Fun, fun, fun, in the (sun, sun, sun)
Jun. 8th, 2003 11:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darcydodoMassively long post this time. So I'll be sensible and cut it.
I woke up at an ungodly hour this morning (read: 6:30) because I had decided last night that today I wanted to go to Chantilly. Imagine, then, my distress when the first sound that reached my ears, after my alarm clock, was a long, rolling peal of thunder. Hoping that I had mistaken the sound of the RER travelling beneath me (they do sound vaguely similar), I went and looked out the window. No, it was definitely pouring. Very cross, I determined to go check e-mail and phone my parents (the good thing about waking up that early: I can call my parents in LA before their bedtime) and see if the rain let up or if my parents had any other suggestions.
In fact, the rain did let up, and I took the métro over to the marché at rue Montorgueil to pick up a picnic lunch. Bread, cheese, and a pound of Provençal cherries. I would have gotten a half-bottle of wine, but the liquor store didn't open until 1pm. By this point, it was actually looking a bit sunny. I also managed to find a package of three disposable cameras at the "Marché-U," despite the assertions of the local tabac owner and his customers that I certainly couldn't find a camera anywhere on a Sunday morning. I resisted the temptation to go back to the tabac (a few doors down) waving the cameras triumphantly. Then I headed over to Gare du Nord, where the trains for Chantilly leave from.
I should have taken the rain as an omen that my day as I had planned it wouldn't run without hitches. Originally, I had planned to get to the marché at 8, when it opened, and be at Gare du Nord by 9, because Let's Go claimed that trains leave approximately every hour, and I thought it safer to hazard that trains left on the hour than at some random time in the next sixty minutes. Well, I was running a bit late, because the idea that the marché opens at 8 really means that the first stores put out their stalls at 8 and the market gradually unfolds bit by bit after that. So it was actually more like 10:40 by the time I got to Gare du Nord, but I figured this wouldn't matter; I'd buy a ticket from a machine and be on my way. No such luck; the machines, for a start, only accept cards, and as I'm trying to mostly use money from my NatWest account, given the exchange rate, I couldn't use my card: my switch card doesn't have visa on it. So I joined the exceedingly long queue in front of the guichets. Which are only using 3 of the 10 or so extant windows because of the strike. Well, the gardens and the chateau at Chantilly theoretically opened at 10, but I also figured I didn't have to be there quite that early. And also, the big sign with train times on it said that the next train for Chantilly wasn't until 12:43. Hmmm.
After approximately half an hour, I actually reached the ticket window. One return ticket for Chantilly, please. The man behind the counter looks dubious. "You want the next train?" Affirmation... "But that's not until 7 this evening." But, but... I try and muster the words in French to explain that the sign I can just about see behind me says there's a train at 12-something. "Ah, yes, but the strike, you see..." A cause de la grève. Everything's bloody à cause de la grève. "You could take the RER to the suburbs, though," he offers; "a train leaves at 11:45." That's not so bad, but how far are the suburbs from the town itself? He doesn't know, so I thank him and go look for an RER map (the one in Let's Go is a bit sketchy). The maps seemed to think that the RER actually went to Chantilly, so I decided to risk it. My carte orange obviously didn't cover a trip that far outside of Paris, but there were also no human bodies evident inside the ticket boxes. But this station was equally ignoring the fact that it had gates (grâce à la grève!), so I simply went and waited for the train. And hoped that there weren't functioning gates at the other end.
The RER arrived on time — I guess few enough people want to take the RER D, so unlike the B-line, which goes to the airports and is actually useful, it's apparently ignoring the strike (actually, that's not true, it's not going further south than Châtelet-Les Halles at the moment) — and I got on. It was double-decker, which was cool. I spent the ride vacillating between looking out the window, reading Duras, and trying to come up with excuses and explanations in French for why I didn't have a ticket (I have my father's genes, OK?). Eventually the train arrived and I discovered that my worrying was for naught (as I expected it would be); this far out, they don't bother with exit gates. Or, as I realized later, entrance gates. But I bought a return ticket then and there, because unlike my father, I know how to evade the annoying feelings of anxiety that would otherwise plague me all day long. And I'm not going to complain about a half-price trip, in any case. (Actually, it ended up being free; I'll use the entirely unused ticket at some point in the future.) It was, incidentlly, drizzling at Chantilly still (or maybe again).
There was a sign pointing to the Chateau, so I headed in that direction. While walking through a nice little fringe of woods, I encountered a bouncy golden retriever (I suppose that's slightly redundant), who decided to steal my scrunchie with a well-aimed leap. Not knowing the French commands generally used with dogs, I watched in helpless amusement as his owner attempted to recapture my hair-band. And then I came upon the hippodrome of Chantilly. Normally, I suppose, one can walk through the fields surrounding it in order to reach the chateau. But apparently I had chosen the one day of the year which hosts the Prix de Diane Hermès. Think Ascot, and then think French, and you may come up with an approximation of what most of the people around me were wearing. If your mental image isn't hysterically funny, try again. Unfortunately, my tourist instincts are not honed. I do not have in me whatever it is that allows a Japanese tourist to stand up when lunch is served and snap a picture of her plate. I do not have the reflexes to point a camera at anything that moves within instants of spotting it. I also do have a modicum of shame that prevents me from taking pictures of people right and left. I don't know; call it a rebellion against the stereotype of an American tourist, or something. But anyway, despite my slack-jawed amazement at the corsets and cravates and waistcoats and confections of hats surrounding me, I stupidly took not a single picture. I must reform, I must.
I asked a woman what was occurring, and she told me, and I didn't understand a word (except for 'les chevaux'), and she asked if I had an invitation, and I said no, and she said well then they won't let you in, and I said I didn't want to be let in, I wanted to go to the chateau, and did she know if that was still possible even with this going on? But I didn't understand her answer, and I'm not entirely certain she even understood my question, but she sounded very doubtful. So I wandered off with a slightly sinking heart and found an usher and put my question to him. He shrugged in typical French fashion and said he supposed that if the chateau were open on weekends at all, it was probably open today. And no, this race didn't interfere. And I should take that big boulevard over there. So that was fine, because the chateau is open on weekends. I ate my picnic, because it was nearly 1 by this time, and headed towards the chateau. There were lots of wildflowers lining the bank of the river; I saw daisies and cowslips and suncups and those small purple flowers that are shaped slightly like miniature plantains (the weed-plantains, not the banana-plantains) but with throated flowers, no clue of their name, and various sorts of clover, and also some yellow flowers that I don't think I've seen before; they're vaguely star-shaped and quite small.
I got to the chateau eventually, and it really is very cool. The building itself is full of art and furniture; I saw a few Raphaels (his "Three Graces" is there, for example), and apparently there's even a Titian, but I never found it. There was a painting called "Suite d'un bal masqué" by one Jean Léon Gérôme, of a duel in the snow where the victor (or perhaps the victor's second) is dressed as a harlequin, and it's very very cool. I got a not-very-good reproduction of it on a postcard. There's also a definite hunting theme going on. Because of the hippodrome, I suppose, and the nearby Musée Vivant du Cheval, there are little signs saying "horses in art!" by every single bloody painting that has a horse. But I more noticed the preponderance of dogs. There are even two portraits of hounds in the Antechamber which have the names of the hounds inscribed: Balthazar and Briador. I wandered around and took lots of pictures, but I am very doubtful that any will actually come out. No flash, so even though the film is ISO 400, I'm not exactly crossing my fingers. There was one cabinet that had some artifacts from Pompeii, and another display with a red-figure vase. With a placard that read "Nolan vase. Black with red figures." They need a Classicist around that place! The other artifacts weren't even labeled, except for "Pompei" or "Préhistorique," vel sim. Then I went out into the gardens (really grounds, as there isn't much that's garden-like about them, apart from the small bit of formal hedges and fountains just outside the chateau) and began to wander around, but I'll come back to that later for the sake of having everything about the chateau in one place. While wandering outside, I chanced to look in my Let's Go guide and noticed that the rooms of the chateau which I hadn't seen (due to the doors being closed) were actually accessible if you took the free tour narrated in French. That, then, explained the periodic mass-exoduses every time a curator came into a room and announced that a tour was about the start. Anyway, after wandering through the grounds for a while, I headed back to the chateau and got there just as a tour was starting. You go through about six extra rooms, and they're very worth seeing. Chock full of furniture, in most cases, and as they were the bedrooms and other private rooms (like a music salon), the walls themselves are extravagantly painted, rather than just having hung pictures for decoration. I was very intrigued by the Salle des gardes; it is not nearly the msot impressive, but it is decorated with an eye to the classics. One wall has a mosaic from Herculaneum embedded into it depicting the rape of Europa; facing this, on the other wall, is a painting (maybe a bas-relief, I can't remember) of "Cadmos in Thebes." This is written in Greek. around the ceiling are a set of panels showing Apollo and the Muses, also all named in Greek. Sadly, I couldn't understand much of what the tour-guide said, and this held true in the other rooms, too. But I'm very curious as to the theme of the room. There is also a very long room with a series of paintings that depict the victories of the Grand Condé. (And in my earlier turn through the chateau, I saw the chapel, which contains a urn that holds the hearts of most of the Condé princes. Interesting, but also slightly disturbing.)
So. The grounds. I didn't manage to see them all; I'm not sure how much I missed. It was basically a nice ramble, occasionally somewhat circular (as various bridges were cordoned off due to being almost completely rotted through), through patchy bits of woods and fields, all on a very small scale. I think there might have been more woods in some of the directions I didn't go. At one point, at the western (?) edge of the grounds, I discovered a very strange little structure. There were three entrances: one was rather like the entrance to a cave, another was similar but almost completely hidden by a screen of ivy, and the third was a small flight of very twisty steps. Inside, the structure was dome-like, with parts of it natural rock and part an arched support like the roof of a chapel. And just one tiny chamber, with these three entrances. Pitch-black inside, except for what little daylight can penetrate. I can't for the life of me figure out what on earth it is, or was, ever meant to be.
While I was in there, I picked up a piece of paper from the ground that turned out to be a flyer for the little café in the "hameau" at the other end of the grounds. So after my French tour inside the chateau, I headed over there, because the flyer had a map and I was curious to see the minature hamlet. Besides which, apparently the café was really more like an English tea-house in that it had a menu of local specialties and desserts. Desserts which included, of course, since this was Chantilly, Chantilly cream. It was definitely tea-time, too, so I felt justified in having something to eat.
The hamlet was truly sweet. Little half-timbered houses, some of which were thatched, and all of which were very old-looking. One was better preserved and contained the tea-shop; out back there were tables. All of these were full, but some people were just leaving, so I claimed their table. The menu informed me that by far the cheapest thing was a cup of Chantilly cream, and as this is what I really wanted anyway, I ordered that and a large cup of coffee. (In case there is confusion at the point, Chantilly cream is the original whipped cream.) The cream was, in fact, possibly — no, probably — or almost certainly — the most decadent thing I have ever eaten. It also caused me to think I may very possibly never eat again. On the other hand, it may well have satisfied my perpetual craving for pure cream, and this can only be a good thing in the long run. In more immediate terms, I decided I really didn't have to budget for dinner tonight. Then I sat in the sun for a while and wrote a lot of this journal entry. A little while on, rainclouds breezed in, so I put up my umbrella and continued writing. It wasn't raining very hard anyway, and it only lasted maybe ten minutes. So I stayed there until a bit after six and then headed back.
The last groups of stragglers were leaving the hippodrome as I approached, so I got up my nerve to snap a few photos. Unfortunately, they were all from behind, as people were either waking in front of me or getting into their cars, and none of the costumes were nearly as extravagant as the ones I had seen that morning. I did get a couple of men in tails, though.
Given the strike, I suppose, I had to wait for quite a while for a train to Paris (there was at one point an "oops, sorry, the train with thought was going to Paris is actually going to Creil [one stop north], at the exact same time ast he one we already said was going to Creil, because so many people want to go there, obviously." Well, OK, not those precise words, I'll confess). The delay did give me time to look around and wonder if somehow simply being born Parisian really entitles one to be just that much more elegant and dignified than, say, me.
So that was my very eventful and fun day. Tomorrow I'm quite possibly going to Paris Disneyland. Tee-hee.
Grand Totals:
* 57 pictures taken
* 8 handwritten pages of journal entry
* 4 false starts or misimpressions
* 1 large cup of Chantilly cream
* 0 train tickets actually used
* LOTS of cherries eaten
I woke up at an ungodly hour this morning (read: 6:30) because I had decided last night that today I wanted to go to Chantilly. Imagine, then, my distress when the first sound that reached my ears, after my alarm clock, was a long, rolling peal of thunder. Hoping that I had mistaken the sound of the RER travelling beneath me (they do sound vaguely similar), I went and looked out the window. No, it was definitely pouring. Very cross, I determined to go check e-mail and phone my parents (the good thing about waking up that early: I can call my parents in LA before their bedtime) and see if the rain let up or if my parents had any other suggestions.
In fact, the rain did let up, and I took the métro over to the marché at rue Montorgueil to pick up a picnic lunch. Bread, cheese, and a pound of Provençal cherries. I would have gotten a half-bottle of wine, but the liquor store didn't open until 1pm. By this point, it was actually looking a bit sunny. I also managed to find a package of three disposable cameras at the "Marché-U," despite the assertions of the local tabac owner and his customers that I certainly couldn't find a camera anywhere on a Sunday morning. I resisted the temptation to go back to the tabac (a few doors down) waving the cameras triumphantly. Then I headed over to Gare du Nord, where the trains for Chantilly leave from.
I should have taken the rain as an omen that my day as I had planned it wouldn't run without hitches. Originally, I had planned to get to the marché at 8, when it opened, and be at Gare du Nord by 9, because Let's Go claimed that trains leave approximately every hour, and I thought it safer to hazard that trains left on the hour than at some random time in the next sixty minutes. Well, I was running a bit late, because the idea that the marché opens at 8 really means that the first stores put out their stalls at 8 and the market gradually unfolds bit by bit after that. So it was actually more like 10:40 by the time I got to Gare du Nord, but I figured this wouldn't matter; I'd buy a ticket from a machine and be on my way. No such luck; the machines, for a start, only accept cards, and as I'm trying to mostly use money from my NatWest account, given the exchange rate, I couldn't use my card: my switch card doesn't have visa on it. So I joined the exceedingly long queue in front of the guichets. Which are only using 3 of the 10 or so extant windows because of the strike. Well, the gardens and the chateau at Chantilly theoretically opened at 10, but I also figured I didn't have to be there quite that early. And also, the big sign with train times on it said that the next train for Chantilly wasn't until 12:43. Hmmm.
After approximately half an hour, I actually reached the ticket window. One return ticket for Chantilly, please. The man behind the counter looks dubious. "You want the next train?" Affirmation... "But that's not until 7 this evening." But, but... I try and muster the words in French to explain that the sign I can just about see behind me says there's a train at 12-something. "Ah, yes, but the strike, you see..." A cause de la grève. Everything's bloody à cause de la grève. "You could take the RER to the suburbs, though," he offers; "a train leaves at 11:45." That's not so bad, but how far are the suburbs from the town itself? He doesn't know, so I thank him and go look for an RER map (the one in Let's Go is a bit sketchy). The maps seemed to think that the RER actually went to Chantilly, so I decided to risk it. My carte orange obviously didn't cover a trip that far outside of Paris, but there were also no human bodies evident inside the ticket boxes. But this station was equally ignoring the fact that it had gates (grâce à la grève!), so I simply went and waited for the train. And hoped that there weren't functioning gates at the other end.
The RER arrived on time — I guess few enough people want to take the RER D, so unlike the B-line, which goes to the airports and is actually useful, it's apparently ignoring the strike (actually, that's not true, it's not going further south than Châtelet-Les Halles at the moment) — and I got on. It was double-decker, which was cool. I spent the ride vacillating between looking out the window, reading Duras, and trying to come up with excuses and explanations in French for why I didn't have a ticket (I have my father's genes, OK?). Eventually the train arrived and I discovered that my worrying was for naught (as I expected it would be); this far out, they don't bother with exit gates. Or, as I realized later, entrance gates. But I bought a return ticket then and there, because unlike my father, I know how to evade the annoying feelings of anxiety that would otherwise plague me all day long. And I'm not going to complain about a half-price trip, in any case. (Actually, it ended up being free; I'll use the entirely unused ticket at some point in the future.) It was, incidentlly, drizzling at Chantilly still (or maybe again).
There was a sign pointing to the Chateau, so I headed in that direction. While walking through a nice little fringe of woods, I encountered a bouncy golden retriever (I suppose that's slightly redundant), who decided to steal my scrunchie with a well-aimed leap. Not knowing the French commands generally used with dogs, I watched in helpless amusement as his owner attempted to recapture my hair-band. And then I came upon the hippodrome of Chantilly. Normally, I suppose, one can walk through the fields surrounding it in order to reach the chateau. But apparently I had chosen the one day of the year which hosts the Prix de Diane Hermès. Think Ascot, and then think French, and you may come up with an approximation of what most of the people around me were wearing. If your mental image isn't hysterically funny, try again. Unfortunately, my tourist instincts are not honed. I do not have in me whatever it is that allows a Japanese tourist to stand up when lunch is served and snap a picture of her plate. I do not have the reflexes to point a camera at anything that moves within instants of spotting it. I also do have a modicum of shame that prevents me from taking pictures of people right and left. I don't know; call it a rebellion against the stereotype of an American tourist, or something. But anyway, despite my slack-jawed amazement at the corsets and cravates and waistcoats and confections of hats surrounding me, I stupidly took not a single picture. I must reform, I must.
I asked a woman what was occurring, and she told me, and I didn't understand a word (except for 'les chevaux'), and she asked if I had an invitation, and I said no, and she said well then they won't let you in, and I said I didn't want to be let in, I wanted to go to the chateau, and did she know if that was still possible even with this going on? But I didn't understand her answer, and I'm not entirely certain she even understood my question, but she sounded very doubtful. So I wandered off with a slightly sinking heart and found an usher and put my question to him. He shrugged in typical French fashion and said he supposed that if the chateau were open on weekends at all, it was probably open today. And no, this race didn't interfere. And I should take that big boulevard over there. So that was fine, because the chateau is open on weekends. I ate my picnic, because it was nearly 1 by this time, and headed towards the chateau. There were lots of wildflowers lining the bank of the river; I saw daisies and cowslips and suncups and those small purple flowers that are shaped slightly like miniature plantains (the weed-plantains, not the banana-plantains) but with throated flowers, no clue of their name, and various sorts of clover, and also some yellow flowers that I don't think I've seen before; they're vaguely star-shaped and quite small.
I got to the chateau eventually, and it really is very cool. The building itself is full of art and furniture; I saw a few Raphaels (his "Three Graces" is there, for example), and apparently there's even a Titian, but I never found it. There was a painting called "Suite d'un bal masqué" by one Jean Léon Gérôme, of a duel in the snow where the victor (or perhaps the victor's second) is dressed as a harlequin, and it's very very cool. I got a not-very-good reproduction of it on a postcard. There's also a definite hunting theme going on. Because of the hippodrome, I suppose, and the nearby Musée Vivant du Cheval, there are little signs saying "horses in art!" by every single bloody painting that has a horse. But I more noticed the preponderance of dogs. There are even two portraits of hounds in the Antechamber which have the names of the hounds inscribed: Balthazar and Briador. I wandered around and took lots of pictures, but I am very doubtful that any will actually come out. No flash, so even though the film is ISO 400, I'm not exactly crossing my fingers. There was one cabinet that had some artifacts from Pompeii, and another display with a red-figure vase. With a placard that read "Nolan vase. Black with red figures." They need a Classicist around that place! The other artifacts weren't even labeled, except for "Pompei" or "Préhistorique," vel sim. Then I went out into the gardens (really grounds, as there isn't much that's garden-like about them, apart from the small bit of formal hedges and fountains just outside the chateau) and began to wander around, but I'll come back to that later for the sake of having everything about the chateau in one place. While wandering outside, I chanced to look in my Let's Go guide and noticed that the rooms of the chateau which I hadn't seen (due to the doors being closed) were actually accessible if you took the free tour narrated in French. That, then, explained the periodic mass-exoduses every time a curator came into a room and announced that a tour was about the start. Anyway, after wandering through the grounds for a while, I headed back to the chateau and got there just as a tour was starting. You go through about six extra rooms, and they're very worth seeing. Chock full of furniture, in most cases, and as they were the bedrooms and other private rooms (like a music salon), the walls themselves are extravagantly painted, rather than just having hung pictures for decoration. I was very intrigued by the Salle des gardes; it is not nearly the msot impressive, but it is decorated with an eye to the classics. One wall has a mosaic from Herculaneum embedded into it depicting the rape of Europa; facing this, on the other wall, is a painting (maybe a bas-relief, I can't remember) of "Cadmos in Thebes." This is written in Greek. around the ceiling are a set of panels showing Apollo and the Muses, also all named in Greek. Sadly, I couldn't understand much of what the tour-guide said, and this held true in the other rooms, too. But I'm very curious as to the theme of the room. There is also a very long room with a series of paintings that depict the victories of the Grand Condé. (And in my earlier turn through the chateau, I saw the chapel, which contains a urn that holds the hearts of most of the Condé princes. Interesting, but also slightly disturbing.)
So. The grounds. I didn't manage to see them all; I'm not sure how much I missed. It was basically a nice ramble, occasionally somewhat circular (as various bridges were cordoned off due to being almost completely rotted through), through patchy bits of woods and fields, all on a very small scale. I think there might have been more woods in some of the directions I didn't go. At one point, at the western (?) edge of the grounds, I discovered a very strange little structure. There were three entrances: one was rather like the entrance to a cave, another was similar but almost completely hidden by a screen of ivy, and the third was a small flight of very twisty steps. Inside, the structure was dome-like, with parts of it natural rock and part an arched support like the roof of a chapel. And just one tiny chamber, with these three entrances. Pitch-black inside, except for what little daylight can penetrate. I can't for the life of me figure out what on earth it is, or was, ever meant to be.
While I was in there, I picked up a piece of paper from the ground that turned out to be a flyer for the little café in the "hameau" at the other end of the grounds. So after my French tour inside the chateau, I headed over there, because the flyer had a map and I was curious to see the minature hamlet. Besides which, apparently the café was really more like an English tea-house in that it had a menu of local specialties and desserts. Desserts which included, of course, since this was Chantilly, Chantilly cream. It was definitely tea-time, too, so I felt justified in having something to eat.
The hamlet was truly sweet. Little half-timbered houses, some of which were thatched, and all of which were very old-looking. One was better preserved and contained the tea-shop; out back there were tables. All of these were full, but some people were just leaving, so I claimed their table. The menu informed me that by far the cheapest thing was a cup of Chantilly cream, and as this is what I really wanted anyway, I ordered that and a large cup of coffee. (In case there is confusion at the point, Chantilly cream is the original whipped cream.) The cream was, in fact, possibly — no, probably — or almost certainly — the most decadent thing I have ever eaten. It also caused me to think I may very possibly never eat again. On the other hand, it may well have satisfied my perpetual craving for pure cream, and this can only be a good thing in the long run. In more immediate terms, I decided I really didn't have to budget for dinner tonight. Then I sat in the sun for a while and wrote a lot of this journal entry. A little while on, rainclouds breezed in, so I put up my umbrella and continued writing. It wasn't raining very hard anyway, and it only lasted maybe ten minutes. So I stayed there until a bit after six and then headed back.
The last groups of stragglers were leaving the hippodrome as I approached, so I got up my nerve to snap a few photos. Unfortunately, they were all from behind, as people were either waking in front of me or getting into their cars, and none of the costumes were nearly as extravagant as the ones I had seen that morning. I did get a couple of men in tails, though.
Given the strike, I suppose, I had to wait for quite a while for a train to Paris (there was at one point an "oops, sorry, the train with thought was going to Paris is actually going to Creil [one stop north], at the exact same time ast he one we already said was going to Creil, because so many people want to go there, obviously." Well, OK, not those precise words, I'll confess). The delay did give me time to look around and wonder if somehow simply being born Parisian really entitles one to be just that much more elegant and dignified than, say, me.
So that was my very eventful and fun day. Tomorrow I'm quite possibly going to Paris Disneyland. Tee-hee.
Grand Totals:
* 57 pictures taken
* 8 handwritten pages of journal entry
* 4 false starts or misimpressions
* 1 large cup of Chantilly cream
* 0 train tickets actually used
* LOTS of cherries eaten
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-06-08 02:52 pm (UTC)I'm also impressed that you understand the difference between à cause de la grève and grâce à la grève! Congratulations.
A whole cup of crème Chantilly, though?! I'm speechless.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-08 07:58 pm (UTC)Everytime I'm in Paris, someone is striking, either for their own cause or in sympathy with someone else's.
Lovely day otherwise ;)
no subject
Date: 2003-06-08 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-09 02:18 am (UTC)Actually I'm impressed, and sounds like it was a fun day.
Francis