Blergh, blisters, but only two. Today, as I left Maria was also leaving, so she took me to another market, and the novelty has still not worn off. Held on the Rue and in the Place d'Aligre, apparently it's one of the more famous ones, and once again I very happily wandered and failed to buy Tori underwear or salt shakers. Afterwards, I struck west, passing la Bastille and getting an eclair on my way to the marche aux fleurs. I'd read online that on Sundays it turned into a bird market, but figured it was a bad translation of something else weird because a) the site was in English, and b) a bird market? But a bird market it was, a lot of different kinds of finches, cockatiels, lovebirds, a few parrots, two seemingly-redundant pigeons, doves, only a few vendors but still, very cool. Hanging out in touristy bits for a while, I got jumpstarted on my postcards for this year and just chilled, enjoying watching fellow foreigners walking in front of cars, waving at me from bateau mouches on the Seine, swarming the quais, getting bunched up on corners and in front of large, seemingly-important objects, it was fun.
Ending up doing a fair amount of walking anyways, I re-explored Chatelet les Halles, the Galerie Vivienne and the pedestrian area south of le Palais Brongniart [which used to be the stock exchange but now seems to be rentable?], which was full of cafes and boutiques and things, and where I got some chicken on a stick that made me happy. The rain and the blisters marked the end of today for me, so I guess I'm turning in early ....
Weird things about France: Their aluminium soda cans are heavier here, not by a heck of a lot, but just enough that when you forget you've drunken [drank??] your soda and pick up the can again, it takes several seconds of hanging it perpendicularly above your gaping, gasping oral cavity for you to realize, and to remember. And I'm serious, by the way, I'm not crazy.
Place d'Aligre and the Things part of the marche
part of the bird market
Pont Neuf from the western end of Ile de la Cite
a bit of the Louvre, and its utterly distracting pyramid
part of le Palais Royal [which did use to house royalty, but gradually became a mall-and-a bit of the post-royalty government combo]
Galerie Vivienne, basically an enclosed street, nice place
if you can make it out, this is three levels of a movie theater
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