More Pastries, and Pomegranates

From the life of Julien I went to Paris to Melina´s apartment, the most comfortingly familiar place I could have walked into in Paris. Her room is full of things I recognized--pictures of the Baettis, Maria´s jewelry, american products, random Pope and UGA things. Her kitchen full of little packaged things, chocolate cookies, little crusty breads, Pringles. And a general feeling of warmth and welcoming. Melina was such a good host, making sure I saw the Eiffel tower, and the Arc de Triomphe, and Notre Dame, and ate delicious crepes, got on the metro okay, had warm enough clothes. It was nice to see someone from home who has come into her own in the way Melina has, finding and creating this pleasant life for herself, very happy and in love, in her element.

I met up with Mae, my cousin. We ate a bunch of pastries and talked about going to Barcelona or Portugal next. We walked from her friend Kevin´s apartment to the Centre Pompidou to the Jewish neighborhood, where we ate homemade matzah and some kind of dry kosher sausage. We talked about family, which was a bit strange because, despite our being cousins, we had hardly ever had a conversations and it seemed, since these conversations were our first, that we couldn´t have anything as familiar and intimate as our families to talk about. Gossip about, I admit.

Paris was too big. Knowing I would be there only a few days, I didn´t commit to it, and have almost nothing to say about it. The food, of course, was spectacular. That is all.

Mae and I went to Barcelona for a week and a half. I have entered and left Spain since I last posted, I am sorry.
I am in Porto, Portugal.

Barcelona is a city so hip and full of surprises. My delight in it was something like the way you feel eating a pomegranate with your hands. With the bursting juicy bits still lingering in your mouth--lovely--your stained fingers absentmindly peel away a seemingly dead-end little spongy bit, and there, suddenly, is yet another magical little cluster of purple-red jewels. It´s astonishing, the number of times I turned a corner somewhere and found something--a museum, church, neighborhood, set of shops--worthy of days of investigation.

Hmm. I will post this now, so there is something. And write more tomorrow maybe. It´s no fun playing catch-up this way. Porto is lovely and relaxing. The roofs are red, the tiles are falling off, everything is