a café to wait for Amaury (and so I could use the bathroom) and had a nice, cold Perrier. When Amo showed up we walked to a store, just around the corner, owned by a girl from London who works at Kitchen. So we had a lovely little sidewalk-wine dinking gathering. It was a nice break for me since she and her boyfriend hardly spoke any French, so everyone was speaking English. We were the first to arrive, but as the champagne started flowing, our little gang grew. All people that were invited, no one trying to get in on the festivities, or anything like that. Mostly people I didn't know, but Sebbe and Amo were there and Pierre showed up after a while as well. He had come directly from work, so he was much more appropriately dressed to be drinking champagne than the rest of the group. There was also a homemade chocolate cake that went around, which was delicious.As the party started to dissipate, Sebbe, Pierre, and I bade farewell and headed off to dinner. Pierre on his scooter and Sebbe and I following far behind by Metro. When we met outside the restaurant, Pierre had already been home to change into something cooler than a suit. We went to Restaurant Chartier, one of the oldest Brasseries in Paris, also known as "the snail experience" by some (according to Pierre). My favorite part, besides the old-time waiters, were the little cubbies, like mini filing cabinets, where the workers who whould eat there kept their napkins. I tried my first snail ever (!!! so proud of myself) off of Sebbe's plate, but ordered one of the 3 fish dishes. It was so hot, I really wasn't hungry, but I ate as much as I could. The boys ate tartar. Raw meat. We were so tired, all there was to do was go home to bed. It took me a long time to fall asleep. Even after a cool shower, I was melting.

I woke up before Seb and decided to go out ahead of him. We had made morning crêpes plans, but I wanted to try to make it back to le Jardin du Luxembourg one more time before leaving. So I took the train there, walked around for a bit, took some pictures, and sat by the fountain where S came and met me a little while later. We walked up rue Soufflot towards le Panthéon, and sat down at Café Soufflot for lunch. I had crêpes with lemon and honey and S had a sandwich. I love crêpes. That's all I have to say about that. After drinking coffee, we walked up to the Panthéon, I took some pictures, but we decided against spending the 15€ it would have cost for both of us to go in. So we headed back home.
I was dragging my feet as I finished packing my bag. Why am I leaving? By 3:20pm we were on our way to Denfert-Rochereau, where I was going to catch the train to the airport. We said goodbye at the entrance and I squeezed through the turnstile with my suitcase, down the stairs, and was on the train by 3:45pm.