Sunset

 

Lately the best time of day in our city is around sunset. The cold loosens up enough to be more tolerable by then. And something becomes terribly clear about the ocean, like you could touch the horizon and it would be sharp enough to cut your finger. The buildings take the orange light well too, and the palm trees are all full of stars, which is very appealing.

We walked down to the Sea again today at the sunset, the second to last thing we did in a day full of shopping. My cheese habit is getting expensive. I like to buy one cheese each time I go that I know nothing about. Today it was a goat cheese covered in flowers. The cheesemonger asked if I knew what it was. She said it had a sweet rose gel in the center.

"Okay." I said.

It's six hours later now and there's just a little of it left.

At the beach, and once late during the shopping I took some pictures which I've tried to give a sunset flavor to, and maybe a little bit of the flavor of an old eighties song by the Go-Go's I had stuck in my head today.

This is my town now, roll the footage:

Movie theater

 

Maybe everyday is starting to feel a bit less like a vacation. 

Yesterday we went to open a bank account, a French bank account. These have a bit of a reputation for being difficult, but I feel it went pretty well, so far. We waited in line at the information desk and after a fair bit of back and forth with two people using varying bits of English with our savage French, we were told someone would get us an account. A woman came and took us to her office. 

It was a nice bank office, diffuser scented (mandarin pine?) like many places in Europe. We answered a bunch of questions, showed passports and our proof of residency, which is the very important here electricity bill. Unfortunately this bank account thing is pretty complicated, taking about an hour and a half, and since lunch was in an hour we were told we needed to make an appointment. An appointment was made with this person for two days hence. The documents we would need were described and we were given a couple of extra W-9 forms to fill out for the appointment.

It was a good start!

Working the theme of regular daily life we explored a few hair cutting places and then, for the coup de grace, in the evening, we went to see a movie, in a French movie theater. We certainly have never seen a movie in Europe before as it's not the sort of thing we'd do on vacation. The theater was really close to where the bank is, and where we live, but fairly speaking everything is pretty close to everything else here.

I was excited ahead of the time about the snack bar at the theater. I would think a French movie theater snack counter would be awesome, but it wasn't. It was like a small, neat version of an average U.S. one, with pricey popcorn and the usual packaged suspects. Not everything can be the French dream come true, can it? So no champagne and truffles in the theater. And indeed, to disappoint you perhaps, the whole movie experience was not one of those full of fascinating cultural differences. The small theater, done in red velvet, was in great condition and very clean, but the bathroom floor was sticky. We saw the Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson movie "Song Sung Blue" which is called here "Sur un Air de Bleus". It was the regular movie with French titles and subtitles. The pattern as I can tell, at least at this cineplex, is that the American movies if they're kids movies or matinees are usually dubbed, and the evening adult fare is in the original soundtrack. It was a nice bonus to be able to practice our French a bit with the subtitles below when we felt like it.

The movie was very good, and as we have purged tvs and movie watching at home, it was an especially transportive experience. There's nothing like a real movie in a movie theater for wandering into that kind of living daylight dream. And that just made the last part even stronger. Because the strangest and coolest part of the whole thing was that when we walked out of the bland but nice theater, having been immersed in a movie taking place in Wisconsin, we found ourselves, on the bustling streets of an amazing city, in France.

Sketches

 

Having got a tiny sketch notebook I am finding what I put in it not usually sufficient for the already experimental standards of clerkmanifesto. But sometimes they could be, and who knows what will happen going forward. I did try to teach an ai my pen sketching style with mixed results. I can't quite get it as rough and inarticulate as I want, but the general idea is there. Maybe it is enough to show you what my sketches from around town would be like if I had infinite time, a bit more skill, and a slightly more generic approach.

Hmm, that doesn't sound all that intriguing, but the die is cast!