guest post 4

More from Kep:

So the day after she got back from Europe, I asked Nina what she was up to and she said that she was searching for a hole in the wall. Say what? That kind of answer just demands clarification.

She told me she had to be in France again in July to present a yet-to-be-written paper at a conference. The plan was to hide out in some rural hole for a few days before the conference and write like mad until something presentable appeared on paper.

I told her to do a no-show. Your heart’s not in it – screw the French and their damn homards and coquilles. They think just because they cook like there’s no tomorrow that they’ll have us running there at a snap. (Okay, that was transparent. I am enamored with all things French.)

But what’s with the hole in the wall?

Nina said that she had absolutely no cash to put up for this project, so she was looking at her voluminous Gault Millau, le guide, to find the cheapest possible room anywhere within a day’s train ride of Paris.

So any luck? She pointed to a listing – at 31 Euro per night it had to be a hole. Le Stasbourg. Sounds like crap, I told her (I was bluffing; I don’t read French). Is it at least in an interesting location? Her answer: There are many ways to view a location as interesting. There’s one thing about it that appeals to me. The name of the village* is a name I’ve heard quite recently, thrown out by a woman who clearly was displeased with my way of handling things. So maybe it’s a match. I sent them an email. We’ll see what they say.

The thing about being friends with Nina is that it gives you plenty of screwy stories to recount for the blog. One of our common friends said that she is a complete wild card. Oh yeah! Now, if I had to do this for my sister, for example, I’d be stumped after the first post.

*name of village: Bitche