Harry Potter and the Bottle of Cognac

This weekend, I went back to Paris. While it was great to hang out with the Anglo Gang again (do we have t-shirts yet?), I went to Paris for one reason and one reason only: to see the new Harry Potter movie in English!

Lucky for me, my gracious host, kyliemac, had half-priced tickets for the Salon des Saveurs and yes, it was as good as it sounds. It is a huge expo of food and drink vendors from all over France, and there were some from Spain and even Italy. We wondered around for many hours, sampling all kinds of cheese, pate, meat, chocolate and loaded up on liquor tasted some cognac, wine, armagnac, cognac, champagne, cognac... you get the picture. I spent more money than I intended, but I told myself that most of what I bought will be given as Christmas gifts (in fact, only two items will become gifts. Oops). Even so, I spent less than fifty euros on the whole deal, so I still think I came out alright, and we got to hang out with Dr. and Mrs. B while stuffing our faces enjoying the local cuisine, so that was a bonus.

After riding the metro for a couple of hours (so we could drop off our newly purchased goodies) we met up with Katia at Andie's house, where Kylie and I could sober up relax for a bit before we all went to the movie theatre.

See, this is where it got a little weird. Because this is the opening weekend of Harry Potter in France, we kind of knew it was going to be crowded at the theatre, even for the late show, so Kylie volunteered to go an hour early to pick up the tickets. It wasn't long before Kylie called and told us that we needed to get down to the theatre right away - they were already lining up people to go into the theatre - an hour before the lights went down! We raced to the theatre (and Andie did an admirable job driving us there - Paris traffic is insane no matter what time it is!), hoping to catch up with Kylie (and meet up with Dr. and Mrs. B again), but she was out of sight by the time we got there. By some miracle, she was able to leap out of the theatre, throw our tickets at us, and go back inside to hold our seats for us (where she was rewarded by being called a Beetch by some gracious Frenchman - apparently saving seats Just Isn't Done in France!).

Well, it all worked out in the end (and Kylie is a STAR and the epitome of Grace Under Pressure) and we all enjoyed the movie (well, in fact, I do have some issues with the movie, but maybe I'll bitch about it post a review another time).

I had a fantastic weekend, and I'd like to thank all the ladies (and gentlemen, bien sur!) for your hospitality! We'll be heading back to Paris in only seventeen days - to pick up my Dad from the airport!