Noz Update - Le Havre (the crowning of a queen and the return of the king)
Mood:  crushed out
Now Playing: STILL nothing... STILL at Rachel and James'
Topic: Noz Update

13:44 21/11/2004 - Le Havre, France

Le Havre, the majestic Elodie Eudier, his Awesomeness Mr Flemming Kress...

In Le Havre I noticed that total strangers say "Hello" and "Good evening" in Le Havre with a frequency that's unheard of in capital-city dwellers. It's esoteric. People would walk into a restaurant where I was already seated, and say "Hello!" and my reaction was never to respond in kind but to look around to find the "real" addressee.

I spent 9 days in total in France, 3 bouncing up and down between Paris and Le Havre, and the rest in Le Havre itself. Good shopping, "bleh" architecture (mostly), nice restaurants (it's France...), and shitty weather. It was GREAT. I had an awesome time. I ate tonnes, especially Chinese food from the little restaurant near Elodie's. It's got a super-adorable little Chinese owner who speaks the most Disney-esque accented French you've ever heard. He just oozes love for his restaurant and caring for his customers. I'd make the guy into a plush toy if I thought the market was ready.

I of course gorged myself like a mountain troll on pastries every day, and the restaurant highlight was this place where you can order some 50 types of dinner crepe and 20 types of dessert crepe. The waiter there got a kick out of showing off his English. He had the numbers one to five, and "left" and "right" nailed. He tried out a small sentence but unfortunately got 3 out of 4 words so badly wrong that I thought he was saying "My tailor is rich" when he was trying to say "My shirt is grey". Funny, that both sentences still seemed to make sense with the gesture of pinching his shirt and pointing to it.

La Joie de Crepes:

A good French crepe is a versatile thing, of delicate and subtle beauty, with an interplay of various textures and flavours that are revealed for one's appreciation over a stretch of time. Much depends on the configuration. The ones I know of are:

Square Fully-Closed Fold - where the crepe becomes a filled rectangular (or square) envelope, served with the seams down

Open Square Fold - where the filling is placed on the round crepe and then has four opposite edges folded in such that they leave a diamond shaped opening where the filling pokes through the top

Semi-Circle Fold - common in internationalised restaurants where the filling is placed in and then the crepe is simply folded in half

Full Roll - self-explanatory

Conical Quarter-Roll - more interesting and rare than a full roll, this is where an ice-cream-cone shape is created by folding the crepe twice and then rolling it onto the seam.

We had Open Square crepes. Here, one begins at the corners, where the filling is sparse and the crepe most crispy. The corners serve to whet the appetite and stimulate the mouth for the main event as you make your way to the moist centre. For starters, I had a crepe with "Andouille" (if that's spelled right), which is a large sausage with various strong meat flavours. The crepe was done to perfection, and the strong meat taste went nicely with my side choice of simple green salad and light vinaigrette. I followed this with a "ham and egg" crepe, with smoked ham slices surrounding a fried egg that had the yolk poking out the top. Elodie has the same starter, and then wisely had one of the dozens of cheese crepes (in which I can't partake). It was gorgeous-looking Cheese and Chorizo affair, with Provencal tomato sauce. It looked like a lush pizza,

Her Royal Sweetness

The topic of food in France usually leads to the topic of love. I've been saving this to the end: Elodie and I are now officially "an item". For those who don't know, this is about 2 months (2 years, if you want to be technical) in the making. I realised that Elodie is far and wide the most wise, engaging, and admirable person I've been involved with in 5 years of being single. She amazes me regularly. Each time I get a deeper understanding of how great she is, and how INSANE I am. I think I'm going to attempt to capture my feelings in words soon, so I will probably subject you all to my romantic blathering at some point in the future.

Wish us luck, especially her, who is the one who has to put up with me and my intercontinental cargo ship full of emotional baggage.

Also, I'm sure many will be thoroughly amused by hearing about how Noz will make the transition from predatory pan-European flirt machine, to faithful, monogamous, (long-distance) boyfriend. I'm toggling between being euphoric and gripped with terror. I've only really "gone out" seriously with two people in the last 8 years, so this is a pretty huge deal for me.

On the topic of writing out your heart, about two years ago, I did what so many sons think they really should do, but never actually get around to doing: I wrote to my mom thanking her for how she raised me, and trying to describe what I loved and admired about her as individual. It's so easy within the family to trade sentiments equivalent to, "Mom you're great because without you'd I'd be a stain on Dad's handkerchief." I hate generic, "I love you because I'm supposed to" sentiments. I tried to express what I, as a son, feel for and see in my mother, now that I'm no longer a "child". I'm seeing the first pillars of my adulthood establish themselves in the firmament, and noticing - lo - it was my mother that dug the guiding holes herself, and proofed the master blueprints; I'm not a child, I am still her child. This was one of the most worthy topics and truly good things to write about that I have ever approached.

Nothing inspires like love to reinvent consciousness and identity, and stretch the creator to capture something larger than themselves. Elodie is inspiring me all to hell, and I think it would be great to try to capture the tempest that's going on inside me right now, and the wonder I feel when I look at her.

His Royal Wickedness - The Return of the King

In other news, my old high school writing teacher, Mr Kress (I'm still road-testing the use of his first name), a man who has been in my admiration and respect top-of-the-pops charts for nearly a decade now, got in touch this week. We were out of touch basically since I left Toronto and even a few years before that.

He Googled me and found: http://www.clubofamsterdam.com/contentevents/16%20ICT.htm#who about my recent talk at the Club of Amsterdam. How odd it must have been to see me, cropped hair, in suit and tie, giving at talk at a PriceWaterhouseCoopers-sponsored Information and Communication Technology event - in Amsterdam? The last time he saw me I was stomping around Toronto (having almost never been outside Canada) wearing a leather jacket, with hair past my armpits, and a "do it today because I might kill myself in the morning" aura of angst hanging about me like a cloud. It's going to be fun telling him about how much and how little has actually changed.

I'm now on the train back to Paris to get my flight to London. I've got a new crop of housemates who don't see me much, but I've managed to talk to them way more than my previous housemates Whatshisname and Wasshenotablondeorsomething.

And so I bid you adieu. I'd love to hear about people's holidays!

LATES!

Noz

Noz Update - Paris (and why working in sales sucks)
Mood:  special
Now Playing: Still nothing... still at Rachel and James'
Topic: Noz Update

Fw_ Noz Update - TUNES! - Tilburg, Amsterdam, Koln,Wiesbaden BLOG!.htm
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: nothing...I'm at James and Rachel's house
Topic: Noz Update