my actual journal entry for 27 july 2019:
a small bodega, nighttime-ish, we skipped to the back but the heatwave (day before i arrived it was 42C in paris) had warmed up the wine room (earlier that day i had texted, "does our airbnb apt have air-conditioning" and the reply i got read "laurel this is europe" meaning, "our architecture and infrastructure was not build for any temperature above 28C, so, naturally: No") The guy manning the store led us to the small cooler under the counter w wines instead and I went for a white. only asked "are we feeling a white?" after i had already put it on the counter. alicia bought a small round pringles box (me and ella did accept a chip when offered one later but could not believe someone would mix pringles with wine then) and I bought an orange nuclear-looking french substitute for gatorade because I was feeling dizzy and I have learned that that is the thing you drink when you feel that way. When we walked out ella noticed that the bottle had a cork (we were not gonna drink it in the apartment, which had a kitchen and likely a corkscrew, we were going to chill on the steps of the sacre ceour and toast on our first night in paris) so we asked the guy behind the counter for help. After he had investigated his (or i guess maybe not his since he didn't know what he did & did not have) store he concluded that he didn't have a cork screw so he send us to "his friend, the bartender" in the bar across the supermarket. i asked "what is your friend's name" in three languages before i got a workable answer. at the bar his friend (i remembered the name then but have forgotten it now) waved at supermarket guy from across the street, the two just waved at one another, then he opened up the bottle while another bartender wordlessly gave us three red plastic cups so we didn't have to pass the bottle around, a gesture so nice we came back that same night after the sacre ceour so me and ella could experience our first aperol spritzes ever together after alicia had hyped it a bit (i thought the spritz was just fine)
