[Dec 2014: After 4 months, I’m finally getting around to writing this up. I’ll let everyone know about it after it’s done, so if you happen to see this, you are getting a sneak preview!]
Landed in Paris at 6am. After clearing customs, my first order of business was to see if they had pay showers in the airport someplace. At the very end of this trip, I would be coming straight off living on a sailboat for a week, and thought I’d probably need to clean up. Alas, there was nothing to be found, only perhaps lounges for frequent flyers, which I was in an earlier career, but am not anymore.
Moving on, I navigated the train system to Gare du Nord, then the city blocks past the nearby Gare de l’Est to end up at my little hotel. It was still pretty early in the day and my hotel room wasn’t available, so I dropped off my suitcase, having extracted the camera and map for a day of sightseeing. Bought a SIM card for the mobile phone, texted the new phone number to a couple people, ate some train station food. Hit the pavement!
First up, a stroll past the Canal Saint-Martin, which was just a block east of the hotel, and recommended by my cousin Susann. A beautiful, quiet boulevard, with tourist canals leisurely working their way up and down the canal, through the locks and under the pedestrian bridges.
The Centre Georges Pompidou is the main modern art museum of Paris, and a place I’ve been trying to get to every time I’m in Paris. On this trip it was my highest priority, and I would finally succeed, but not quite yet. I walked up a little before 11am to find A) they weren’t open yet and B) there was a pretty big line. I’d come back later.
South across the Seine to Ile Saint-Louis (the smaller of the two islands in the river), wandered the streets, passed east of Notre Dame (which I’d get closer to later), and came out on the other side of the river on the Left Bank. Made my way up to the Pantheon, a collosal cathedral-like structure that looks like a cathedral but is nonetheless a secular celebration of the notable characters of France’s long history. 
The interior you are presented with upon entrance is fabulous and ornate and amazing, with astonishing details wherever you look. For example, seemingly tucked in a corner is a huge mural “Death of St. Genevieve” 
about the patron saint of Paris.
But the real deal is downstairs in the basement, where the remains of dozens of notables lie in what is essentially the national mausoleum of France. Marie and Pierre Curie, Victor Hugo, Voltaire, Rousseau, Zola … the gang’s all here.
Back down the hill towards the Seine (past some Autolib electric cars) to the Musee de Cluny, the Museum of the Middle Ages. The exhibits were a bit dull (tapestries, ceramics, etc.), and I was admittedly starting to feel the lack of sleep, but the setting was pretty spectacular. 
Deep within the museum was an entire Roman bath, a huge room with marble everywhere you looked. 
And on the grounds outside were fabulous gardens, full of lunching Parisians, not just tourists. Great place to stop for lunch, so I did.
Onwards to the gardens of Luxembourg Palace, and an entire section of Paris that I’d never even sped through. Lush landscaping, beautiful architecture, long rows of carefully pruned trees. Took a few pictures for my Dad, who’s a big fan of hedges — and now that I think about it, I don’t believe I ever sent him those pictures, hmmm. Found a quiet spot among the young people (and kids) and took a short nap under partly cloudy skies. 
Back north, across the Seine and onto Ile de la Cite and Notre Dame. The famous cathedral was another obvious tourist stop that I’ve attempted multiple times, but the lines are always massive, and they were again today. 
So I wandered around the outside a bit (had already taken a longer look on a previous trip) and stumbled across … an old battle tank being driven down the street.
Pictured here is the tank on the flatbed truck before, no lie, an older gentleman climbed inside, fired it up, and drove it off the back of the truck, down the street, and straight through an entryway and into the courtyard of the stately old building, perhaps the police headquarters. Who knows! A fairly large crowd had gathered (this was tourist ground zero, right next to Notre Dame) and everyone was pretty incredulous at the surprise event. I got some great video of it. Moving on …
… To a Piper Cub right around the corner. Celebrating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Paris from the Nazis, the display commemorated the moment on August 24th, 1944, the day before the actual liberation, when Leclerc’s approaching resistance forces flew an aircraft just like this one over this spot, dropping leaflets to the police below saying “hold on, we’re coming“.
Finally, Centre Georges Pompidou. The most obvious feature of Renzo Piano’s early career design is that it turns a building inside out — putting major structural and functional elements on the outside of the building, instead of hiding them behind a curtain wall. Rode the iconic escalator up to the museum floors, and spent around two hours poring through everything they had.
Nina Pereg’s 8-minute video “Sabbath” had me transfixed for the duration — longer, actually. It shows a street scene in Jerusalem, where Orthodox Jewish men (boys, actually) move barriers into the street at the beginning of the weekly period of rest.
Stooping through a short tunnel-like entrance led to Joseph Beuys’ “Plight“, a large room lined in thick rolls of felt (Beuys really liked felt) and enclosing a piano.
These are just the two things I happened to take pictures of. There was sooo much.
Grabbed some food someplace, and crashed into bed for my first sleep in 40 hours.