For the last few days, I have been going on runs equipped with my phone. Full disclosure: this is because I had a traumatic run-in (get it?) on my last route with an old gentleman hiding in some bushes on the running trail while casually making extremely indecent movements with a very exposed part of his body which should definitely have been covered by at least two layers of clothing, if you know what I mean. This incident left me and my running partner (shout out to Hannah) screaming with fear and disgust and running away saying, "Someone should call the police!" but I didn't have my phone. Lesson learned.
But my traumatic, harrowing encounter is your gain, because I now have instagram on that phone and am taking pictures of everything in Tours. Most of the pictures are just small moments that transpire, previously unnoticed but now appreciated. It also helps me cultivate my interpersonal relationships as I, a foreign transplant, climb the societal ladder in this new and enigmatic, dare I say esoteric, millennia-old French society by running along a bridge and then coming to a dead halt and crouching, gollum-like, to take a picture of a spiderweb in the fog:
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Nailed it.
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| Visual approximation of photographer upon first glimpse of whimsical spiderweb. |
Here are some more pictures from around the city:
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| The very bridge in question. |
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| This is the church that is directly in front of my apartment, as seen from a bridge a bit further east. |
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| Cogito ergo sum. Descartes. |
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| Cathedral, finished in 1527. |
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| Me on the way to a party. Complete frenchification is evident by the nonchalant fashion in which I have chosen to carry the bottle of wine (protruding from coat pocket). |
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| Back of cathedral complete with flock of chirping birds. |
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| Rue Colbert |
So there you go. As I was opening to the door to my apartment after this run, I heard bells tolling in the distance. I hopped up a flight of stairs to get access to an open window and took a video. Whenever I see these "tourangeaux" rooftops, I lapse into a fantasy in which I'm standing in the same spot but it's 100 years ago, and there is really nothing that pulls me from this reverie until I realize I'm recording all of this on an iphone. Anyway, you be the judge:
For good measure: the
beginning scene from Moulin Rouge.
