oui, paris.

a good cafe on the place st. michel.

somewhere around here, Hemingway found a cafe he liked and spent a lot of time writing there. (i know, because he wrote about it in his memoir, a moveable feast. but.) i don't know which one it was, but this is mine: the cafe panis, 21 quai montebello. my tea was served in a warmed tea cup, silver tea pot, and cloth tea bag. accompanied by a crepe au sucre and a kind waiter, a panoramic view out the all-windowed corner here on the Rue Lagrange, this has been a most pleasant and restful stop in my afternoon.

paris, on the second go, reminds me more than ever of new york city - big, dirty, and an extensive metro system. people are busy and often unfriendly. the city is exciting, lots to see, but i feel it would be hard to live here and feel at home. amsterdam or basel or prague, on the other hand, has a feeling more like chicago - smaller, more manageable, livable. still, for now, i'm in smalltownville. make the most of it, i have to remind myself.

my second trip through the louvre was quite different from the first; less big and touristy, more hidden treasures. we started with the medieval louvre section- excavations of the castle from its earliest years. it was amazing, like walking into a big, cavernous room of buried treasure, only the treasure was the room itself. i took mom and dad to napoleon's apartment, my favorite spot from the last visit, and was no less impressed by the ornate decor as i was 2 years ago. on our walk between those two spots, we passed through medieval and renaissance halls of furniture lined with enormous tapestries. rather than feeling like i was in an endless portrait gallery, i loved taking in the ambiance of all of the different rooms and time periods. because i have little else to compare it to, my thoughts kept going to a pride-and-prejudice-esque picture of women sitting daintily in sitting rooms of elaborate furniture, gathered around the piano in Napoleon's grand salon...

we paid homage to the dear mona lissa, of course, and on the way i stopped to admire (though not nearly long enough) "winged victory." (note to self: research the background of that sculpture.) my next trip to paris, i'm going to buy a museum pass and spend the whole weekend inside. musee d'orsay, l'orangerie, the paris history museum.... there is so much left unseen.