"Is that a mummy on the bench across the street?" and other musings while wandering Paris

For the past week or so, I've spent a fair amount of time just wandering Paris on foot. I usually start from my school, Sciences Po, in the heart of the 7th arrondissement (district or neighborhood), pick a direction and go. Generally, I'm motivated by a need to find cheap food. The 7th is a gorgeous district, but super expensive. So I frequently walk for 20 minutes to find a place where I can just take a sandwich to go (à emporter).

I've discovered a wonderful hole-in-the wall panini and crepe stand that will probably keep me alive this year. Wedged in between a McDonald's (or simply "MacDo" as the French call it) and an internet cafe, this place, which is so small that I'm not even entirely sure it has a name, offers a panini and a drink for only 3 euro! This is an incredible price for anywhere in Paris, as a panini alone usually costs at least 4 euro. So, when any of you come to visit, expect at least one trip to "my panini place" - there's even a park across the street where we can sit and eat our wonderfully cheap sanwiches.

Once I receive my metro pass, my search for cheap food won't be quite so difficult, but I probably won't get that until the middle of this week at the earliest. The pass for students is called the Carte ImagineR; it gives you unlimited metro/bus/tram access for a year and costs about 300 euro. As expensive as that is, it's definitely my cheapest transportation option, and I've definitely been limiting my trips around the city while I'm still buying paper tickets for individual trips.

That said, I've still managed to see quite a bit of the city on foot, which is much more interesting anyway. Here are a couple of the amusing things I've walked past:

Is that a buckeye? Between this and seeing an OSU fan at the bar for the OSU-USC game, I'm beginning to feel like I never left Ohio...

Or maybe I'm actually in Egypt...