Paris will always have us

A friend wrote to ask for swift advice for a Paris visit with g-friend. My answer, the distillation of 4 years of fond memories, is always basically the same, so I’ll bookmark for future use:

Dude — I envy! Lunch at Minh Chau, amazing Vietnamese close to Pompidou, cheapest luxury in Paris. Drinks in the PM at George on top of Pompidou for great, relatively cheap view. See museums during the sequential night openings — Louvre, Musee du Paris, Tokyo, Pompidou — basically private showings. (I hate layout of Orsee day or night.) Our favorite spot for dinner is Brasserie Balthasar, full of young and old folk, rapscallion waiters. (Read Paris to the Moon for overview of the place — Gopnik claims it was ruined, but we saw no difference pre/post.) Flea market is good — be ready to brawl with pickpockets. Walk through the Palais Royale and the Luxembourg gardens when the pale winter light is unredeemably Parisian. Walk up the Eiffel Tower and along the Champs Elysee at night. Ramble in the Marais. Take pictures. Finally a literary must: reread The Sun Also Rises. Forget you’re reading a cliche — you’re reading a weirdly woven piece of tragic literature. Watch the number of times “money” is mentioned.