Sunday, November 28, 2010

Cafe Cannibal with Canucks


You know you live in the modern world when you get a call from back home asking:  “So what are you up to next weekend?”  and then before you can say “lickidy-splits” she’s booked her flight.  That’s how Nicole, a best friend since high school, and a women who has almost always gone out of her way to visit me on my little adventures, came to join me first here and then for a ro-tic (that’s romantic sans le “man” as her older sister famously quipped years ago) weekend in Paris.

"Can I get a coffee with milk... okay cafe latte, but it's really not the same thing"
We of course did the touristic things, that touristy people do, and by night we met up with Toronto friends and part-time Parisians in an urban suburb.  I felt extremely lucky to have my favourite people together.  We climbed up and around the park that although closed at this time, has the most magnificent city view of Paris I’d ever seen.  Stopped in for a glass of red and then descended for dinner at an elegant/edgy /cafe/ resto corner pub, with a live band on one side and long tables on the other.  The place was decorated with eerie chandeliers with warm dim lighting, scratched glass hangings and chipped paint.  The server pulled the table segment out to allow two of us to shimmy in behind along the wall bench and then she pushed the table back in again like an amusement park ride locking them in for the meal.  Our table now connected us back within the row of familiar strangers.    

I don’t mind telling you the food was French-tastic, the service was attentive and the atmosphere (I’ve already sort of mentioned) was warm and fun, and the company was superb!  It was a really good night!  The next morning came too quickly and poor Nicole, who had contact lens problems the day before and had been fighting a cold the entire time finally succumbed on her last day.  We were told that the pharmacies post names and location for on-call Sunday doctors, but when we arrived  the posted times were for Saturday, so we walked down the street to the next two pharmacies over, but to no avail.  We asked inside a hotel, where the women wanted to know first if we were guests before she offered a hospital location.  We lied.  To confirm the information we’d received at the hotel, we asked again at the subway info booth.  He told us that we were headed to a private hospital and offered another hospital instead.  We made our way over, found that there were several hospitals in this area, and picked one, which unsurprisingly was closed on a Sunday.  Fortunately, a friendly security guard directed us to another one across the way.  He detailed instructions then told us the short-cut version by passing through the bus terminal, and around the taxi stand etc.  After waiting in line there, we were told to get back on the subway line to another hospital to see a specialist.  We were a little annoyed.  Couldn’t she just see a GP, get some drugs and off we go,?? Nope.  


The third hospital was really beautiful in an old nunnery kind of way, long corridors, huge windows looking into the perfectly manicured courtyard, old pictures on the wall of past presidents, maps and portraits of presumably important people.  It also happened to be beside the famous Nortre Dame, bonus!  We navigated our way to the proper department and waited again in line before we were told to take a seat among the 50 odd people also waiting to see the one doctor on duty.  It took ages.  Nicole and I passed the time by playing elaborate games of MASH.  

Little Trooper
Finally Nicole went up to ask for an ETA, and the nurse told us we could step out for lunch.  We came back an hour later to find the women doctor had been replaced by a dreamy young man.  Nicole and I joked with glee at our luck.  Now Nicole’d have this hottie looking deeply into her eyes, and that all this waiting would be worth it!  Mid school-girl giggles of us dreaming up probable outcomes, Nicole’s name was called and what seemed like an hour passed before she returned.  It turns out dreamy doctor is an interning med student, and so the check up went like this:  He conducts a full eyes/ears/throat exam (inclusive of iodine drops),  comes up with a diagnosis and then the real doctor quickly examines.  She agreed with his diagnosis,  and then they talk about how they’d reached this conclusion, the treatment etc.  

Nicole is such a trooper!  Being sick in not fun, but in  a foreign country and being passed along several times over before finally arriving at the right place and waiting patiently (okay we’re Canadians, we’re familiar with the waiting game for medical service) but all in all she was good humoured and fun to hang with.  I really miss her now and her florescent kleenexes.  The best part of Paris was spending time with my friends.  Maybe this true no matter where in the world you are. 

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