Naebody in Particular

friends of ours came to Paris of their honeymoon. they basically rented an apartment for two weeks, and packed a bunch of books, and just lived a normal Parisian life for two weeks (sans blackberry, i hope).

i thought they were crazy — turns out they weren’t.

we ran around like tourists for the first 18 hours we were here, before we started dawdling longer and longer in the cafes around the tourist attractions than in the attractions themselves.

the cafe at Notre Dame is a great example. it’s a horrible tourist trap, and it was horribly overpriced, but sitting there drinking liquid chocolate for two hours is one of the top memories i’m taking home with me.

It’s nearly impossible to overstate the impact that tourists have on The Louvre. They’re everywhere, and they’re crazy. The Lady Sparker and I spent a grand total of two hours in the museum (including 45 minutes at their cafe) and ticked off most of the top 10 things you “have” to see — and then got the heck out of dodge. Beautiful museum, it just needs about 2.3 million less people in it at any one time.

i had such an incredible sense of déjà vu standing on Pont Neuf, a bridge from Paris’ left bank to one of the islands in the river Siene. After a second, i figured it out — the bridge is featured in the first Jason Bourne movie:

Enough. 5:30 p.m. Paris. Today. Pont Neuf. You come alone, you walk to the middle of that bridge. You take off your jacket. Face east. I’ll redial this number.

I’m sure I’ve once again offended a couple centuries of cultured peoples by having this association, but (again) you can take the American out of America, but you can’t …