Extended the short layover in Paris to 3 days, to see and stay with my old friend Marc Soulie. Being a holiday weekend in France, Marc was able to borrow a 300 year old flat in the heart of Paris for us to stay in. A cab ride to the flat and Marc was waiting, after 4 flights of semi circle stairs with our luggage. This would be the start of my physical conditioning over the next couple weeks, as I climbed thousands of stairs and walked countless miles. Marc had to work the rest of the afternoon so I walked to Basilique Du Sacre-Coeur. The walk took us through an open air food market, with the most wonderful smells, in fact throughout Paris you notice the aroma of fresh foods being prepared. From the top of the BDSC there is a wonderful view of the city, like the locals I sat in the grass bare footed and took in the view. Meeting back up with Marc at the flat and then walked a few more miles to meet Marc’s friend Emmanual for diner. When we walked across the bridge over the Saint Martin Canal, we ran into some people having a party on the bridge. They had a blanket spread out to enjoy their beer and marijuana cigarettes, they where happy to have a photo with us. At diner I had Goose Liver Pate and Kangaroo Steak for diner, Marco had the Ostrich. After diner and a couple bottles of wine we walked to a bar to meet more of Marc’s friends, Christian, Catarina & Sylvian. On the way we came across the crime scene of a deceased midget. Catarina was just learning English, so she enjoyed trying to talk to us. Unfortunately most of her English had been learned from watching “Friends” on TV, so there was a lot of “How you doing” and “What’s Up”, after a couple beers Christian & Catarina had to leave, so we decided to go back to the flat, the bar was too loud for us to converse in anyway. We stayed up to 4:30 AM talking about past times, politics, and just about everything else. The next day the other tenants complained about the loud “Americans” staying in the building. I can’t remember laughing that much in one night, Marc promised that we would take it easy and have an early night tomorrow, I would soon find out what the French mean by an early night.