I wish Paris was a prison and I a convicted double murderer who will never be cited for good behavior

I am staying in a small apartment near the Metro station Parmentier in the Arabic part of Paris, though I haven't seen all that many Arabs. Juliana and Jean-Michel are my hosts thanks to Andrea and they are as kind as Mother Theresa. She is an artist and he is a schoolteacher of physics and chemistry. They include me in everything they do. Today, I went to table tennis practice with Jean-Michel and then to dinner at a friend of theirs' home in Montmarte. His name is Sylvan and he is a math teacher. We ate fondue, drank a seemingly unending amount of wine and I tried my best to understand their conversations in French. It was like being in a New Yorker article.

I do the tourist things during the day and at night, I hang out with my gracious hosts. I could talk about the Eiffel Tower for an hour and I will say the best part is being underneath it. I love it so.

Tomorrow, I am Louvre-ing. Paris is huge and abstract and real. It is not just a place on a map anymore.

On Sunday, the reason I am here, indirectly, is playing at the Cinematheque Francaise and Juliana and Jean-Michel are going with me. It is Antonioni's L'avventura in Italian with French subtitles on 35mm in a movie theater designed by Frank Gehry.

mike