And then came the puking part

I forgot to describe the sickness part. I only went to one of the famed restaurants in Paris, and Jose ordered something he'd not had before -- boeuf tartar, forgive the spelling -- and it laid him out for two days. I tasted it. It looked like completely raw ground beef marbled with fat and the texture matched that, though it tasted a little cooked. We went there for lunch and we were all happy and healthy until Jose slammed awake at about 2am the next morning and sprinted unsuccessfully for the bathroom. I never had it as badly as he did, and it only got me the next afternoon while I visited Florencia's art studio.
Here is how I spent about half my time in Paris -- on a mattress on the floor of the bedroom of Jose and Florencia, my hosts, watching old movies on my laptop and having interesting conversations. We made it out of the apartment for two sets of whirlwind sightseeing, each set about 3 or 4 hours long, and in this fantastically efficient way we managed to knock out the stuff I really wanted to do: we went to Victor Hugo's house, to the Notre Dame, to the cafe where Hemingway and Fitzgerald hung out (which is now too ritzy to serve coffee in the evening, prefering the wine clientelle), and to the Eiffel Tower. Because we only went out at night, all my pictures of paris, with the exception of the ones at the grave yard I visited alone, are taken without flash, at night. I didn't mind terribly much not being able to spend days canvassing art museums in the traditional manner of a visitor in Paris; traveling necessarily implies digestive upset in life as I know it, and this way that experience was gotten overwith in the presence of a good friend with whom I wanted time to converse anyway. One of his friends, a fellow musician studying at the conservatory for which Jose lives in Paris, brought me roses to make me happy, and I because something near deliriously so.
It was a powerful experience to be around such amazing investments of human effort and time. The Notre Dame took 300 years and legions of architects and craftsmen, but the streets are lined with such herculean achievements. It is very strange as a product of the New World for me to walk avenues that were walked two thousand years ago by consciousnesses just like mine. It gives one a sense of... both of obligation and of meaning; if the people before me had burned their lives just sustaining them like I usually do, then there would be no sculpture, no massive feats of cooperation and resources. If I don't bother doing something more than providing for myself and consuming, then when I am dust, I will have missed an opportunity to improve what the next centuries inherit. The sense of meaning is born because I do have the option of creating something that will last, and affecting a woman walking past 1000 years later.