Tati, large towels, foot blisters

Today I woke at 4:30 AM...and there was no going back to sleep. The beacon at the top of the Eiffel Tower had stopped swinging around and there were soft lights on it. I searched online for a branch for my bank in the area, and found one on Ave. Suffren, just about 8 blocks away. So after 9 AM, I set out to walk there and the building was empty. There were still shadows of the lettering on it - but no bank. Since I was near the Métro, I got on and proceeded to Opéra where the main bank is located. Along the way I found the wonderful 10-man klezmer band in the Concorde station tunnel. There was an accordion player on one car I rode, and a keyboard player at another station, and a french horn player at another - the underground is alive with music! I made the deposit at my bank and then got back on the Métro to go to Montparnasse and the Tati store, France's equivalent to WalMart. I am convinced that Tati stands for 'tacky as tacky is'. By now I was growing blisters on the soles of both feet. I found 100 x 150 cm towels at Tati for 10 Euros each, got two and took a taxi back to my quartier to save my aching feet. Here are some photos I took coming back: one of the landings in between floors where the shared toilets were originally located in the 1870s,the view of the front of my building from the courtyard before it (my apartment is in the back), and the view looking down rue Borromee where you can see the Eiffel Tower over the roofs.