Bonjour!

We just finished a nice 4 day bank holiday out here, it was an unexpected surprise to have 2 days off and more importantly - the perfect opportunity for a quick scoot over to Paris. Last minute accommodations were hard to come by so I put my NYC apt. hunting skills to work. I found several ads looking for long-term tenants in a few central Paris apartments. I replied to a few that seemed like they were still vacant and made them offers to at least get a 3-day tenant in for a few extra bucks. If you throw enough lines, one's gotta bite and it worked - I got a response from a fellow named Julien (jzoo-lee-ON!). He said sure, it could work and gave me directions to meet him at his bar that night. So I hopped on the Eurostar and 2 hours later pulled into Gare du Nord station in Paris.

Armed with a phrase book I was ready to hit the town. I had a few hours to kill before the meetup so I got to walking...

First stop - Arc de Triomphe, I learned 2 things here: 1 - the 'Arc' was commissioned by Napoleon himself in honor of his Grande Armee and 2 - your not supposed to run through the traffic circle to get to it

Not sure what this is.

The weather was fairly rotten so I had to switch back and forth between poncho and no poncho. More than the rain the decision really came down to a matter of looking cool or not...I opted for looking cool and donned the sweet poncho as I walked the streets.

I eventually arrived to Julien's bar and met the guy right outside for the first time. He was a cool dude and passed the normal test (which is hard to apply on French people, just kidding!). We went in and he hooked me up with a beer. He told the bartender to keep hooking me and I met some interesting locals, to say the least. This was turning out to be alright. Now I know what your thinking, "if it seems to good to be true, it probably is." I was thinking that too but don't worry, I had one element working in my favor that evened out the situation...it was a gay bar.

So like I said, I met some interesting locals and hung out for a little until they closed up the place. I know what your thinking still, and I told you - I sized up the situation - Julien himself wasn't gay (not that there's anything wrong with that) and it wasn't his bar, he was actually the bar-back, but still got me hooked up with free drinks. I was relieved to find out he wasn't gay (not that there's anything wrong with that) because the apartment for rent was actually an extra bed in his apartment.

As it turned out it was a great place to crash - right in central Paris for three nights with the guidance of a real local plus free beer and coffee all for the cost of 60 euros.

I spent the next 2 days walking and walking and walking. The Louvre was a particularly interesting place, you could spend days there, perhaps, if you enjoy crowds and the B.O. I spent about 2 hours and saw plenty:

The Viva La Vida Cover!!

She actually is quite a dame

ummmm....your penis is showing

ok, so the real reason the Mona is kept behind a glass barrier is that the Japanese tourists deemed it was good luck to spit on it. That's what I was told, just reporting facts...Another fact - I could probably get close enough to spit on Mona quicker than I could get a beer at the Bowery Bar in NYC. I hate that bar (if you have a blog, you have to hate on something every now and then).

I've never seen a crowd like this in a museum, absolutely crazy. So, if this seems like the best piece of Real Estate in the history of museums, this has to be the worst:

LES NOCES DE CANA

which is French for 'opposite the Mona Lisa'

Just think, people spend all day with their back to it, what a rip off! In my opinion there should be a men's room or a cafe right there.

This is en empty case. I spent about 60 seconds pretending to be looking at something really interesting, at least 4 or 5 people who walked by stopped to try and figure out what it was, no joke. I had to get a photo, the most odd look came from the lady I asked to take this picture.

So that was the Louvre, there was plenty of other landmarks you can check out good photos on 'www.google.com'.

I had no time to climb the Eiffel Tower, not with the crowds but I got a free panoramic of Paris from the roof of Julien's apartment building.

Really awesome.

And the man himself:

Julien makes a STRONG cup of coffee, but necessary to power through as much of the city as possible in 3 short days. The last night we hung out and he made some dinner in the apartment (real good cook). We were joined by his neighbor, Natasha who lives next door and works as a translator. She is very cool, definitely an artsy personality with lots of awesome stuff to talk about. We all stayed up late drinking wine, listening to music, smoking cigs, telling jokes and talking about books and movies. Natasha is a Paris local but originally from Poland so we capped the night with shots of Polish Vodka. It kept me up for about 45 minutes. As I laid in bed trying to stop the room from spinning I had one thought, awesome weekend.

Me, Julien, Natasha

My humble abode for 3 nights

Crazy city, great city.