Comment dit-on "exchange rate"?

So let me start by saying that I came thisclose to meeting Mike Leigh, whose new film is opening in Paris soon. I was having lunch with a French critic who had a press conference with Leigh after lunch, followed by a personal interview. She called Leigh's publicist, claiming that she wanted to bring her assistant (moi)—although I'd have been able to assist in exactly nothing—but he said non. Mais non!

Last night was movie night. We walked through the Jardin de Yitzhak Rabin in the Parc de Bercy, which, like most Parisian parks, is exquisitely landscaped and treelined. We watched French people throwing French balls to their French dogs for a while, basically enjoying being in Paris with each other. We had some pretty darned good coffee out of a machine at the Cinémathè Francaise—it's nothing like what you get out of machines in the States—and then watched Orson Welles's Chimes at Midnight, which was really good, except when it showed the seams of its multi-year production and its pieced-together-from-five-plays structure. It's among the most beautifully shot things Welles ever did, which is saying something. But I admit I almost fell asleep during the middle portion, and I never fall asleep during movies. After that was Hanns Kobe's Brandherd, aka Torgus, an interesting Expressionist film that they unfortunately played completely silent, i.e., with no musical accompaniment. That's flat-out the most unnatural way to watch a "silent" film, which were always, always, always accompanied by music. It was an excellent restoration, which makes me wonder why they didn't provide some kind of music. You'd think the French, who invented cinephilia, would know better. But it was well worth watching anyway, for its unique take on the grotesque set designs of the Expressionist movement. More on that this Sunday.

If all there was to Paris was great movie theaters, I'd still be glad I came, but just walking around is like being in paradise. (Except when my feet hurt.) I have the world's best tour guide in MFAH, who has lived here in the past and can tell me interesting stories about various little shops and cobblestoned streets she used to frequent; today she introduced me to the world's greatest falafel sandwich at L'As de Fallafel ("The Ace of Falafel"), which is endorsed by MFAH, Lenny Kravitz, and me. And if I ask about a sculpture or a carved cornice or whatever, the odds are pretty good that she can explain its significance. I'm scheming to turn this into a money-making venture so we can somehow stay over here, but don't tell her I said that. Today she had to go to a conference, so I played tourist by myself, but during her break we went shopping for DVDs (I finally have Bigger Than Life!) and ate the aforementioned falafel. Yeah, I went to a movie today too: Peter Collinson's entrancingly unusual WW2 film The Long Day's Dying (1968). Tonight we're going out for Vietnamese food, which is supposed to be excellent in Paris, and then we're going for ice cream. Tomorrow is the Louvre, then we leave. I don't want to go, and if Bergamo and Rome in Italy weren't the next stops on our trip, I might be pretty disappointed.