667. Silly rabbit!

They say that Paris is the city of love, but this clock is too much! It is marks the time and Swatch's location on the Champs d'Elysées.

Tuesday night I set out with the intention of going to the Eiffel tower. I changed my mind on the Metro and instead went to Shakespeare & Co., an English bookstore in the Left Bank district of Paris.

I love bookstores, especially tiny ones overflowing with used literature. Shakespeare & Co. did not disappoint even though they didn't have the book I was looking for. The shopkeep was as surprised as I was that Rand's Atlas Shrugged was not on their shelves. I guess somebody shrugged.

Darn. That only means one thing: I have to go back.

I didn't leave empty handed though. I bought The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham. The wow-factor of syncronicities has digressed to more of a hm-factor for me the past year or so, for reasons too complicated and personal to explain here. However, when they come knocking and the risk of playing the fool is low, I answer--and such was the case with The Painted Veil.

Not at Shakespeare & Co., but taken at Virgin on the Champs d'Elysées. I bought a French lesson book and CD. Mon français est embarrassant.

Let me explain. I carry with me two, sometimes three, small notebooks (roughly 4" x 4" each). They contain all sorts of information that would hardly be considered useful or interesting to anybody else. I guess you could call them my external RAM. I record funny-to-me life observations, events or movies that pique my interest, book and movie recommendations, etc. I transfer the data to a master notebook that I have organized by categories--movies, quotes, books, websites, music, to blog, and misc. After I transfer the notes from my little notebooks, I tear out the pages and throw them away--to clean the slate, so to speak.

Who's that half-faced woman? C'est moi!

Tuesday morning, the morning before my Shakespeare & Co. visit, I did a notebook data transfer. The Painted Veil was scribbled below "David Gray, Gathering Dust" and I have no recollection of writing either entry. I placed the Veil under two categories--movies and books--and the Gray entry under music.

Now, it's not like I saw Maugham's book on the shelf while I was searching for Atlas Shrugged. Oh, no. It was at the top of a small pile of small books on a chair that was also occupied by the bookstore's black cat. "Hm" I said, and then to the cat, "that's weird." I proceeded to tell him in my bad French about the coincidence. The cat didn't think it was a particularly notable or strange coincidence, but said that I should buy the book because he owns company stock. He then told me to scat, because I was the first person to ever speak to him, and that made me strange and notable. (I didn't point out that he could be called strange and notable, too, for talking to a person. Yeah, I'm nice like that.)

French people gathered on this Siene bridge at sunset for wine, bread, cheese, and friends. The blurred man to the extreme left was trying to become my friend, and I snapped this photo mid-pick up.

The Italian men are internationally known for their aggressive style when flirting. Perhaps it's because I was often with friends or family when I was out and about, but I didn't have the experience of Italian men coming on to me inappropriately like I did on my flight to Dublin. I consider myself lucky, because in the 4 days I've been in Paris I've been pushed to the edge by aggressive jerks. If Italian men are worse than French men... then I guess I don't know the meaning of aggressive! The man pictured above was a relatively easy one to deal with. It only took three times for me to say, "Non. Bonsoir!" for him to back off.

Earlier in the day, a man approached me speaking in French. At first I said, "Je ne parle pas français." It became obvious he wasn't asking me for directions, and I said "Je ne comprends pas le français." When he kept talking, I ignored him and kept walking. I knew that he understood that I didn't speak and couldn't understand French, and I have a feeling he could've spoken English if he wanted to. So, when I heard and understood him say "avec moi" (with me), I replied in a sarcastic tone, "Avec vous?! Non, pas avec vous!" (Translation: "With you? No, not with you.")

I felt supreme satisfaction when he scoffed and finally left me alone. He was the extreme, of course (I hope), but I've had enough. Fortunately I live in an area that isn't frequented by tourists, so when I'm walking about I imagine that people assume I'm a native or that I speak the language. I think the aggressive types prey on tourists and single out the single traveler. Despicable creatures, the whole lot of them.

Note to self: learn the phrase "Leave me alone!"

Onward...

Children are strange! These two amused themselves walking on all four, and they were darling:

At the Parc du Champ de Mars.

I found this picture on Place des Etats-Unis, a nice street in Paris:

I must be in the city of love!

The children above were playing Spiderman. The girl on the right has a Web Blaster attached to her wrist (sans glove). You can see it a bit better in this photo:

The children seemed to be as excited as I am about the new Spiderman movie. I thought I had to wait another week to see it--because the French number "1" looks like an American English "7"--but, no! I'm going tomorrow.

Posters for Spidey's new movie in the Métro (the subway system of Paris).

It's graffiti, but I thought it was pretty.


Caught in the act! These young people apparently had the blessing of the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris which is undergoing some construction.

Bonne nuit!