Today I decided to hit my three heaven spots. I woke up early after a pretty good sleep and at 7:30 or so headed to Le Damier. I had a wonderful Petit Dejeuner Français or a French style breakfast. There was a delicious coffee, delicious orange juice, 4 slices of warmed bread, a croissant, and a plate of butter, mango marmalade and berry confiture. I watched the Euronews. They are still running the Obama events in the No Comment section--a sort of minute each half hour where they play a news feed without any comment or voice-over--something you'll never find in the US outside of C-SPAN.
After I finished my breakfast (GF44000 or US$9) I headed to the MouNa internet cafe where I got trapped by a hard rain and stayed for 2 hours catching up on my google/reader subscriptions. In a bit of a surprise, I found that The Machinist, a Salon.com blog I subscribe to, is now being handled by a guy who left a couple of comments on this very blog a couple times in the last few weeks--Cyrus Farivar. He is a journalist for Public Radio International. I sent him an email congratulating him for doing the Machinist blog. Though after I sent it, I kind of felt like I should have mentioned that his reporting for PRI was more serious and I hoped The Machinist wouldn't detract too much from the more serious work he does. Oh well.
The rain eventually stopped and after a short respite in my hotel room, I headed to the other slice of heaven--Le Petit Bateau.
I read La Route and had a few beers. After 3 beers I ordered a pizza (Fermiére--France has standard pizza types and the Fermiére, or farmer's pizza is one of them). I watched as the woman who runs the bar controlled things. She is a strong woman, about my age, and takes no BS from anyone. She did an inventory while I was there having a guy count everything. Everytime she disputed a number, he recounted and she was right. She's a sharp cookie. The young girls who work there call her Mama. I found myself strangely attracted to her. She's not gorgeous, but she has a cool attitude. A couple of times she turned around and I quickly averted my eyes so she wouldn't catch me looking at her. There was a younger girl with these really interesting hair twist things--like braids but they looked like the worm of a corkscrew, These here all tied up in the back. Just amazing hair. The employees there all wear a white top and black skirts and pants. At 4:30 when the shift change happened, she came out dressed in a super-sexy pair of jeans. She took my mind off Mama for a while.
When it came time to settle my bill, Mama came out with a bill. She had 5 beers instead of 4. I have no doubt that she knows exactly how many beers I had--I saw her doing inventory and she knows her stuff. Maybe she thinks I'm on an expense account and some multinational corporation is taking care of my bill. But I'm not--I'm a self-financed tourist. So I paid the exact amount and left no tip. If she wants a tip, she can correct the facture.
Then I came home. Right now, the street is loud with excitement. Ramadan is almost upon us and people are reveling while they still can. The day before Ramadan seems sort of like Mardi Gras--the day before lent. People know they have to fast, so they party hard until the event--midnight for Mardi Gras (the difference between 23:30 Tuesday and 0:30 Wednesday in New Orleans is absolutely astounding) and the appearance of the crescent moon for Ramadan.
August 30, 2008 17:59 Guinea local time
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