On Wednesday, I walked to the center of Paris. That’s a big walk from Montmartre. I left our apartment at around 3:30, Mrs. W happily ensconced within, and walked for two and a half straight hours. Finding my way was a little challenging. I had a map of central Paris and one of Montmartre but that left a gap in between. Still, I had a general idea of how they related and that turned out to be sufficient. I walked down the hill along a route that eventually took me to the Place de la Concorde, hung a left, and entered the Tuileries, walked down to the Lourvre, then started home. On the way I spent a few minutes resting in the jardin outside the Palais Royal. Up until now, that little oasis of quiet has to be my favorite discovery. If I’d been there before, I have no memory of it. Of course, Mrs W says that we’ve been to all sorts of places that I have no memory of. I’m not sure whether to believe her. She could be making stuff up.

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It’s very nice up here on the butte. Montmartre is like a little village in the middle of a big city and, apart from all the stair climbing, easy to navigate. Our studio apartment is very pleasant. Just one problem: Mrs W is allergic to it. We suspect a cat lives here part of the year.

We’re very near a Metro station. One you enter the station, you need to descend 112 steps to get to track level. That’s because the station sits near the top of the Montmartre butte. Fortunately, you don’t have to take the stairs. There are two elevators. We usually take an elevator up.

There aren’t too many tourists where we are staying, but when walk near the Place du Tertre, the famous square where people have their portraits done, or near Sacre Coeur, they are everywhere. We hear snippets of English, Spanish, German, Japanese, Chinese, and Italian. We do our best to engage our fellow travelers by speaking with them in their native tongues (offer directions, provide restaurant suggestions, warn them about the dog doo-doo underfoot, etc.), but speaking French all day has positively driven everything else from our heads. It’s a wonder I can compose this passage in English!

Speaking of restaurants, we ate at a tiny veggie restaurant in the neighborhood. We weren’t sure what time Parisians ate dinner and arrived at 7:35. We were the only ones for quite some time. 8:30 seems to be more like it. Despite our exquisite Parisian French, the waitress/cook/dishwasher/owner (did I mention it is a small place?) broke into English after we had uttered but a few words. I suppose she wanted to practice. The food was good, served all at once on large platters. Mine featured sauteed seitan and Mrs W’s featured a slice of squash pie and vegetable pate. The waitress/cook/dishwasher/owner (wcdo) is either a bookie, operating a front for the mafia, or providing fair trade and/or organic goods to those who march to the beat of a different drummer, if you catch my drift. Whatever the case, a French person would periodically enter the premises, speak completely unintelligible French with the wcdo, and leave with a bulging shopping bag.

My ipod Touch turns out to be a great little wireless network finder. It displays a very readable list of all the wireless networks it detects and places a little lock symbol next to any that are password protected.