I decided to take a few days and go to Paris with my friend and colleague, Rodrigo. It was cold and rainy, but still magical, as Paris always is. Without our previous knowledge, we booked a hotel located on a street that is one of the gastronomic centres of Paris, with a market and stalls and bakeries and fromageries all over the place. This is not that street, but a little alley where one of my favourite Paris restaurants is, Le Procope -- presumably frequented by Voltaire and Ben Franklin. I did not see them.
The rest of the time was spent walking around, mostly in the rain, looking for things that tourists don't normally see, like these:
I particularly like the jack-in-the-box above for its incongruity.
Right after I took the picture below, as we were getting ready to check out of the hotel and head to the Eurostar, someone on the street says hello, and it was a colleague from York University in Toronto. Small monde.
