Well, the weather was still on the gloomy side, but not unpleasant. I decided it was the perfect hiking weather, so I took off for the Jardin du Luxembourg…

Now, having just re-read The Da Vinci Code, I decided to crack open my Fodor's Guide to The Da Vinci Code (yes, there is one and, yes, I bought it). I had decided to check out the "pagan sundial" that's supposed to exist in the Church of St Sulpice, but it soon became an obsession to find all the little 5-inch brass discs I could spot that mark the original Paris Meridian Line that was out-voted as Prime Meridian in the 19th Century in favor of Greenwich. There are well over 100 of these discs, but I decided to just look for the ones beginning in the Luxembourg Gardens and walking north through the Palais Royal.

I have to say, there are sure a lot more folks jogging and skating and bicycling than there ever were when I lived here! A lot less smoking, too, to my relief. It took a while to find the first 3 in the gardens, then I went to St Sulpice and saw the "gonome" which is not on the Paris Meridian (nor on the site of a former pagan temple) as Dan Brown indicated, though it is a north-south Rose Line. The sundial cuts diagonally about two-thirds across the transcept and was installed to accurately measure the equinoxes and solstices in order to predict the date Easter should be celebrated (the Sunday nearest the first full moon after the vernal equinox – who knew?). It was this device that first allowed astronomers to figure out that the earth is slowing its rotation by just over 45 seconds every century! Otherwise, the church was pretty dim inside and rather ugly on the outside.

Instead of continuing north, I took a large detour to the east, wandering through the 6e (found more cow statues!) until I got to Boulevard St Michel where I bought a sandwich and strolled over to the little park in front of my favorite little church ever – St Julien-le-Pauvre. It's not only the oldest église in Paris, but it has incredible acoustics. I highly recommend attending a concert there if you can swing it. Right next to it is the famous English bookstore Shakespeare & Company, another fave.

From the park, I hit the gauche side of the Seine continuing east and descending the quai steps to the Ports of Montebello and de la Tournelle. These are right across from Notre Dame… and, if you're a Highlander TV series fan, it's where Duncan's barge is moored in the latter seasons when he's in Paris. (Whereas the Shakespeare & Company bookshop was ostensibly Watcher Central.)

I then walked back and crossed the bridge to Notre Dame and was assailed by bagpipe music (!) before ducking down into the Crypte Archéologique where old Roman ruins had been excavated. Then, it was off to the Palais Royal to resume my search for the Arago discs. I found several going north, slanting through the southern corner of the building, then retraced my steps – after a chocolat Bailey's at the Café Le Nemours, one of the oldest in Paris – and began picking up discs going south from the Palais through the entrance and Cour Carrée of the Louvre. There are supposedly 3 more discs inside the Denon wing of the museum, but it had already closed by the time I got there. I'll have to verify their existence on my return trip.

All Arago-ed out, I decided to take the metro to the Champs Elysees to catch the movie Chromophobia. I took the metro at the Carrousel du Louvre… where several more cow statues were displayed. I finally asked the woman in the art supply store there (they were selling little paper maché cows you could decorate yourself!) what the deal was with the cows and she handed me a map with there locations all over the city. According to one placard, the must be at least 159 of them, but they might not all be on display. I only saw 3 of the 5 at the Carrousel, so perhaps they have some of them more hidden?

At the Champs Elysées, the movie had just started so I decided to head back to the hotel after grabbing more Vietnamese take-out. I immediately crashed, having clocked almost 20,000 steps. This means, of course, that I'll NEVER get properly on France time. Sigh.

Tomorrow, I head to Cognac by fast train and meet up with Ellen. Internet access is dicey, so it may be a while before I can post again. In the meantime, amusez-vous bien!

Well, this entry is going to be short. Not only are my Internet minutes about to expire (stupid 24-hour rule!), but it was a very lazy day. I'm definitely not over my jetlag yet – it usually takes me about 3 days coming East. Don't know why, just is.

I went next door to the Bureau de Poste right after breakfast and bought a ton of stamps for post cards and mailed several. I then hung around a bit before meeting up with an old boyfriend, Mr Bruno Royer. It turns out that his (new to me) shop that sells fencing equipment – sigh, the sport, not the enclosures – is just the next street over from my hotel! Quelle coïncidence, etc. Anyway, I met him at Cartel-Éscrime and we went over to his local favorite sushi place for lunch. It was great seeing him. He hasn't changed much since the 12 years we last saw each other, except that he's now a husband and a father to a 4-1/2-year-old adorable Ukrainian girl name Irina. Bruno had to take off to teaching fencing classes at his club in the Bois de Bologne, but I now have the phone number of his brother Jérôme who is now the mayor of Jarnac… which happens to be Bruno's home town and only a few kilometers from where I'll be staying in Burie with my cousin Ellen!

After lunch, the clouds were gathering so I just went back to the room and read a bit. Hey, it's kinda great just hanging out and reading! And when the thundershower hit, I was glad to have a room at the top floor right under the roof.

Of course, a couple hours later, I couldn't keep my eyes open so decided to indulge in a nap. Sigh. I woke up at 8:30pm (that's 20H30 here) and ran out to take the metro to the Tour Eiffel. The line was prohibitive, so I didn't get to see the sunset from atop the tower, but it was a nice walk and the crepe au chocolat was worth the trip.

I didn't bother going up the tower, but instead wandered over to the Trocadéro and then took the metro back.

Ellen called at one point to suggest that we actually consider staying a night in Bordeaux on our way down to Biarritz. Fine with me! It means more drinking and less driving! :-)

Quelle journée! After a leisurely, rather jetlagged start, I bought a carnet of (10) métro tickets and scooted up to the Arc de Triomphe to begin my own triumphal return to Paris. My first stop was the nearest postcard spinner where an elderly gentleman – the friendliest Frenchman ever or a seasoned senior gigolo? hmmm -- started to chat me up. I avoided whatever le monsieur was trying to make happen and continued on down the avenue, adding more minutes to my French SIM card and grabbing a sandwich along the way.

I'd no sooner crossed Franklin Roosevelt and entered into the little nearby park to eat my lunch when I was assailed by watery eyes and an incessant bout of sneezing. I was verily repelled! As soon as I moved away, I was fine. I have no idea which of the many varieties of flowers there I'm apparently allergic to, but it seems to have been a localized event. Thank god I'm not allergic to the chestnut trees – they're all in full bloom, too, and they are EVERYWHERE.

Before reaching the Place de la Concorde with all its new glittery gilt on fountains, lampposts and obelisk, I encountered not one but THREE COW STATUES. (Check out MY PHOTOS link -- I've uploaded them to my usual Ofoto.com.) But besides a cute guy riding his bicycle seated backwards on the handlebars, I didn't encounter any further evidence that I'd just walked into a Dali painting.

At lunchtime, all of Paris was outside soaking up the sun. I walked all the way to the smaller fountain in the Jardin des Tuilleries before I found an empty chair. I had at one point found an empty bench, but it was encrusted with old bird droppings and, given the big signs at the airport warning folks about the Avian Flu, I decided to pass it by.

Originally, I was just going to walk by major landmarks today, maybe write my postcards near the Tour Eiffel. But there it was, the huge signs for the Jean-Auguste Dominique INGRES exhibit, announcing that it closes on Sunday. So, I bought a ticket and descended the pyramid into the Louvre. It was very crowded, and when I exited the exhibit, the line going in was enormous. I'd beat the rush. Needing to air out my brain – which I always seem to need to do after intently gazing at walls full of masterpieces – I strolled around the excavated walls of the original medieval Chateau du Louvre in the museum's basement. I don't know whether it was the lack of crowds or the lack of vibrant colors, but all that neatly stacked, old, gray stone served as the perfect brain sorbet. But that was enough. I was still jetlagged enough to not want to try to stuff any more culture into my head, so I continued my walk.

I strolled the long way around the Louvre along the Rue de Rivoli going east before cutting over to the Seine. It was now cloudy – though still quite balmy – and the bouquinistes had to scramble to cover their wares as the rain started. But it was a false alarm. If the clouds were cannon, the rain was just a warning shot over our bow. I crossed back over to the Rive Gauche over my favorite bridge, the Pont des Arts footbridge. When I passed the Pont Royal, I happened to look down and notice a line of tents erected along the Quai Voltaire! I'm pretty sure that it's not a sanctioned campground and I almost wanted to hang around to see if the police were going to rout them all.

But no, I elected to wave hello to the Musée d'Orsay and head over to the Solférino metro stop… where a plaque told me all sorts of interesting stuff about the Swiss founder of La Croix Rouge way back at the beginning of the 19th Century after the Napoleonic battle of Solférino saw 6,000 men killed and 42,000 injured in 12 hours. The founder (whose name I didn't have time to memorize as the train arrived) was just a businessman visiting Napoleon to get him to invest in oil drilling in Algeria, but was so appalled by the carnage that he rallied and organized the local people into caring for the injured soldiers. The armies had more veterinarians than surgeons at that time because horses were more valuable! As soon as I have copious amounts of Internet access, I'm gonna be Googling this dude.

Back at the hotel, I parked myself at the local Brasserie/Salon de Thé/Tabac place and finally got around to filling out a few cartes postales. I then grabbed some Vietnamese takeout and headed up to my room to upload photos. It's almost midnight now, but I'm still in some other time zone. Good thing I'm not tired… the local rowdies have just left the bar and are attempting to sing something. Friday night, I guess, is pretty much the same everywhere.

Thud! My plane managed to land in France only an hour late due to some persnickety head winds and I have a new respect for French toddlers as the several that populated our cabin were amazingly well-behaved (thank god!). This was the first time I ever had a layover on the way to Europe and, though everything went smoothly and quite uneventful, it made for an awfully long trip.

Let's see... didn't sleep at all on Tuesday night ('cuz I'm a marvel at packing procrastination), drove down to the South Bay at 4:30am where I parked my car, needlessly panicked a bit when the taxi was more than 20 minutes late, but still managed to get to LAX and through security by 6am, and the plane to Chicago took off at 8am. The 5-hour layover became more like 5-1/2 hours and the plane landed at 10am Paris time (that's 1am Los Angeles time) instead of 9am as scheduled. I then split the difference between taking a taxi (trop cher) and the train/métro (trop d'effort) and took a bus into Gare Montparnasse and a quick taxi to the hotel Yllen Eiffel in the 15th arrondissement. By the time my room was ready, it was 1:30pm Paris time... 4:30am LA time -- yep, that would be 24 hours exactly spent travelling! Sure, I slept a couple of hours on the planes, but that never really counts, right? Suffice it to say, I discovered that the bed in the hotel works just fine!

Despite the fact that it was a GORGEOUS summer-y day when I landed, I just couldn't keep my eyes open. Total collapse occurred soon after some token unpacking had been accomplished. I slept until 9:30pm and, though I made a pretense of showering and dressing and going outside to the corner store for a few sundries, I really haven't done much except get my French SIM card working for my mobile phone (learning the word for handset is "mobicarte") and signing up for some wireless internet access. Oh lá lá. I've caught up on emails and this blog, but still have not made headway on acclimating to the local time or really deciding exactly what touristy thing I should tackle first. I'm thinking the Louvre, maybe a nice walk along the Seine... I sure hope it's another nice day tomorrow, er, later when it's light out.

Today's observation of note: I say two nuns, both in threadbare travelling habits, getting on the bus into Paris from the airport. First, they both wore Birkenstocks -- who knew that this popular footwear was sanctified?? I didn't. Also, between the two of them, they had a TON of luggage -- what for?? Could it all have been books? Were they smuggling truffles or chocolate or something? I'm just sayin'.

Toute á l'heure...

Welcome to my first-ever blog! I thought I'd set this up to avoid filling your inboxes with emails of my month-long sojourn in France with a wee stopover in London on the way back.

This 2006 trip marks my fourth time in Paris, but my first time in the southwest -Cognac, Bordeaux, the Aquitaine and Dordogne regions, including a stay at the Chateau de Larunque outside of Biarritz. The latter is the reason for the trip: friends Kit Davlin and Ariel Kerr are tying the knot there.

Right now I'm in the Chicago O'Hare airport on a 5-hour layover. Just as well... I didn't get a chance during the panic-packing phase to set up this blog.

Stay tuned right here for photos and a running jet-lagged commentary on my "loin voyage"... um, that means "far trip" and NOT what you were thinking!