last night in Montpellier

Final treats in Montpellier: went to a movie called Love, Sex and Mobylettes, from Burkino Faso, a docu-drama about love. It's a loose exploration of various kinds of love in a small town in Africa, with debates, people talking to each other and to an interviewer about Valentine's Day. Heartening to see that even very small children know about condoms. There was a scene at a free public film in the village square, in which an educator taught the crowd how to put on condoms, using a live subject who was, shall we say, raring to go. Anyway, it was a lovely film, lively and moving.

Then I took myself out to dinner - L'Entrecote, next door to the cinema, where Lynn and I ate lo these many months. It serves one menu: salad and bread, then extremely tender steak in a fantastic sauce and a mountain of delectable fries, which is replenished at least once. When this vast platter arrived, I thought, I'll never finish that, but by God, I did. All for 16 Euros, plus the cost of a glass or two of wine. At home, steakhouses are expensive and pretentious. This is the exact opposite - a perfect piece of meat, perfect fries, friendly service, for a very reasonable price.

And then I walked along the Place de l'Opera to the very end, where you can climb the outside staircase of a building there and see the sky. A magnificent panorama of one side of the city and the sunset, dark clouds gathering, streaks of black, grey, red across the dome of our earth.

Farewell to Montpellier. I'll be back.

Only eight more days in France. I have timed this well, in that I am tired of France and want to go home. I know once I'm back in Toronto, I'll miss so many things. But I'm ready to go back. Beam me up, to T dot.

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One last word on the Palestine/Israel issue and film: I've just read another interview with Suleiman, who says, "Israel is in permanent denial. I don't compare the situation of the Palestinians with the Holocaust, of course, there's no comparison, but is there a difference between a denial of the Holocaust and a denial of the Palestinians?"