An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

  Fri   Our last day was a two museum plus sightseeing day. We started with a visit to Napoleon's tomb at Les Invalides (full name: Hôtel National des Invalides) . One of the things I've found interesting about Paris is the surfeit of incredibly impressive buildings. Thinking about the fact that there was a time when the aristocracy had the money to build all sorts of grand buildings while the populace was living at a subsistence level, it's no wonder that the people ultimately revolted against their rulers. By this point in the trip we'd already visited The Louvre (former palace), the Monet Museum (mansion), and later today we'd be visiting another fancy old building which housed the Rodin Museum. The Invalides was built by Louis XIV with the noble purpose (in multiple senses of the word) of providing residence and care for military veterans, sort like today's Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda. It's enormous, and stunning. Today it houses various museums, bu...

  Tues   First, a word on Paris fashion. Interestingly, New York Yankees caps seem to be trendy among Parisians. At first I thought I was just seeing a bunch of dumb Americans wearing markers that they were tourists, but then I noticed that I was seeing the hats everywhere, not just around tourist sites. I didn't see any from any other U.S. baseball teams, just the Yankees. Overall, I'd say American and European fashion has converged over the decades. For example, I remember in the old days being advised not to wear jeans in Europe, since that would peg you as an American. Today, lots of Parisians wear jeans. And Europeans used to wear very different shoes than Americans, but today, sneakers are everywhere. In general, I'd say Parisians on the street dress a little better than Americans (and both men and women wear a lot more jaunty scarves than you'd see in America), but it's harder than it used to be to tell who the tourists are vs. the locals based on clothing. O...