I type this heading back South, a view of multiple small mountains dotting the distant horizon. Despite the morning fog that shrouds them, I feel — I know — these mountains are likely less impressive taken in isolation. But together, they form a varied range, one that is just enough to capture your attention. I felt like going to Paris for a weekend, but decided to just stay a day. To kill time until dinner plans, I arranged to see two of my dear Middlebury friends: Lance (the man who discovered the existence of Parisian Chipotle with me the first time around; overall weapon) and Dane (Switzerland travel companion; see [[brunnen, switzerland|brunnen]] or [[zurich, lucerne; switzerland|zurich/lucerne]]). We planned to meet at the Louvre. Dane, after trailing me for half a block, surprised me by catching up to me in the courtyard. Karmic justice balanced the scales shortly after, as an old Middlebury friend of Dane's surprised him almost right after we said our greetings. We met up with Lance, who brought us a croque monsieur[^1] and a piece of flan. We didn't go to the Louvre (lines; someone proposed boba, which at the time was extremely appealing). As is natural for a group who know each other from one experience, we began discussing other mutual friends from Middlebury. One of these Parisian friends — Lilia — is living in Montreal.[^2] After briefly pondering how she was doing, we turned our attention to the labour intensive job of wandering Paris. We found a candy shop that was so aesthetic it had to ban pictures, finding unique sweets that I unfortunately do not have photographic evidence of. We stumbled upon a stationery store that inexplicably also sold leather goods. A pair of €39 leather shoes tempted me (as the sufficiency of my tattered converse for dinner was ambiguous); a triple digit chess set tempted Lance (as he enjoys playing chess, a fact that is unambiguous, excepting moments of defeat). Then, sitting in a brasserie, I asked if they wanted to write a blog post. We [[clairvoyance|wrote]]; I left; they left too — same metro, different car, for the trains were packed that day. I came back after dinner to find them in a vegan burger place, and no sooner did I sit down than Lilia give Dane a call, despite the complete lack of premeditation, despite the lack of obvious reason, as if she sensed we were together. Then, we walked together to where I needed to leave from (a hour's walk; still unclear why we did it) and I fell, smearing my best clothes in mud. These moments were small. The area we explored was small. Yet healthy doses of serendipity never hurt a soul. [^1]: Shared on a rainy day in Paris. B99 would be proud! [^2]: Such a top tier city — heavily rated and still criminally underrated. My favourite city in North America, at least in the summer (sorry, Toronto).