A funny thing happened on the way to get sushi

Yesterday was one of those days where the universe was just a little off-kilter.

The plan for the day was simple: Kristen from Une Homme et Une Femme and I were going to make a quick visit to the Centre de Beauté Indien in the 10th arrondissement, followed by lunch at Asuka in Montmartre.

But tiny little absurd moments kept happening along the way, and like little drops of water slowly filling a cup, by the end we had what we felt was an ocean of absurdity that kept us laughing for hours afterwards. Like one of those “you had to be there” jokes, I’m not sure this post will convey just how ridiculous the day felt. But I’ll certainly try.

“And what about your lip hair?”

I’d been meaning to get my eyebrows threaded for ages (yes, first world problems are hard) and there’s really only one place to do it in Paris: the Centre de Beauté Indien. However, it’s a bit far from where I live, so Kristen and I went together so she could lead the way. We trekked all the way out to Chateau d’Eau, wandered down a little passageway in what appeared to be Paris’ Little India — I had no idea this area even existed — and finally arrived at this little hidden gem.

So it’s 11 AM, I’m in some tiny alleyway in a bright mustard shop, getting my eyebrows worked on while listening to blasting Indian music — it’s just not what you picture a salon experience in Paris to be like.

When I was finished, my threader (threadist?) sat me up, asked, “Ça va?” And I replied, ça va, yes that’s fine. Then she proceeded to point to my upper lip and said something in French, which I can only imagine was along the lines of, “And what about your lip hair? You really must do something about that horrendous mustache.”

Lesson: if you ever want to make a girl self-conscious about something she didn’t even realize she cared about, mention lip hair.

Hey, we should walk to Montmartre.

Paris is actually a pretty small city, and it isn’t too hard to get from the 10th to Montmartre. It was a gorgeous day — I mean really gorgeous — so we said forget the metro, let’s walk it.

First we started walking in the wrong direction. But once we were on the right track, it was great — the neighborhood crepe guy said bonjour as we passed; we discovered a large random arch in the street; and the sun was shining so brightly, I was warmer (and therefore happier) than I’d been in weeks.

We weren’t exactly lost, per se, but after a while we were getting hungry, and the walk was turning into quite the schlep around Paris just for some sushi place. Also, we passed this, which kind of freaked me out.

And then we saw this ol’ thing just coming down the street, waiting to merge into traffic:

Are we there yet?

Finally, after the weird costume shop and the random street train, we reached an area we recognized. We were now definitely in Montmartre.

We climbed those stairs. We admired the view.  We climbed more stairs. “Oh we love Montmartre!” My legs hurt from Gaelic training earlier in the week.

The day just kept getting more random. Atop the second set of stairs, there was a film crew in the middle of a shoot; security was watching everyone like a hawk. They weren’t allowing people to go down the stairs, or even near the filming area, but for some reason they couldn’t stop the people coming up the stairs from below.

(I’d actually encountered this film crew a couple weeks earlier at Hotel de Ville. From what I’d seen at both locations, whatever they were filming was not very interesting — the lead actor just stared blankly into space a lot.)

We walked some more. Our enthusiasm waned. We started to wonder — why was this sushi place so raved-about? Did it have kobe-fed salmon and gold-crusted sushi? It better.

Part 2 — we find Asuka! And it definitely does not have gold-crusted sushi. In fact…it doesn’t even have sushi.