Yesterday and Today
The wedding plans continue to take shape. We marry in Reno, Nevada, on September 1, 2003. We had planned on marrying in Gibraltar but the Portuguese consulate's office in London was closed a couple of weeks ago. The office was severly understaffed and disgruntled Portuguese nationals essentially rioted in the office. Instead, we will register with the consulate's office in San Francisco after the wedding.
Our first face-to-face meeting was in Paris on May 7, 2002. We found each other over the Internet. I was living in Southern California and she in Northern Portugal. It was September, 1999. Until a month prior to that September I had been the arts and letters editor for an online magazine. She somehow found a link to the site and sent an email asking a question about Henry Miller and Anäis Nin. Although the website was no longer active, the email found its way to me and I replied. We shared similar tastes and started exchanging emails and chatting online. We emailed and chatted almost daily for the next two and a half years before finally meeting in person.
Below are two images I took during our first time in Paris. The building on the left is a view of the Rodin Museum taken from the garden. The photo on the right is us inside the museum reflected in a not-so-clean mirror. A noticeable discrepancy in height. It's no wonder we get curious looks on the street.
We fell in love with both each other and Paris last May and hope to live there someday.
Proverb at our favorite restaurant in Paris, L'Éclude, which is on Rue de Gruyères close to the Opéra Bastille.