The time zone difference between Paris and California is a little more difficult than I expected it would be. A 10am meeting in California (nearly unheard of!) is a 6pm (18:00) meeting in Paris (nearly unheard of!). When Europe hits daylight savings time this weekend, that’ll become even more exaggerated, so that 10am PST becomes 7pm CEST (19:00).

Two nights ago, I had trouble getting to sleep because of my first case of real and actual jet lag. I was laying in bed, listening to the neighbors play Madonna through the walls, and suddenly I felt a little bit feverish. I had been tired only 10 minutes earlier, and now I couldn’t even quietly lie down. My stomach felt heavy, like my dinner was just sitting in my stomach. Crazy thoughts started to go through my head, and somehow I kept coming back to the idea of how much fun it would be to work as a barback. I thought that I was delirious with food poisoning.

Perhaps it was the four cups of coffee that morning. Maybe all the wine, bread, and cheese. Hard to say.

The next morning, I decided that I would try to shift my schedule to be more in line with California. I doubt it really helped, but I took advantage of the expected late day to head to Musee d’Orsay in the morning.

The museum opened at 9:30. I got to work around that time, then walked to the museum, starting down the street from the big church past the other big church, where Napoleon had himself painted into the fresco behind the cross, down to the obelisk that was a “gift” from Egypt, and over the bridge to the Left Bank towards the Museum of the Legion of Honor, and then next door.

At 9:50 or so, I got into line, and it was already 7 or 8 lines deep.

The woman in front of me said, in English, “It says in the guide book they stop selling tickets at 17:45. I hope they don’t run out soon!”

Idiot.

Her son, a 14 or 15 year old boy, continually held up the line as tries to finish up a game on his gold Dolce & Gabbana cell phone. It seemed excessive to me, but then I noticed the Diesel shoes. I suppose that brand has really gone down in quality and exclusivity lately, so I’m still unimpressed. The jeans, though. G-Star Raw. I thought that was mostly a gay/hipster SF thing, but maybe I was wrong. That’s when I noticed the gold tinted Versace glasses. His mother may have been an idiot — can’t subtract 12 from 17!! — but she at least seemed like she could be nice. This kid though.

I did not like this kid. I considered heading back to work.

But, I was on vacation. For the moment. I took a deep breath and waited my turn in line, carefully staying behind, but not too close to, the spoiled Americans. Eventually I made it into the museum.

And, it was pretty great. The museum is a converted train station, so it’s kept some of the architectural elements that identify it as one. The ceiling is arched, and the central entryway is filled with classical sculptures, some of classical Gods and figures, Napoleon, and nudes. Musee d’Orsay picks up where the Louvre ends, in the early 1800s to the early 1900s, and it has some of the most famous impressionist pieces in the world. Van Gogh, Manet, Monet, Sisly, Pissarro, Cezanne, Toulouse-Latrec, Degas, Boudin, Rodin, and many others. It’s shocking to turn a corner in a gallery and see Van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhone ahead. Head downstairs and see Manet’s Olympia. They look better in person, where the texture of the paint and scale of the painting add something that you can’t capture in a print. Dare I say, aura?

After that, it’s back to work. I stop outside and order a “Caesar Tortilla,” then head across the bridge to the Right Bank and through the park next to the palace by the fountain up past the church towards the other church.

I slept well the next night.

Yesterday I went to brunch at Ladurée, on rue Royale by the Place de la Concorde, with my host and his friends visiting from Nantes. Overall the meal was excellent, but maybe a little too much to eat: orange juice, hot chocolate, viennoiserie, bread, yogurt, fruit salad, macaroons, scrambled eggs, and club sandwiches. Quite delicious.

At one point during the meal, I asked woman sitting next to me if she could please pass the pastry. (She spoke English.)

“What?” she asks back, and I point to one of the croissants. “I would like a croissant.” She looks at me, disappointed. Her shoulders drop.

“This is not pastry. Pastry is something completely different. This is viennoiserie.”

I apologized and thanked her for the correction, and then got the croissant.

I asked my friend about it later, and he explained that viennoiserie is typically pastry that you eat for breakfast.

So now I know. I think that the French people may have evolved as many words for bread as the Eskimos have for snow. Be aware.

I got to Paris. It was kind of slow going getting here.

Yesterday I needed to pick up a few things — toothpaste, soap, etc. — so I walked towards the Pompidou Center nearby and found a supermarket. I went through and got my things, and waited in line to pay.

That’s when it hit me that I don’t speak French. If the cashier needed to ask me anything, I would have no idea what he’s saying to me. That wouldn’t be good. When I finally got to the cashier, I started to place things on the belt carefully in such a way that my items won’t get confused with the next person in line’s items, to try and avoid the situation of having to explain it. I hoped none of my items are sale items that require one of those stupid grocery store cards. There are so many things that could go wrong.

Finally, the cashier got to me. “Bonjour.” I said hello back to him, and then I started to carefully watch the price as he scanned. When he finished, he looked and me and told me the price. I looked at the scanner. 9.66. I gave him a 10 euro bill.

Then he looked at me and said something, at least 30 syllables, I have no idea how to even fake it. “Uhhh…” is all I can let out.

He looked at me in the eye, and then said “Do you have one cent?” with a crisper ‘t’ than I would have expected.

“Oh. No, that’s all I have.”

He nodded, and gave me 34 cents back.

In preparation for my trip, this past weekend I finally went out and bought myself a digital SLR camera.

I had been putting this off for quite a while. So far, I’ve gotten by with simple point-and-shoot digital cameras. For this trip, arguably my first actual vacation, I decided that I’ve got the time to figure out how to use a real camera. Yup, that’s right — I don’t actually know how to use a camera beyond point and shoot. It’s fun to be an amateur!

Getting advice for a camera is tricky. I talked to a bunch of people before buying. I heard: Get a Canon, get a Nikon, get the Canon but the Nikon’s fine too, get the Nikon but the Canon’s fine too, go to this store, gets a lens from brand X, get a lens from brand Y, etc. Altogether it’s quite a bit to digest.

All things seeming to be equal, I settled on a Nikon D40, with an 18-55mm lens and 55-200mm lens with image stabilization. (Bet it sounds like I know what I’m talking about there. Fooled you good!)

I spent some time Sunday playing with the camera, and though it’s not as difficult to use as I thought it would be, it’s pretty difficult to visualize what the end result of a photo will be. I took a lot of photos on Sunday of the same subject with different aperture/exposure/ISO settings to try to get a better idea of what things do. I also picked up a book to read on the plane. Nikon also a pretty cool Digitutor for the basics.

Anyone have any good photo tips? I’ve heard a few things so far:

• run your eye around the perimeter of the frame
• interpretation not documentation
• take lots of photos
• adjust the ISO correctly for the light
• don’t ever adjust the ISO and always use the same one
• use aperture-priority mode, use automatic mode, get a tripod
• point and shoot

Easy!

On the way to the laundromat, I see a brown dog running in front of me. It’s just a flash, but it looks something like a Corgi, maybe smaller, and it’s crossing the street perpendicular to traffic as the traffic has a green light. It crosses the street safely, and then it’s running free.

It struck me as a little odd at the time, but people are strange with their dogs in this neighborhood. Maybe it had found a friend? I head the laundromat, put my laundry in, and then hang out at the coffee shop until it’s time to switch it to the dryer.

A few minutes after I sit down, a commotion erupts outside the cafe. Everyone’s looking south, towards the park, and a few others run across the street. A younger guy is holding the arm of an older woman, who is apparently very upset, and needs some support as she slowly crosses the street.

The barista at the cafe walks in from the outside. “Well that’s great,” he says, “that woman lost a dog she was supposed to be watching. She got caught up in the conversation and it ran off. Now there’s a community effort to find the dog.” “A little brown dog?” I ask, and he says, “Yeah, did you see it?” “Yeah, I saw it a few minutes ago, running south across the street.”

It’s a bad time to lose a dog. It’s just starting to get dark. I can just imagine the conversations this woman will be having with the owner of the dog some time later. Maybe she’d be apologizing to her friend that night, saying that it was just an accident, and the friend would be enraged, saying she should have known better, or maybe calm, saying these things happen, or maybe optimistic, saying I didn’t really like that dog anyway, lemons to lemonade. It does not sound like she’s in for a fun evening.

A little later, I’ve finished putting my laundry in the dryer and I’m heading back home. I come to the same spot where I was when the dog first crossed my path, and I see a few of the people who had taken part in the search party crossing the street where the dog had jaywalked. I look over, and I’m expecting the worst, so I don’t really want to ask about the dog. One of them catches my eye.

“Found it!” he exclaims.

“Where had it gone?”

“It went a few blocks south. It was running around the park.”

Makes sense. A good place for a dog to run away to. That’s probably where it was headed the entire time.

Slightly relieved, I head home. The dogsitter must be pleased with the way it turned out. What would she tell the dog’s owner? That she had lost the dog and then found it, with the help of cafe search party? Or just that the dog had been well behaved all day, nothing much to report?

I wonder…