Picture of the Devil aka Bunelzebub

I was looking through some old photos, and I noticed that I seem to have captured a shot of the Devil when I was in London.

Here he is, hanging out in a park.

If you are in London, don't worry; this was 2005, and he has probably hopped on by now.

Plus, you can always placate him by giving him a carrot. Remember: hold on to your soul; offer a carrot instead.

They will know us by our sneakers

My old man and I took a trip to Paris, where it's a Euro here and two Euros there, and the next thing you know, you're broke. Also, it's easy to spot fellow Americans because 1) they are everywhere, and 2) they are wearing sneakers and shorts.
We walked all over town and cooled down with a three Euro icy fruit drink.

We drove down to Fountainebleau and jumped in the gardens.

We hung out at the Invalides with Napoleon's tomb.

We hid from the sun. It got pretty hot, and I'd like to point out that the Arc de Triomphe is not as close as it looks from the Louvre, and that once you finally get there, you will be mad at it.

We went shopping.

We ate Nutella, because it is freakishly ubiquitous and because it is delicious. We prudently bought only one Nutella crepe to share, then fought viciously over each bite.

We visited Notre Dame, where tourists like us stomped around during Mass and took video like it was a Tony Robbins appearance.

At Notre Dame, we contemplated being dragged off to Hell.

We visited the Louvre, where the Mona Lisa had her dance card filled. Also, the recent NY Times article that noted that people zoom through the Louvre taking pictures of the pictures without pausing to actually looking at the things in front of them is absolutely true. Are the museum shop postcards too expensive? Are people hoping to zoom in and study their favorite parts of, say, Mona's right shoulder? Is there a lot of wacky Hey, I'm attending the Wedding of Cana! photoshopping going on?

We saw statues wearing beards.

We saw terrifying mannequins.

Don't you want to visit the Palais de Justice? Aw, come on. No, you want to go to Sainte Chapelle? But the line is so long! Come to Palais de Justice? No?

The most awesome thing we did was to take advantage of Velib. This is a bike rental system with stations everywhere you turn in town -- you get a pass (which is a few Euros) with a number on it, type in your number and password at the station, select a bike, unlock it and away you go. The first 1/2 hr is free. The next 1/2 hr after that is 1 Euro. Each next 1/2 hr after that is 4 Euros or something. So you can't just take it out all day, or you will be money-sorry. But to hop from place to place, it is excellent and super-fun, especially since Paris has lots of marked bike lanes (as long as you don't mind sharing with buses) and even separate lanes in the islands in the middle or side of the street that are the most fun and excellent of all. The Paris drivers were generally patient and easy enough to drive with (at least compared to Boston, where I got my street-riding chops and were drivers are horrible evil demons).

Caveats about Velib:
(1) This is Very Important: North American credit cards will not work here on in the Metro stations!! They don't have whatever special stripe or code the French cards have. Also, there are No Other Alternative Places Anywhere to buy Velib passes. You have to get them at the little unmanned stations. After much confusions and searching, we finally found a tip on a blog that said someone's American Express card worked, and that's what worked for us. Otherwise, I think you can buy a pass ahead of time on the internet and have it mailed to you.
(2) The system only works if people continually take out and return the bikes. A number of times (e.g. at Notre Dame) we came to our destination and went to a station and could not drop off our bikes because the station was full. There is a map at each station showing you where nearby stops are, and you can type in your number to get an extra 15 minutes to use to go to the next stop. But sometimes it took quite a bit of searching to find open spaces.
(3) Check your bike before you take it out (tires, steering column, lock).

We went to Montmartre and walked in the cemetery, where we learned that even in death, the rich get fancier houses than the non-rich.

I went to the Musee d'Art Moderne and set up my camera on self-timer to take this shot. Then I picked up my stuff and wandered off,leaving the camera. I was two floors up sitting in a room entirely filled with Roald Dufy's magical mural when I reached for my camera and found it missing. Quelle suprise!

I hurried downstairs, where the lady guard came after me, clearly realizing that I was the idiot who lost her camera. I was also the idiot who failed to learn conversational French in my months of study prior to the trip, though I could read pretty well at the point. The lady guard for some reason insisted on speaking instead of typing at me. So I kept holding up my hands and clicking an imaginary camera and saying "photo apparail", which I was very proud of knowing, and she kept nodding and saying, "camera". She asked her friend guard where they took my camera, then kindly walked me to the elevator and told me to go to the fourth floor and... do...something.

So I went to the fourth floor and figured lost-and-found would be a the coat check. The coat check lady was nice enough but very confused as I kept saying "second floor downstairs" and "lady" and "camera" and mimed picture-taking and mimed putting my mime camera down and walking away from it because I could remember the word for "take" but not for "lost". What was the problem, lady? I thought you people loved Marcel Marceau! But she had no idea what I was doing.

So I thanked her and tried the ticket desk, where the ticket man knew English (score!) and knew exactly why I was there, but insisted on grilling me on the make and model of my camera. I think he was jerking me around. But he finally gave it to me and said, "so it wasn't stolen!" and I should've said "bon chance!" but I didn't think of that until later, darnit! So I just said "Merci beaucoup!" and ran out of that museum because I was all stressed out and I don't know how immigrants do it, it is freaking stressful to not know the language and feel so stupid.

I have to note that, in general, the Parisians we interacted with were very nice and pleasant and patient with us, that no one made fun of our bad French, that I successfully asked a book store guy, in French, if he had a book on birds and HE DID, that I also successfully bought four postcard stamps in French at a tabac despite mispronouncing "the United States" and "four", and that everyone was pretty much laid-back and friendly, and I live in LA so I know from laid-back and friendly. The bike system and the Metro are awesome and easy ways to get around. I definitely recommend studying up some French before you go, as it was a huge advantage to be able to read signs and things even if my speaking/listening skills were just above deaf/mute.

Good job, Paris. I'm glad you weren't blown up in 1945.