Then give the man a pear!

So, now that I'm no longer as likely to pass out in front of major landmarks... today was a lot more manageable. I found neighborhoods that made a lot of what I saw yesterday make more sense. Here I am, making my official retraction on Paris being "homogeneous." Here I am also saying I think the part north of the river is kind of pants. But that might be because it's Sunday and most everything was closed. That's absolutely no excuse for how far I walked in search of a bottle of water, though. Maybe I'm just really, really bad at this but it should not be possible to walk miles without coming across a store that sells cold bottles of water.

Of course, there are more pictures today. You know the drill.

( And then, further attempts to stay awake. )

So, what I learned today: Just because an area is interesting to me, or historical, does not make it "touristy." Touristy is very definitely independent of what I think of something. It is actually possible to turn the wrong corner in Paris and end up somewhere you don't want to be. And slowly, slowly this city is clicking into place for me, and even though I am still severely out of context here, it's starting to make sense in and of itself. The architecture is relentlessly (almost disconcertingly) consistent, but at least there are neighborhoods that aren't sorted entirely by what they are selling.

tl;dr I walked, and then walked some more. And then there was some walking, and a bit of walking and more walking. Also impressionists and walking, Oscar Wilde and walking, medieval relics and walking, and walking with walking and hipsters and tourists.