MonkeyPants

Day 3 Evening

Three of us had planned to meet for dinner on Friday night. I’d met one of the women before, but it was three years ago. If I recall rightly, we shared a dessert. The other one, I only knew from t’internet. That didn’t stop us from having one of the most memorable dinners I’ve had in a long time.

We were slated to meet at Brasserie Lutetia and I was a little nervous. Not to travel the Metro. That’s easy. But would I know them? Would they know me? I shouldn’t have worried.

We got on perfectly. In between some of the most amazing food (we had the ‘Discovering Spring’ menu) we discovered that we’ve been friends for a long time, we just hadn’t been face-to-face.

Knowing these womens’ lives from their photostreams, it was fascinating to hear more about them. Rhian lives on Guernsey, where it is so small everybody knows her business. Rebecca has very definite ideas about the UK medical system. We ate and drank and I stopped being intimidated by my surroundings. We all had been, but we figured that if we acted as though we knew what we were doing, no one would question us. Voila! No one did.

Some three hours after dinner started, and several glasses of wine, a couple of cocktais, and an after-dinner brandy later, we spilled out onto the sidewalk and looked around for a while. Rebecca posed on a hot-air grate a la Marilyn Monroe, and lucky for her, it was too dark for the photos to identify her. Also, we saw a metal centaur statue with giant testicles, which is funny no matter who you are or where you’re from.

Around midnight, Rhian and Rebecca sent me off on the Metro, as I was still at my old hotel here and if you ever find yourself in Paris, you should stay there, is all I’m saying.

I don’t think I could eat like that every day, but it was a tremendous splurge.