Pareee!

Mother and I are here in Paris, enjoying the cool weather and working on our geography. It's taken us a few days, but we have finally gotten a pretty good sense of where we are in relation to other things, and thus I have finally located an internet cafe.

So far, Paris is as pleasurable as Angers, though more challenging. Mostly the challenge is that there are a gazillion-bazillion-tamillion tourists here, and they tend to get in the way. We don't count, naturally. The other challenge is that Mother's doctor gave her a knee brace to wear. The brace makes walking quite difficult for her, and thus even a short walk takes a lot longer and is a lot more tiring than it ought to be.

So we are staying in our neighborhood (the Marais) and using taxis to get to places more than 10 blocks away, like the Louvre.

Contrary to rumor, we've found no rude Parisians. Of course, I find New Yorkers charming, so perhaps I have a bad radar. But here, everyone smiles, they say 'bonjour!' constantly, they inquire about our needs, speak English when they think we need it (which is about half the time), and offer us nothing but courtesy and assistance. I read an article which made a huge deal out of getting a Parisian waiter to smile a tiny bit.

Piffle, I say. On the first day, a waiter grinned at me, on the second day he winked at me as we left, and on the third day two waiters might have been our best friends.

It's true, that crossing the street is a challenge (crazy drivers!), but not as much of a challenge as in London. At least twice, in London, I thought I might die. Charles was hyperventilating. Here, people don't seem to drive as fast, and we don't get the kind of angry gestures, either.

Yesterday, we visited the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, the Orangerie, the Tuileries Gardens, and the Centre Pompidou (the best of the lot, truly wonderful). Having flexed our tourism muscle, we are taking a bit of a breather today to check email, have a leisurely lunch, and then go see this little place called the Louvre. I figure 20 minutes for that, then shopping.

Right?