My final entry from France

Time has just about run out. I'm back from my last day in Paris, which I spent mostly at the Musée D'Orsay and later, with Scott, at Montmartre, the highest spot in Paris and perhaps for me the sweetest spot yet. A Catholic mass was in progress in Montmartre's Sacre Coeur, another towering cathedral, and I remembered that a mass was also being said in Notre Dame on my very first day. It's now 8 pm. Scott's preparing a barbecue and we're going to celebrate Mathieu's twentieth birthday a few days early.

I've written only a small fraction of my experiences and impressions. About Paris, in general, it's been so much about the deep past for me. Maybe that's because I spent most of my time in the arrondisements along the Seine, in old Paris, classic Paris. With every footfall on cobblestone, I felt like I was stepping back into the Middle Ages - or stepping on it - a layer of medieval Paris lies buried just beneath the streets of Paris. I walked for miles and miles and pale ghosts of former residents seemed to be walking right alongside me, en masse. The longing to time-travel has been intense. All the ancient stonework; the walls, friezes and gargoyles; narrow streets meant for horses; all of this tugged at me.

I'm not sure I have any other complete sentences left in me tonight. I did just about everything on my wish list and added on a morbid fascination for royal decapitations and executions.

Major accomplishments during my stay: I managed not to fall on the steep, narrow, two-story staircase in Scott's house nor, after the first day, have I hit my head again on the low door leading to my snug aerie on the third floor. I forgot to mention that next door lives a goose whom I can hear through my window - a sound I have enjoyed

Bon nuit.