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Thankfully there's more to our first night in Paris than the shitty mattress. We also ventured out (around 10pm mind you!) to a restaurant in Place Republique for some genuine French food. Kathy had a nice avocado mousse and shrimp salad thing, with some fish in red pepper sauce. I had escargots, which Kathy couldn't watch me eat, and some tasty, tasty meat.
The next day we walked pretty much the whole town. Six miles in all. We tried to venture out and catch the walking tour that met every day, but I couldn't figure out exactly where it was so we kinda made up our own as we went. We started at the Notre Dame and walked across the river to the Pantheon. After we walked through the Jardin Luxembourg, we saw a sandwich/bread shop with a line coming out of it. This is the kind of shit you figure has to be good, so we went and got what were some seriously good fucking baguettes. We meandered our way to Napoleon's Tomb and to the Tour Eiffel. This was the first (but not last) time in Paris we encountered hardcore crowds and lines (the Notre Dame wasn't that bad). The tower has four ridiculously long lines for each corner-- even for just the stairs. It didn't take us long to decide the view really wasn't worth it. We walked up to the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs Elysees. I did a rough measure and figured we did a roughly six mile hike through the town.
That night Kathy had a hankering for Thai food, so we walked toward the Thai-lookin' restaurant near our hostel. When Kathy heard them talking Mandarin (and started talking Mandarin to them) it became fairly clear that it was a CHINESE restaurant. This wasn't intuitively obvious. Nevertheless, I got some distinctly chinese Beef with Broccoli for dinner. Kathy got some sweet 'n' sour shrimp. Both dishes came with red fried rice. The spring roll we got was, I suppose, fairly Thai. Lesson learned: In France, they can't tell the difference some times 'tween Thai and Chinese food. But they know what sushi is.
The next day we went to the Louvre with Ariell and Elana, who we met at breakfast at the hostel. We didn't exactly get to spend a lot of time with them since the Louvre mosh pit (yes, there is one) separated us fairly quickly. We saw lots of stuff, including the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Venus de Milo, the Raft of the Medusa, the code of Hammurabi, several works by Carvaggio, and of course, the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa is smaller than you're thinking, but it's the only painting set against a big wall. Much larger is the overwhelmed security team trying to keep the horrifying mob of people away from the painting. I didn't even bother to get close to it.
Around hour 4 my legs started to hurt pretty badly. Around hour four and a half I caught up (and sat down) with Ariell and Elana. Ariell was also pretty into art, but around hour 4 her human legs caught up with her and she and Elana left. Not so for Kathy. We went through two more hours and two more WINGS OF THE MUSEUM before we finally, at about hour six, left. My legs will be in drydock for two months just so they can pound out the dents. That night we had Moroccan food, which was fairly common (and reasonably priced!) around Paris. I was surprised at first, then I remembered that whole Morocco-French Colony thing. Then it made perfect sense.
The next day we tried to visit the Musee d'Orsay before leaving for Colmar. We walked a mile or more from the St. Michel metro station to the museum before we saw the hideous line. Strange, since we got into the Louvre the day before with little or no problem. But even Kathy gave up after seeing that line and we had a slow morning of buying strange meat and eating triple-chocolate crepes before making our way out of the city.