The Ninth

-For future reference, let it be known that visiting certain Jewish buildings in Paris is only slightly more complicated than getting on a flight to Ben Gurion. The ridiculous thing is that it had occurred to me this might be the case, but it was only once I'd taken the mile-long journey from my room to the exit of the building that I remembered I'd forgotten my documentation folder. I'm not talking mere bag-inspection, metal-detection. It's a full-on interrogation about what you're doing there and why. Poor, poor security guards who have to hear about my dissertation. Bet they now regret choosing that post!

-So I went to the now-famous Rue des Martyrs. Where are these Bobos? I did find a place that sells flan that tastes more like creme brulee, which is something, but I don't think what the Times had in mind. And there appeared to be one Brooklyn-ish coffee place, which charged a whopping 4 euros for a cappuccino or similar, and as much as I wanted to get my second-ever "flat white," whether or not they make a mean one will remain a mystery. I mean, other than that one place, it's a nice, typically-Parisian shopping street, with a mix of Paris-only (France-only?) chains and nondescript but upbeat shops. Not hipstery or David Brooksy or lined with rich hippies. NYT, why are you sending readers to these random neighborhoods? Why not, assuming newspapers don't need to explain such things as there is the Louvre, there is the Eiffel Tower, why not the Boulanger des Invalides - Bon Marche - Bac - Saint-Germain - Seine loop? Why waste time? Unless I'm being too naive about this, and these articles are not for those for whom a trip to Paris is, if not once-in-a-lifetime, a special-occasion thing, but rather for those wondering where to get a pied-a-terre.

-Sorry, library, but my stomach is just going to make these sounds until Japanese Noodle Hour, which is, obviously, not going to happen until I've left.