Fog knocked down the Eiffel Tower

Yes, it's true!

This morning when Zac and I walked out the front door of the building and turned toward the main street, we saw the thickest fog either of us had ever seen. I taught him what 'fog' was and what 'foggy' meant. Just when we'd reached the end of the buildings and looked toward the Eiffel Tower, it was nowhere to be found. It's honestly one of the strangest feelings. I almost felt as if New Yorkers did when there were no Twin Towers in the skyline. We stood for at least a minute just staring, thinking, we know it's there, but we can't see it. The view looked so wrong without the tower.

After I dropped him off at school, I took the long walk home rather than being herded through the stinky metro. The journey home includes a nice view of our beloved Eiffel. It was still significantly covered, but the base was visible. I captured it so that you can see how much was covered by fog. Oh and I think the fog is here to stay. We are supposed to experience another heavy dose of it on Friday morning, which happens to be the morning I am flying. Pray for me. Ha.

Weather Report

I am sitting at my usual Starbucks - at least the one I come to for free internet access. My toes are cold. I will be going to workout after reading here, but on my way I stepped in a puddle and drenched my shoes, which in turn drenched my socks. And that had me thinking about warm weather. I just checked out the 10-day weather report for Dallas. I am excited. The temperature should be a minimum of 20 degrees warmer in good ole Texas than it is in cold, dreary Paris. Surprisingly, I've actually come to like cold weather. I never thought I would say that. But there is something great about it. I say that only after learning how to layer, and layer well. That was something I didn't have knowledge of last year. Also, with cold weather comes beautiful lighting around the city and the mysterious presence of fog and steam from breath. And my favorite - the reflections of the lights on the wet ground. And so I've decided, I like Winter. Well, except for when my feet are wet. That'll ruin it every time.

Oh but before I sign off here, I must share of all the odd moments that I've been able to experience in Starbucks around Paris. The first one was when I was camped out for half a day reading and writing. A girl next to me, directly next to me, was studying with her friend. The shocking part was that she had her left foot propped across her right knee while peeling off skin from her foot. GAG!

Yesterday there was an asian woman with her sister and daughter. Her daughter was about three years old and making quite a bit of noise. Again I was sitting in the same place and they were next to me. I had two books. The nice hardback was sitting on the table while I was reading a paperback. As soon as the little girl took a drink of her hot chocolate, she decided to sneeze all over me and my hardback. I couldn't respond. If I did I would appear to be the Miss Trenchbull of Paris (my reference is from the movie Matilda). I let the mother clean up the mess while I continued to read and let the hot chocolate soak into my shirt. She said a few times to me "Ca va? Ca va?" to which I said "Ouais" without looking up.

And now, one of the oddest has happened. Three girls, probably ages twelve or thirteen, were just sitting at a table acting twelve or thirteen. You get what I mean. Well I look up and notice that one of them is straightening her hair. She actually had a hair straightener plugged into the outlet and was straightening her hair - in a food establishment! What is going on?

Just before that happened, a worker brought a tray to the table next to me with a sandwich and a coffee on it. A woman followed him. She didn't appear to be well. As I sat here checking CNN and FoxNews she smacked through the sandwich. I glanced at her and saw that she was taking the meat out of the sandwich and inspecting it before tilting her head back and dropping pieces of the meat in her mouth. Then she'd take a big bite from the sandwich and smacking loudly. I will say that the French have the best manners at the table than any other group of people I've come across, but you can find the occasional outlier.

You can probably gather that I come to Starbucks and you are right. It's my Third Place. This is a new proper noun that I am using which I first heard on the bonus features of You've Got Mail. The director made a reference to a book by Ray Oldenburg called A Great Good Place where the author states his theory of the importance of a third place (third to home and work) for people to keep their sanity, basically. And so Starbucks is my third place. If it wasn't, then I wouldn't have all of these disturbing stories to share with you!

Run Run Run

So I've gotten to where I love to run. I haven't been able to much lately because it's been raining as if the Flood is nearing. Just in preparation. But I guess that's just normal winter for Paris. Since the Venice marathon, Verena has mentioned running and I could tell that she was getting interested. I worked all weekend as the parents were in Prague visiting friends. I asked Verena if she'd like to go on my usual run with me. She was so excited and jumped at the chance. I assumed that her little twelve year old legs wouldn't be able to handle it, but let me tell you, she was a trooper. That gal ran like Forrest. She ran most of it and the whole time I was coaching her. I will say that it was a blast. I was teaching her about form and breathing. When it came to when she would need a break, I would make her run, then sprint, then slow down before walking and she did it all so well. She wants to keep going on runs with me and this thrills me!

While I was searching for running events in Paris (to no avail, nothing shorter than a half-marathon), I found the coolest website at www.mapmyrun.com. You must go! Now you can see the run that we did... NOTE: you can zoom in and even see a satellite version of the run.