At the end of explaining the flat, Céline turned on our petite television set.
“CNN,” she said, “for you.”
Her English is flawless; we had to tell her how to say “circuit breaker.” Meanwhile, outside in the cab I barely cobbled together a sentence while Elise rang to have us let into the flat. “Is it okay that you wait for a minute? She finds the number now.”
Elise jumped in with her actual accent to save me, and I went poking about at the door to see about getting us let in. Here I was thwarted by laziness in packing – my bag was supposed to have my tiny maglite in it, but I decided at the last minute it wasn’t worth the bother. Well, standing in the pitch black lobby trying to dial up Céline on the intercom by the backlight of my iPod I decided that, clearly, it would have been worth it.
As Céline prepared to step out CNN broke from commercial back to their Obama coverage. She fixed us with a bemused look and indicated the television.
“So funny, that you have come all this way at this time.”
“But, I want to see it from here! I want to hear what you think.”
“Well,” she said with a grin, “it is great for us as well.”
She promised me an interview tomorrow if I did my French homework tonight.
First, dinner.
more pictures! (CONGRATULATIONS!)
oh. right. lost camera. sorry.
At the moment I’m using E’s old point-and-shoot, which is actually slightly nicer than my old one because it’s not so compact.
I almost had this camera shipped to us overnight, but it was $125 to get it from NYC. We couldn’t find it anywhere in Philly on Monday. I’ll just buy it when I get back.
wait… I’m confused. I thought you bought a new (blue) one before coming over for the Eagles massacre (er, game) on Sunday?
I didn’t like the feel of the selector dial on the new (blue) one, so I went online to see if anyone had problems with it and discovered that it’s actually worse at the things I like to do than my old camera (manual aperture, low-light motion shots, et cetera). I don’t know that you’ve ever noticed, but I was constantly frustrated by the old one’s failure to shoot anything worthwhile without a flash, to the point that I largely stopped bringing it with me to places I might want photos.
Elise redirected me to start reading up on prosumer cameras, and within a few hours it was clear that I should (a) return the Canon, and (b) buy something that’s better for the things I’ve actually been using a camera for over the past two years.
I’m still pissed about losing the card of images inside the old one, and I hold out a hope that it will turn up.