Paris, part deux

I arrived at Paris airport about 5:40 this am, made it to my hotel about 7...to find that (big surprise) I couldn't check in until noon. But I was offered tea and croissants, turned down the croissant since Air France actually not only serves food but it's actually not bad. Afterwards I decided to go for a walk to reacquaint myself with the area-I had stayed near here five years ago. I ended up walking about 5 or 6 miles (yes, I did get a tad disoriented at one point, but survived-good homing skills and a poor tourist map). 

After getting checked in and a brief rest, I headed out for lunch-which turned out to be scallops at an Asian cafe, followed by the world's best sugar crepe at a street stand. Oh, I do love the food here! I wandered back toward the museums, ended up at Musee d'Orsay where one of the featured exhibits was on a series of paintings that Picasso did over about 20 years, all after Manet's "Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe". One of the more fascinating exhibits I'd seen, to see clearly how one artists is inspired and moves on from another. This, from someone who has not particularly been a fan of Picasso. However...the Picasso museum is relatively close to my hotel, and I had planned to visit today but they are closed on Tuesdays-so that was on tomorrow's agenda already. Now, however, I am even more interested to see what is there, since I did really like a couple of his works "after Manet". 

The weather here is rather cool (and breezy, which isn't helping), but no snow, and I think before the wind it is still slightly above freezing. The last time I was here it was April and warm-so it's interesting to see the contrast on this trip. 

Tomorrow is my one full day here, it's going to be rather casual since the point of this stopover was to break up the journey home-not kill myself in trying to be "super-tourist". 

I guess I must have blended in a touch, anyway-someone stopped me and asked (in French) if I knew where the Tuileries were-which unfortunately I didn't, but it was fun to be thought a native-or at least someone who looked like they knew something.