zooropa, day one

i'm sitting in my very chic, very tiny room.



our hotel is in the heart of the 1st arrondissement, which is french for "get out of the bike lane you filthy americans." it's a charming, w-esque little property on the rue du mont thabor and is just as charming as it sounds.

apparently paris is broken up into these arrondissements much the way chicago is broken up into neighborhoods, though the arrondissements are more formal boundaries. we are on the Rive Droite -- which is french either for "the right bank of the seine" or "i mean it, you fat american pigs -- the bike lane is for bikes, not for taking pictures of yourselves with your bloated oversized digital cameras" but i'm not sure which -- as if i could ever be on the gauche. i voted for W, after all.

this is my first time in europe, and i'm very excited about the things i'm seeing. frijolita spent a few years here in high school and college, but her time was spent mainly in germany (which we'll be getting to at the end of the trip). and i dated a scandinavian woman in college, so most of what i think i know of the continent is gleamed from these two experiences. i'm excited to be gathering my own misguided conceptions about paris and the french now. such as:

everything in paris is small.



i am so buying this car when i get back home, even if you can't get them in north america. it's called the Smart (though those aren't my abs and bikini babes aren't chasing me around -- yet) and is made by daimlerchrysler. you can learn more about it here. i'm very attached to small things (paging dr. freud) and this little baby car is just a bit too adorable for words. rest assured i'll be driving one around my very spread-out suburb not long after the car is available in the u.s. ... i'll buy four and park them next to the hummer one of my neighbors "needs" for his business.

no wonder hemingway got fat.



if it's true that "le papa" ate pigeons when he was young and poor in paris, then his selection was outstanding. we saw more pigeons in the jardins des tuileries -- french for "what, you don't smoke? everyone smokes, stupid" -- than i think we've ever seen before in one location.

when the evening light is perfect, the louvre is beautiful.



after dinner -- by the way, paris is tres expensive -- we walked around the tuileries and took some pictures. if you want to keep track of the photographic evidence, the flickr set is here.



this is the best i could do with a few shots i took, given that it's 7 a.m. here but 1 a.m. back home, i've been up since 5 a.m. here and i've not had my cafe au lait yet. i could do more with the sky, but what can you do?

i had a great anniversary.

even though the day was spent in a jetlagged haze, frijolita and i found a great way to spend our second anniversary. of course, if paris = second anniversary, i might have to book a trip to the moon for our third. and i don't even want to think about what that means for the tenth.

on the whole, though, day 1 in zooropa turned out to be very enlightening. i've learned that it's not uncommon here for a bottle of coca-cola to cost the same as a pint of beer ... i've learned that americans take for granted that everything around them will be big ... i've learned that dogs in restaurants are a natural thing ... and i've learned that it's easy to spot an american when you're away from america -- just listen. you'll hear us.