Parting thoughts

Antique furniture store on Rue LaGrange. My impromptu wanderings often led me to the 3rd, 4th and 5th arrondissements. On the map they look like stegosaurus plates straddling the Seine in east-central Paris.

1. The metro smells the same. A combination of bowling-ball cleaner and burned rubber. It is not unpleasant.

The Musee D'Orsay opened in 1986. Works of artists born after 1820 were moved here from the Louvre.

Sacre-Coeur as seen from 4th-floor Airbnb apartment.

2. I realize more than ever that I am an inefficient traveler. Pre-trip, I'll spend 30 to 40 hours on Pimsleur language discs, but I do cursory research and have no day-to-day plan. Once abroad, no habits take root; I am always learning and kept on my toes. This also makes me hopeful, in the sense that this is the way the world should be.

Line 7 leading to Tolbiac. The Paris Metro continues to grow. The Villejuif spur (Le Kremlin-Bicetre, et cetera) opened in 1982.

The Jonas bookstore has been on Rue Tolbiac since 1957. It's on the right side as you walk from the Tolbiac metro station toward Les Olympiades.

Today, Rue Tolbiac has an Eastern feel.

Coming close to the towers. Blue Coréen restaurant, center.

In the shadow of the Tour Athenes now. At left beyond the gate used to be a manicured 400-meter track. It has been replaced with a domed area for le foot, le basket, who knows.

Tour Athenes, 2017.

Les Olympiades: Rain-slicked staircase that young Sluggh used to ascend with his homework has been replaced in part by an escalator.

3. At a certain point you begin to doubt your memories. Rue Tolbiac in 1974 was a buzzing bazaar — with a Citroen dealership and a shop that sold fancy sound systems and Johnny Hallyday records. I would swear to the latter particular but cannot trust the first. Today it is lined with Asian travel agencies and restaurants. To anyone worried about the trajectory of this city, I would argue this is a good trade.

Late-1960s Olympics-inspired residential towers in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, near D'Ivry. From left, "Mexico City," "Athens" and "Sapporo."

I had forgotten about these (Sapporo-themed?) retail pavilions at the towers' base. Nor did I realize as a child how important Les Olympiades were to south Paris. The city's main Chinatown is is now clustered around the development's southern edge.

4. I am drawn more than ever to the Paris' quiet neighborhoods, and there are many. I will mention two: Where Rue Dubenton meets Rue de la Clef in the 5th, near the overlooked Jardin des Plantes. Paris has no north-south streets to speak of, no east-west axis. What it does have is ten thousand cafes cast like pearls and the same number of oblique intersections that lead you to these small urban whirlpools. The neighborhood near the Censier Daubenton metro stop not only has a terrific cinema (where I was offered the following discounts: "Are you over 60?" "Are you unemployed?") — it is pedestrianized by custom, where motor vehicles are merely tolerated. This is really something: a hyper-local attitude about how carless Parisians wish to negotiate the day-to-day with their motorized neighbors. Everyone is welcome, but children are playing and you damn well better not be distracted.

The second miraculously quiet neighborhood on my list is in the 3rd arrondissement around Rue de Poitou in the Marais, an art-gallery street that's so quiet your thoughts seem to echo off that handsome Armenian church. You think you know a city, but you really don't. When I read online tourist advice that Dijon is worth a day and Avignon a half-day and Paris three whole days, I want to vomit into my hands. Today's movement of people and goods, what we eat and think about, would be recognizable to a time traveler from the Middle Ages. Every square meter is a source of wonder. Look for the small town in your big town. Work outward from there.

Corner of Saintonge and Poitou, in the Troisieme.

5. I've not seen anything like the revolution that is taking place in European sidewalk transportation. Hoverboards seem to be dead, but kick scooters are huge and electric scooters and e-skateboards are catching up. The gyroscopically self-balancing electric unicycles are a marvel to watch in action. Jetsons stuff.

Notre Dame Cathedral.

This schoolteacher (brown coat) is the spitting image of Steve Kerr. Also, Degas' "Little Dancer Age Fourteen."

6. Not Paris-related, but remember to back up your SD card every single day. I failed to do so and lost about 300 images and videos to disk corruption early in my trip. Watercolorists have the right idea: fast and honest, and no capricious partition failure can take it away!

End