We landed Friday morning, made it to the hotel, and crashed for a few hours — the kind of jet-lag siesta where you set an alarm and still sleep through it. By evening we’d patched ourselves together enough for dinner with the Kashtis, Celia, and Jeff at the restaurant Sam had picked. He’d gotten the suggestion from Stephane, a friend of Amatsia’s, and it lived up to it. We were too foggy to remember most of what we ate, but the crème brûlée registered, and the wine helped.
Saturday started slowly and warmed up. Celia, Jeff, Kathy, and I made it over to the 16th to see Martine — 97 now, sharp as ever, and pleased about the croissants we brought. She made tea and coffee and we worked through old stories the way you do when you haven’t seen someone in too long. Back at Celia’s AirBnB by early afternoon, we settled in for the rest of the day around a table of cheeses, pâtés, and a couple of baguettes — the kind of long-grazing afternoon that’s the right shape for a first proper day in Paris.
Dinner was at Bistro Régent Bastille, informal, good food and beer, the kind of place that’s perfect for a crew. Ella and William had come up from Aix, so we were fourteen, and we got there early enough to have a room mostly to ourselves before it filled in. Afterward we walked along the canal Saint-Martin and down toward the Seine before peeling off and Ubering back to the hotel.
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