First I’d like to mention a personal achievement. You probably know that I have been “learning” French. Well. today I had a “mon petit test.” I was very nervous, which is unusual for me. The test didn’t really affect me in any way. I just hate failing! Soooo, it’s over now and I can say that I think I did fairly well! No, I still cannot speak very much French, but I have a start. Yay!

OK, so on to the events of the week so far. Sunday, we took in another view of the city, this time from the Terrace at Galeries Lafayette. It’s really a high-end department store that has an excellent marketing tool: A beautiful rooftop terrace. C’est gratuit (that means it is free), but you do have to walk through the trop cher merchandise to get there (oh by the way, I am afraid of heights, so I stayed as far from the edge as I could and spent the entire time looking down at my phone so didn’t losing my mind. Also, the barriers at the edge – are glass – EEEEEEEEEEEEK!).

We walked from there to 59, rue de Rivoli, which used to be a serious art’s squat when the area was downtrodden. Since then, the city bought it and rents spaces out to artists on the cheap. C’est gratuit aussi and if we weren’t “unhoused,” which I guess is the new PC term for homeless (we are not homeless…we are nomadic), we probably would have bought a few paintings (or at least one).

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On the way between the two, we stumbled upon one of Paris’s covered passages, Galerie Vivienne. It reminded me a bit of some of Chicago’s underground walkways, but it was fun to walk around in because it was pretty much empty. Get ready for another photo montage (but there’s more text, so read on!). Yes, it was that kind of day. Everything was très, très, très photogenic.

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So far we have managed not to eat any French food (besides pain au chocolat, des baguettes et fromage) and Sunday was no different. So what kind of food did we have, you ask? Belgian, of course! We went for the good beer at un resto nommé Au Trappiste. Good beer, good food and we met a very smart Danish guy (retired economics professor and now works for the OECD) for excellent conversation. Of course, he spoke excellent English.

I don’t know, maybe I am just a starry-eyed tourist. Maybe Paris was pleasantly empty (it’s starting to refill now that August is coming to a close). Maybe I just love it here, but everything has been wonderful and every time we go for a promenade, we come across a beautiful building or park, something unusual or another place we file away for our next visit. There are more photos, but I don’t want to overload your visual cortex right now. (Plus I may have a down week and need some random shots.)

Oh, BTW: we got fooled by the old bait-and-switch. The Alexandre Dumas we saw at Montmartre was not THE Alexandre Dumas. It was his son. So guess what? We’re off to the Panthéon for one more round of dead person bingo. FYI: Josephine Baker will be transferred from Monaco. As in the U.S., racial tensions are high and this is one attempt to lower the temperature. She will be the first black woman interred there.