Today I finally saw one of the sights of Paris I've always wanted to see: the famous prostitutes of the Bois de Boulogne!

Today, May 1, is a national holiday in France... this is, after all, a proudly socialist nation (or at least, in theory), so the worker's holiday is a big deal. No one works, and most businesses (except for a fair number of restaurants) are closed. People buy flowers (I smelled my favorite, lily of the valley, for the first time since I came to Stanford!), and everyone fills the streets to enjoy pleasantly pastoral activities like walks and picnics. Actually, there was also a huge rally today for Segolene Royal which must have drawn thousands... I know this because it was held at a stadium right next to my dorm. There were vast throngs of people in the street heading to the rally when I finally got out of my dorm room today. The election is coming up fast... I'm excited. I do love a good election.

But not being French, and being self-centered in any case, I did not do the educational thing and go to the rally. Instead, we went for a picnic in the Bois de Boulogne. This is an enormous park on the trim western border of Paris. Actually, it's more a woodland than a park... lots of untamed nature, very Romantic, in that nineteenth-century-British-landscape-painter way. We only saw the tiniest corner of it (it's enormous... almost three times bigger than Central Park) but had a great time tramping over the little woodland paths, among streams and brambly patches and stuff like that. We did visit a particularly lovely part of the Bois, the Parc des Bagatelles, a walled-in "Anglochinois" garden with swans and peacocks roaming around. But, in typical French fashion, at the stroke of eight police came through with whistles and shooed us out of the park before we could see everything we wanted. Oh well... a good reason to return.

Anyhow, the prostitutes. Maybe because it's located in a rich and prosperous part of Paris, the Bois is known for becoming somewhat... entrepreneurial at night. I seem to remember a part of The DaVinci Code involving prostitutes in this park (though God only knows what that had to do with the mysteries of Jesus), and my guidebook mentions the particularly celebrated Brazilian transvestites who work the park at night. For such a reputation, the place seemed tame by daylight -- children, miniature trains, the whole family-friendly deal. But then -- we left right as the sun was setting, picking our way down one of the park's principal roads, chatting about this and that... and our conversation stopped dead when we saw our first prostitute! She was standing in a little wooded glade beside the road, all legs and short pink dress, running a comb through her long hair. And then we saw more. Maybe they sleep in the forest by day and emerge like lemurs in the night. But they were definitely prostitutes. I don't know if they were man or woman, Brazilian or not... but prostitutes, yes. The funniest part was being there right at sunset, as the two worlds of the Bois collided, families with children walking right past seductive, vacant-eyed "ladies of the night."

Enough of that. I have been doing much more than prostitute-watching in Paris. Last week I realized with some alarm that I haven't been taking advantage of the pass I have from Stanford for entry into all Parisian museums, so I've been to several in the past few days. First of all, I went to the Louvre and finally saw some of the more famous works, including the Mona Lisa. God, everyone says it, but I have to as well... what a disappointment. Or, maybe not a disappointment, but a mystery, at least. Why so famous? Why does it merit a slew of guards and an enormous wall all to itself? It certainly isn't much to look at, comparatively. The whole Louvre makes me feel that way... I just have trouble relating to a lot of the art on display there.

But I went to the Musée de l'Orangerie, a place I've wanted to go this whole time, and found it to be fantastic -- small and manageable and full of interesting works. The museum specializes in the era bridging Impressionism and Modern art, and that includes some of my favorite painter, Matisse. Turns out it includes a lot more, as well... I discovered an artist I'd never heard of but whose work I found especially compelling, Chaim Soutine. The Museum's most celebrated installation is a 360-degree panoramic presentation of some Monet water lily paintings, which are pretty dazzling if you like that kind of thing. Anyhow, this musée totally lived up to my expectations. Hooray.

Yesterday I went to the modern art museum at the Centre Pompidou, probably Paris's most controversial building. This is the one that's turned inside out, with all the pipes and other infrastructure painted in primary colors and put on the outside. I personally like it, and enjoyed the chance to see the building from the inside. And what an art museum! Seriously, this is what I relate to -- Matisse, my favorite, but all the others, too. And what a setting. The museum is on the fourth and fifth floors of the building, so the large windows and terraces offer sweeping views of Paris. Another great museum. Hooray again! And all this for free... "oui, je suis étudiant en histoire de l'art" ... that little line, coupled with my letter from Stanford is pretty much my mantra these days.

On Sunday I finally did something I've wanted to do since arriving: taking a good long walk. I set out from my dorm without a clear destination and just made my way around the city. Paris is a great place to do something like that, so I had a good time. It surprised me how well I could navigate the Left Bank, my part of the city -- familiar sights (or at least names) kept popping up. That makes me pretty happy if I'm getting to know Paris. There were also some dramatic sights. The afternoon was threatening rain, and I saw some trees dropping pink flowers like raindrops as thunder boomed in the distance... quite a sight. Later, though, I got caught in the rain, which was less poetic and more annoying. It poured like it hasn't since I've been here, though I didn't mind that much -- I've gotten so used to seeing Paris in bright sunshine that seeing its moodier side was kind of a treat.

One last story to tell -- don't judge! So we went to this hookah bar we've been to a couple of times. It's a really nice environment, friendly and calm, reasonable, a good place to hang out for a few hours. Of course we got hookah. We decided, however, to try a new flavor -- the one that sounded exotic and (to me) delicious, "miel" -- honey. When we ordered it, however, the waiter kind of looked at us. He told us that it was "trop fort" -- very strong. We thought nothing of it and ordered it anyhow. He brought it and it looked nothing like any hookah we'd seen before. And when we tasted it, we could hardly stand how strong it was and how unexpectedly difficult it was to get the smoke down. We didn't taste any honey. And after a few hits we looked at each other and said, "Something feels different about this...." I will spare you all the details, but let me tell you -- this was no ordinary hookah. We all felt... well, almost high. Can you guess where this is leading? So, being nerdy students, we of course went online later that night and looked it up. Sure enough, "honey" and "miel" aren't only what they really are, but also refer to hash... so we accidentally had hashish in our hookah! Oh man... it was, I think, one of the funnier surprises that Paris has brought me.

Those were the big adventures of the last few days. Now I have my "long" day of class tomorrow, and then we leave for our fabulous tour of France the next day! I am dying of excitement. So no updates for a little bit... but thank you for reading this one. Bisoux!