Entre Les Murs

Not Enough for an "Oil thigh"*

I have been in touch with my alumni association, and was invited to a Queen's pub night at the "Great Canadian Pub" on the quai des Grands Augustins, near Place St. Michel (a stone's throw West of Notre Dame). Kind of funny to come all the way to Paris in order to find a place with same hockey on the TV, Molson's on tap and the chicken wings all just like home. But appropriate for the event - which turned out to embrace McGill, U of Ottawa, and a number of other Canadian universities. For a grand total of, oh, maybe a dozen people of which five were from Queen's. Clearly there's some work to be done on the network here.

Earlier in the evening I helped Janet prepare for a little party launching the new season at her office. She organized it for her department, which meant a number of things including setting up the bar. We took nothing for granted, and two weeks ago I investigated the availability of ice cubes at the supermarket. They come in little 2kg bags, but they did have a stock. Yesterday I went back and of course there was nothing, just large blocks where the cubes had been before. I looked everywhere, to no avail. A woman in Picard, a store that sells exclusively frozen food, suggested a café, and apparently that's the way it's done because the barman at our favorite local restaurant didn't appear surprised by the request, but happily filled up my cooler and refused payment. So almost a year we've been here and there are still lots to learn about how things are done.

* Oil thigh na Banrighinn is the Queen's University song.

posted 8.9.06