Not kidnapped yet

Our flight was as expected: Long, boring, and cramped. We watched a lot of movies (skipping Avatar, guessing that some of its power might be lost on a four-inch screen) and didn't get any sleep. At immigration, the agent ignored us completely and argued with his colleagues voluably, while absently mindedly stamping our passports. There was no customs control at all.

The taxi in to Paris was a big, comfortable Mercedes with black leather seats and two sunroofs. Too bad it was cold and rainy in Paris, and, because it's Easter, the charge was 80 euros.

And the apartment is, um, unique. I'll have to take pictures and post them for you to believe this place. It's on a snicket, in a tangle of pedestrian snickets lined by restaurants. Outside each restaurant stands a shill, sometimes dressed in a humiliating ethnic costume, enticing (no, badgering) passersby to view the delightful arrays of uncooked food in the windows. Because of all the food, Lonely Planet tells us, Parisians call this area Bacteria Alley. And indeed it was here that we ate dinner the night before Ria got a stomach ailment when we were here in 2007. So perhaps it wasn't from licking the Pont Neuf after all ...

The neighborhood might be a tourist trap, but it sure is conveniently located, only half a block south of Notre Dame and the Seine. The apartment is also just mysterious, located between floors 2 and 3, and apparently having a deep-seated fear of right angles. It's also just huge taking up two floors. It's not the chic-est place we've stayed, but it will do.

Jet lag killed us, and we slept right away. We dragged ourselves out at one, and had lunch at a local brasserie, outside Bacteria Alley. Ria was miserable, so we skipped coffee, and went home and went back to bed. Annabelle and Benjamin came over an hour later, and we talked for two hours without Ria even noticing. Then we went back to bed. We're only up now to reassure the grandmothers that, so far at least, no one has been kidnapped, we haven't been robbed at gunpoint, our luggage hasn't been lost or stolen, and we haven't gotten sick. We're about to head out to Notre Dame, source of all the bells that have been ringing all day for Easter (Pasque), and to see if we can find a creperie at this hour.