My 27th birthday fell on Tuesday of my last week in Paris. Unfortunately, Sunday night, after four months of life in the European fast lane, sickness finally took over my body. Horrible timing, but isn't it always? Because this was my last week of work, my parents were still in town, and I was moving out of my apartment that weekend, I couldn't stay home and rest -- I had to keep going. So, just like on Monday, I dragged myself to work on Tuesday. I managed to get through the day, including an impromptu birthday lunch with some of my colleagues. Why I thought I could handle sushi is beyond me...
By the end of the day, all my body wanted was my bed. But I had made birthday dinner reservations at Mouff'tot Mouff'tard - a cute restaurant on Rue Mouffetard that I had been wanting to try for months. I actually wrote about the restaurant in an earlier blog. It was my first time on Rue Mouffetard, and I had met a friend for coffee. As we were walking back up the street, we passed by the restaurant and saw an accordian player and people dancing inside. It was adorable, encompassing that French ''joie de vivre,'' and the menu looked great (and not too expensive).
Despite la grippe (the flu... or whatever illness I had), I managed to make it to the restaurant and meet my parents, Brittany and her mom, Mirko and Alessandro for dinner. Fortunately, they all got along well and were able to entertain themselves since the birthday girl was under the weather and didn't have the energy to be the life of the party. I was determined, however, to eat my entire meal as I knew it would be one of my last real ''French'' restaurant meals. I ordered warm goat cheese salad, duck confit, potatoes dauphinoise, and chocolat mousse. The food was just as good as I expected, so I ate it ALL much to my sick body's horror.
During dinner, the owner of the restaurant came over to the table and asked me to walk to the other side of the tiny restaurant with him. He said that because it was my birthday (and I was American), he would like to share ''something'' with me. That ''something'' was that one of his best friends is Jodie Foster. He was very proud to show me pictures on the restaurant wall of him and Jodie, and pictures of Jodie eating at the restaurant. If that wasn't sweet enough, the waitress then brought me a special chocolat fondant dessert (my second dessert of the night) and sang happy birthday to me. Then, the restaurant played an American happy birthday song on the loudspeaker. The French really know how to do birthdays!
Although I felt horrible and could not drink more than two sips of my champagne, dinner was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed spending my birthday with some of my Paris favorites.
No comments:
Post a Comment