Oh! to be in Paris now that spring is here!

Ok, so it's fall not spring but here I am in the city of lights. I debated about coming here after reading some of the different guidebook descriptions about how fast, hectic and crowded it was here. Kind of all the things I like least about cities but I here I am anyway. I won't disagree with the guidebooks but it's not overwhelming probably due to the off seasonness of it all. I arrived late in the day and my first night in one of the most exciting cities on the planet. . .I did laundry. Sue me. It was my defense mechanism. Today I did started the tourist stuff. I took the free walking tour of the city and got the introduction to the places to go/see and a good lay of the land. I'm not gonna get to see 1/2 of what I'd like to. The tour took up a good bit of the day and since it rained most of the time, I called it a day after the tour except for a quick attempt at a letter box near the Palais des Invalides. No score on that particular box. So while I haven't been into any of these sights yet, I have been to or within sight of The Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, Musee de Orsay, the Eiffel Tower and Napolean's Tomb. I actually have a sort of filtered view of the Eiffel Tower from my room. At the top of every hour after night fall for the ten minutes it sparkles-the tower, not my room. It's pretty cool. I might have to break my rules about being home before the street lights come on while I'm here. While it rained most of the day today, it did stop in the late afternoon and there was actually an OK sunset. If that is a harbinger of tomorrow it will be a really glorious day.

Mixed in with all the seeing of sights and hanging out in lots of subway and train stations, I'm occassionally having thoughts of where would be best to spend the Christmas holidays. I'm thinking that the time around Christmas and through the New Year might be a good time to 'land' for awhile. I've also changed my itinerary to leave from Rome instead of Athens. It means skipping Greece this time around but I think the ancient ruins will be there the next time I get over this way. So here's a shout out to readers for suggestions of landing zones for the holidays. I just gotta be in Rome by the 4th for and earlyearlyearly flight out on the 5th.

So that's it from Paris.