A gorgeous day here.

There was a manif going on around the corner from the gym, at the Sorbonne, I think. Perhaps in sympathy with the Quebec students whose activities were, coincidentally, on the TV news at the gym at that very moment.

On my way back, I saw a small rat in the Metro, on the tracks in fact. I don’t know why I was surprised but I was. It did remind me of a French doggerel I learned years ago:

Iggory, diggory, dorge,
Le rat monte a l’horloge.
Une heure est frappe,
Le rat s’echappe,
Iggory, diggory, dorge.

(The spelling may be a bit off; it must be 50 years since I learned that.)

Bought the IHT at the Presse but occurred to me that even in the 3 years since we’ve been here, our reading habits have changed. We read the NYT, FT, Globe etc. all on iPad. Since I read the Times, I don’t buy the IHT except for the weekend issue that has the NYT Sunday crossword in it.

More than that, we read books on the iPad, thus, unfortunately putting small independent bookstores like the Village Voice, which has been here since 1984, out of business. Very sad but clearly no turning back from this technological reliance.

In fact, we barely use the Blackberry anymore except to tote around for emails during the day.

And I had to go to The Moose to watch a Blue Jay game three years ago; now, I just watch it on my iPad, MLB12. Incroyable!

Having read one of his books, The Sweet Life in Paris, I like David Lebovitz (formerly of Chez Panisse) but his recommendation of steak/frites at Aux Tonneaux des Halles on rue Montorgueil was odd; there was certainly nothing special about the cuisine or the ambiance. Clearly, lots of other Anglos ad read his piece (a few days ago on www.davidlebovitz.com, reblogged in Zite) as the place was full of them, mostly Americans. Anyway, it was just lunch.

Roo didn’t like my Yankees cap (and I thought it made me look, maybe, a bit of an American although you see blue NY caps on tons of men here, one woman the other day, even) so there was a hat store off Montorgueil and you will see from the photos the one I wanted to buy and the one Roo made me buy.

After un petit pause, we trekked out around Boul’ St. Mich with the throngs and into St. Severin chuch that I’d taken photos of a few days ago but hadn’t gone in; lovely stained glass throughout. Atget had photographed it a century ago; it didn’t look like it has changed much.

Later tonight, we had a couple dozen oysters and a bottle of excellent Sancerre at Huiterie Regis (who was in attendance), a gelato from Amorino on rue Guisarde, and called it a night.