Bermuda

Back in Paris after spending a few weeks jetsetting around: London for fancy wedding, New York for hanging out and Bermuda for enjoying the "high flyer life".

Weddings are difficult to do right. This one started with a pretty long ceremony in an orthodox church (she is Romanian, so I guess that's why), depressing as ever with lots of hymns and a bit of A. de Saint-Exupery to boot. The reception at the Dorchester Hotel made up for it though: it was a fancy yet tasteful affair with just the right number of people, right kind of drinks and food and great dancing music. The bride's $10,000-dollar wedding dress was amazingly beautiful, as was she and the whole event was elegantly cool, as is my friend the groom.

My favourite city in the world is still my favourite city in the world. Not much more to add - good to see the friends, the brother and the New Haven relatives (who are sweet as ever). Fingers crossed I might be able to go back soon for a bit longer.

On to Bermuda then... I only spent a few days there, but had ample opportunity to practice my social skills that are in danger of becoming rusty here in Paris...The place doesn't feel like a real Caribbean island mostly because - around this time of the year at least - it is solely filled with rich, middle-aged American and European men attending various useless junkets. My friend, Andrea, has been invited to one of these (a fund management conference, which - perhaps predictably - was one of the less glamorous affairs...) and I tagged along as her missus, so to speak. I planned to pass unnoticed, but being pretty much the only women under 40 we attracted quite a bit of attention.

In some cases that attention was welcome. After a whole year I decided to go diving again for the first time as a certified diver, but I was a little insecure about my abilities so I was relieved when a friendly, fatherly 60-ish Swiss man, an experienced and enthusiastic diver volunteered to be my "buddy". I had a bit of trouble sinking in the beginning, but after 15 minutes or so I was starting to feel very comfortable floating among the corals and was looking forward to seeing the shipwreck we were meant to be visiting. To my surprise what seemed like only a minute or two later I noticed that all the others were way below me and that my buddy is pointing towards the bottom and is pulling my arms with all his strength trying to get me to go bakc down. At that point I understood that without realizing it I had floated to the top and I also noticed a bit of brownish water at the bottom of my mask. For a moment it crossed my mind that the brownish water might be blood from my nose and that perhaps I should panic and go up because I made a terrible mistake but then I convinced myself that everything was ok and a sound in the back of my mind told me to breathe out like a maniac and focus on getting down as soon as possible. With the help of my new friend I succeeded and we stayed down there for a while longer without seeing the wreck itself unfortunately. When we came up I faced up to the fact that the brownish water was indeed a bit of bloody water and that I did f&ck up a little. Nice Swiss man explained that it was not my fault and I should put on more weight next couple of times and as long as I am inexperienced.

(to be cont...)