Day one of being a tourist! The Louvre is about 15 minutes walk away from Hotel Ascot Opera, where I’m staying. From there, it’s another 20 minute light walk down the river down towards Notre Dame, Saint Chapelle and Conciergerie. Started the day late today, had some trouble sleeping due to a little jet lag.
The Louvre is huge! Looking on it from the outside, I’m not sure how I’m going to finish that in one day. Will most likely go back for another half day to finish up the exhibits. Notre Dame was very crowded. Besides the usual tourists, we hit it right up in the middle of morning mass. Even with mass, they still let tourists go around the cathedral along the outer corridors so as not to disturb the worshippers. The priest(?) was 
speaking in French, and the cathedral was completely full. It’s hard to believe that such a large, grand building was first constructed in the 12th century! 
After walking around the beautiful garden surrounding Notre Dame, it was time for both Saint Chapelle and the Conciergerie. Saint Chapelle is a small chapel famous for the stained glass windows all around the walls, depicting things from genesis to Judith and Job and others. While small, it was definitely worth the look, though only if the sun was out. Luckily, today was about the only sunny day for the next week. Unfortunately, Saint Chapelle was undergoing partial 
renovations, so parts of the windows were covered, and other parts were very dirty and barely visible.
Conciergerie used to part of the royal palace where huge dinners were hosted (with 2000+ people) in the large hall on the lower-ground floor until it was later converted to a prison. The hall almost had a LOTR feel to it, large pillars holding up the roof, completely empty of furniture, just like any RPG game. The prisoner section was interesting, with mockups of what conditions the prisoners would have been placed under, including special ‘upgrade’ cells where prisoners could get some privacy and a bed, to ‘private’ cells if the prisoner paid enough to get upgraded to a private room 
(sound similar to LA?).
One thing the guide book warned was that the Crypt of Notre Dame was hard to find.. and boy was it! Walked plain around it twice while searching for it, missing it completely thinking that it was the entrance for the Metro. Finally found it and went in to see what the original buildings and foundations were for the Notre Dame area back in the day. Probably not worth visiting alone, but with the museum pass making it free, why not!
It started to look like it was going to rain, but there was a half-hour long organ recital that came only on Sundays at 4:30pm at Notre Dame. Stayed for that, a selection of music by Le labyrinthe du monde et le paradis du coeur by Petr Eben back in 1929. I don’t think I’ve actually heard organ music like this before, quite hectic at times and very dramatic.
And rain came… It was a 45 minute walk back to the hotel in the rain, so I decided to try out the Metro system. After spending almost 10 minutes puzzling over the maps and routes, I finally figured the two train systems out enough to get home. Took three changes, but at least it was out of the rain!
Culture wise… well, a few initial misconceptions about Paris were quickly destroyed. This place is as diverse as, if not more so, compared to the Bay Area. Lots of Chinese, Indians, Africans(I guess they wouldn’t be African-Americans) running around speaking perfect French, with their own little stores and making a living here. Strangely, the Opera district, where I’m currently staying, seems to be a mini-Japantown, with lots of Japanese restaurants, shops, even a library. It’s hard to get non-Japanese food around here without walking a distance away.
The tourists are about… I’d say almost 50% English speakers, with a few scattered other languages (saw a big Chinese tour group), with the remaining French. Everyone I encountered spoke English, though it is true about the French. If you speak to them first in English, they come across as rude and unresponsive, but if you start off with a bit of French, even as simple as excusez-moi, they’ll become a lot friendlier and try to help you. Even the non-ethnic French behave that way!
Tomorrow: Louvre! Showers all day, so it’ll be good to get indoors 🙂