Friday, May 12, 2006

Bit of a Present

Paris...wait...what?

I had a problem. I couldn't fly back to London from Bucharest for less than 900 bucks. My inexpensive options were Bratislava, Slovakia, or Paris. Both provided cheap hops back to London.

I gave into temptation.

I've said before, Paris is one of my favorite cities. There is so much here I haven't seen. It has cafes, it has the parks, and it has great people watching. It really wasn't that hard of a choice.

There was on thing in particular that I gave myself, as well. I happened to walk past this place called Breakfast in America. As the name implies, it's a American-style grille. I haven't had a good, American breakfast[1] in a long time; eggs, pancakes, and some sausage. Man, it was tasty. I know, I know, I'm in Paris, and I should be sampling local cuisine, but I've been doing that for weeks.

Ok, so that and a trip to the Louvre. No trip to Paris is complete without it. I think I've gone everytime I've been here, and probably will in the forseeable future. I spent much of my visit this time around touring through the ancient artworks of Rome, Eygpt and the Middle East. These cover practically a whole wing of the building (which also exposed me to some pretty amazing rooms I had not seen before).

I stopped in the Italian Painter section, as well, for the obligitory viewing of the Mona Lisa. I had seen Da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine in Krakow, and wanted to compare the two. I think the Lady is actually his best work. The museum had re-done the Italian section, rotating in different works, as well as moving the Mona Lisa to a larger room in the section. The Da Vinci Code Effect[2] strikes again.

It's a joy to walk around this city, again. It seems so familiar, yet there is always something here that suprises me. One of the surprising things is that it also has, apparently, a pretty good tango scene. Something to check out tomorrow...

[1] I really hope the NSA is monitoring everyone's reading of this. All this "American"-whatnot business will help your standings in the Not-A-Terrorist Department.

[2] Similar to the
Slashdot Effect in the way it increases traffic to sights in the novel.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Couldn't be too surprsing, right Peter? There was a whole movie called "Last Tango in Paris". :)

When we were in Japan, one of my favorite restaurants was Japan's answer to McD's, Moss Burger. It was a little healthier and more delicious, but still burgers, fries, and salads.