It was a typical Parisian summer day with lovers at every corner making out, the smell of coffee and baked goods in the air, and the sun shinning strong through a cleared blue sky. A scenery I had by now grown quite accustomed to. After 9 days of aimlessly walking every corner of this beautiful city, eating all the cheese and tarts I could muster, I decided to make way to the Île Saint-Louis (the last destination on my list of places to visit) to watch the sunset from there with a bottle of wine.
As I unpacked my very, very, INCREDIBLY stinky triple cream goat brie, I noticed there was a little Chinese man to my right struggling with his line. My first thought was there is no way fish live in these waters. Think about it. The Seine! In the heart of Paris! How can anything live in these waters!? Well ladies and gentleman, to my astonishment this man not only caught a fish, he caught a 2 meter long catfish! That is 2 meters of fish mass (it even had really long whiskers!!). Being that the biggest fish I have ever caught is a mountain trout in the Sierras, this was a bit of a shocking business for your girl here. Yeah people, I was astonished!
He slowly reeled in that giant creature on to shore, and mind you it was not an easy task. The catfish put quite a fight all along the way. After many minutes of struggle, the catfish, left with no hope, finally gave in and was dragged to shore for all of us to watch. I must confess I felt an awful sense of sadness for this catfish. He seemed so old (he had to be for its size), tired, and defeated. He laid there submissive to his new captor struggling for air.
No one seemed happy with the sight of this catfish, until to my satisfaction, and that of all of the tourists that gathered at the bridge to watch the fisherman, after a quick measurement of its size, the catfish was carefully dragged back to its homely waters by the fisherman. Hurray! Like in the movies people crowded the fisherman shaking his hand and hugging him for what he had done. A beautiful day indeed.
