21 April: Some People Shouldn't Travel
We're in Paris! And we just woke up after sleeping some 14 hours or so. Our apartment is perfectly situated in the Latin Quarter (where the Sorbonne is located), just a couple blocks away from Notre Dame. We're right across the street from the ornate St. Severin church. After arriving, we went walking about the area to keep ourselves awake (neither of us slept on the plane). We were also on a trek for towels, which are not supplied at the apartment, at the BHV, a department store recommended by our landlords, Claude and Violainne.

While not as upmarket as a Nordstrom, BHV certainly isn't Target or Fred Meyer--at least as far as towels go. After some searching, we selected two towels that would look good with our new bathroom colors back in Seattle and were the second cheapest we could find--at 21 euros apiece (that's like over $50 for two bath towels). Yikes. The reason, I suspect, is that they're made in France, not China or Southeast Asia, where the labor wages are going to be on a more livable scale, thus boosting the cost of goods. Or some such ecnomic nonsense as that.

We crossed back over the Ille de Cite (where Notre Dame is) and back to the Latin Quarter where we sat down at a cafe in Place St. Michel, perfect for watching the stream of people walking by. Unfortunately, our attention was detracted by a few obnoxious American tourists--an older couple and two college-aged guys--who had the bad fortune to posess cliched and stereotypically loud Southern/Texan accents. The older couple seemed to be part of some multi-stop European tour (which the two younger guys may have been a part of, as well). Some of the commentary we picked up (I wish I had it taped):

• The architecture here looks like it does in London. You can't tell what city you're in by looking at the buildings.
  
• For dinner last night, they served us balls that ,i>they said was chicken. I guess it was chicken.
  
• I went up to a guy and said, "English?" (ed. note: in hopes of finding a common language) He just said, "No, i'm French."
  
• We just want to go home.

Mrs. Facade and I had to stifle exasperated laughter. It's no wonder that Americans get such a bad rap. However, we felt pretty good about our on-street demeanor and dress as we were asked several times to take part in interviews or sign petitions.