We spent a lot of time on Saturday walking through Paris. We arrived in Paris a little before 0700 and took the metro most of the way to our hotel in the 6th, walking the last few blocks. This early on a Saturday morning the city looks pretty dead - no chocolate croissants to be found whatsoever. The bakeries don't open until a little later, and no one's out on the street except for sanitation workers putting out new trash bags. (Paris has an interesting take on the "design a trash can for a city street corner" interview problem: wire hoops with bags hanging from them.) Anyway, after dropping off the bags we got a good walk through some historical sites and even found a little farmer's market. The market had everything: all kinds of meat, cheese, chocolate bits, sandwiches; even shoes for ten euros. After nibbling, we went to wander around a shopping district near Montparnasse. After some walking and shopping, it was time to escape the heat by eating baguettes in the shade at the park (luxembourg palace something-or-other? It's big). I snagged a copy of the new Harry Potter book on the way.

I figured I'd be the only dork reading Harry Potter in the park while eating lunch, but no - there were at least four others. Plus there was a high school band putting on a show. After hanging out in the park for a while, we visited an assortment of chocolateries in the neighborhood (chocolate should not taste like flowers!) and went back to the hotel to check in and shower.

After a quick trip to the card room, during which I made the single most expensive mistake I have ever made at a card table, Andrew and I met up with the others at the Eiffel Tower for dinner. We opted not to wait in the super-long line to go up the tower and took a river cruise instead. (As it turns out, there's a skyscraper at Montparnasse Bienvenue that's almost as tall as the Eiffel Tower, cheaper to visit, and has no line, so we did that on Sunday. Plus, from there, the Eiffel Tower is part of the skyline.) The river cruise was neat - we'll post some goofy pictures once Andrew gets back to a computer - and at the end, the Eiffel Tower lit up with lots of blinky white lights. I don't know if this is just for Bastille Day or if it happens all year round, but it's pretty bright - I can't imagine living around there with it blinking that much.