Paris, August 1, 2011

After days of calling United Airlines, I finally got my flight back to Phoenix rescheduled. I fly back on August 30, so I'll be back a month earlier than planned and back to harassing everyone with my online diatribes. :)

I moved yesterday to a youth hostel in Clichy, a suburb of Paris. I had remembered this neighborhood as being a bit rundown, but my memory seems to have played tricks on me. It is in what appears to be a solidly middle-class suburb. There are several parks with lots of shade trees, inviting benches, and lush green grass within blocks. The hostel is also just a few blocks from the Seine River.

I spend a lot of time BSing with my fellow hostelers yesterday. One guy from the USA is more of a bum than I am. Jim is his name, and he spends his time traveling with his girl friend Pilar, who is a Mexican immigrant to the USA. His history includes  having served on several river boats in Vietnam, where he says he was wounded several times, and he also said he was the only survivor of any of the boats he served on. He also served on an ocean-going tugboat and as a paramedic in California, where he said he was also shot. He owns a sailboat, which he sails up and down the Pacific Coast from California to Southern Mexico. He says he still has nightmares about Vietnam, where he was in a gunfight every time the boat sailed out from its moorings.

My roommates last night were a Dutchman and a black Frenchman. I only spoke briefly with the Frenchman, who came into the room shortly before he and I went to bed. I chatted earlier quite a bit with the Dutchman, however. He is way overweight and says he works as a manager in "logistics'. His job is getting articles from one place to another on time and as efficiently as possible. Most Dutch people speak four languages, but he speaks six. We chatted in English and Spanish until the Frenchman came into the room, when we switched to French. I suppose we could have also chatted in German.

My leg continues to improve, but it is not well yet. I'm going to try to take it easy today while I see as much of Paris as possible. -- Jack Quinn