Morning in Montparnasse

The view is from my morning coffee near the one tall building in Paris proper. I took the Metro from the north of the city to the south so I can take a walk through the cemetery where Beckett, Beauvoir and Sartre's bones turn to dust.

Yesterday was a busy but uneventful day. When I woke I found that Pia, the still nameless Italian girl and I had gotten a new roommate in the night named Pablo. We all discussed our plans for the day, mine being the arduous task of finding the correct train station to depart from for Geneva and making a reservation. Pablo uses Eurail passes and offered to help me out. He went with me and we finally got to the right counter in the right train station but the woman (who did not speak one word of English) told me there were no reservations to be had. She finally found one at five in the morning that had a lay over in Lyon. I booked it and then had to figure out if it would be best to cancel my hostel for the night before and spend it in the train station or what, the issue being that the Metro doesn't start running at that time. After much deliberation, with the help of well-travelled Pablo, I've decided to keep the room so I can sleep a little and with the taxi stand near our hostel I can probably get one for cheap since there will be no traffic at that time.

Other than that fiasco, Pablo and I walked around the streets of Paris and the Pére Lachaise cemetery stopping at cafes to get reading done. It was nice to have a companion. He is a junior at Columbia University in advanced mathematics (Brian Green is his professor!) and we talked a lot about books and theory. It was also nice to talk with someone who lives in the US although he's originally from Mexico City.

At dusk we grabbed sandwiches and a bottle of wine to go meet Pia and her friends at the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower. I apologize for not having much time to post yesterday (yes, I'm just fine, Mom). I'll have more time when I get to Geneva, but I'm not sure how interesting they'll be, I still have a bit of work to do before school starts in a few days! I'm ready to settle in one place for three weeks, to move into a room and focus on why I'm here in Europe--to begin my Master's thesis!

And now I'm on my way to thank some of the progenitors of my interest, although they live much more through their writing than in their bones, I still want to pay my respects.
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