Remembering George Whitman--We'll always have Paris

Photo by Simon Nofolk for The Telegraph

(I'm re-posting this from 6 years ago, because I just learned that my friend, award-winning author Nicholas Basbanes, and his wife Connie, are off to Paris, and I wanted to tell them of my experiences visiting "Shakespeare and Company" and George Whitman, who owned the store until his death in 2011.  It's now owned by his daughter. This post is one of my favorites, recalling the years when I was traveling as a single girl, not yet a crone.  I recommend that anyone who visits Paris visits the store on the Left Bank, with one of the most beautiful views in Paris.)

Today’s New York Times carried the obituary for George Whitman, who died yesterday, Dec. 14, in Paris in his apartment above his bookstore “Shakespeare and Company” at the age of 98. There was even a small photo of him on the Times’ front page saying “Heir to a Paris Legacy—George Whitman, owner and operator of the postwar Shakespeare & Company bookstore and a beacon, mentor and provider to generations of young writers.  Page B 17.”

I was immediately transported back to 1969, when, as a single “career girl” in my 20’s, I took two years off, quit my magazine job in New York and traveled, visiting friends from Vienna to Paris to Morocco to Rome and then settled into an editing job in London.

Like every writer of my generation (including Woody Allen) I harbored fantasies of being part of the Paris writers of the twenties, hanging out with the Fitzgeralds and the Hemingways.  I knew all about Sylvia Beach and her famous bookstore Shakespeare and Company, and I had heard it was now owned by a New England eccentric who was continuing Sylvia’s legacy and would offer food, board and books to anyone who wandered in off the street.

I was eager to write an article about him, but the first day I walked into the store, he refused to be interviewed.  When he finally did grudgingly agree to answer some questions, he mixed fantasy with fact, because he liked enhancing his legend.  He told me he was the “illegitimate grandson of Walt Whitman”, but the twinkle in his eye hinted that we both knew how unlikely it was that the poet left any progeny.

Looking today on Google for photos of George and his famous  bookstore on the Left Bank’s Rue de la Bucherie, facing Notre Dame, I discovered that dozens, maybe hundred of writers of my generation visited Shakespeare and Company and had experiences similar to mine and are now reminiscing on their blogs about the man who devoted nearly a century to carrying on Sylvia Beach’s store and her encouragement of writers.  (It's not the same physical store, but Sylvia  late in life gave George the right to use the name.) 

My article on George Whitman was eventually published in the April 1970 issue of the late, lamented Holiday Magazine. As I wrote in the lead, “Between the two world wars, a minister’s brown-eyed daughter named Sylvia Beach owned a famous bookstore called Shakespeare and Company on Paris’ Left Bank. She provided encouragement criticism and occasional handouts to struggling American writers …She published Joyce’s revolutionary Ulysses when no one in New York or London was willing to take the risk…Ernest Hemingway, in "A Moveable Feast", wrote about her:  ‘She had pretty legs and she was kind, cheerful and interested and loved to make jokes and gossip.  No one that I ever knew was nicer to me.’”

In the 1970 piece I chronicled the troubles Whitman had been having with the French Government, which had closed down the second floor of the store because he was using it as a free hostel for young people who wanted to crash there.  I quoted the sign in the window on the day I first entered the store:  “To Those Who Cherish Freedom, Practice Equality and Seek Justice –WELCOME.  We wish our guests to enter with the feeling they have inherited a book-lined apartment on the Seine which is all the more delightful because they share it with others.”

In the article I compared Whitman to “a modern Don Quixote.  He is the image of the knight of the woeful countenance—tall and painfully thin, with watery blue eyes in a doleful, hollow-cheeked face, unkempt red hair streaked with gray and a gray Van Dyke beard that juts out at the world like a defiant Brillo pad.”  (And that was 42 years ago, people, when I was very young and he was already an old man. Twelve years after I visited him the first time, George Whitman produced his only heir, a lovely blonde woman named Sylvia Beach Whitman, who has taken over the running of the store.)

 I found this photo of Whitman, posing with  his daughter Sylvia and  Bill Clinton on a blog  with the unlikely name of Palavrasqueoventoleva 

In “The Paris Magazine”, Whitman’s  attempt at a “poor man’s Paris Review” he wrote, “Why do people always come in and ask me is this your bookstore?  I consider it as much yours as mine ...Go ahead and kick off your shoes and lie in a bed and read…”

Here’s how I described my first meeting with him:   I was peering into the window when a bleary-eyed, bearded figure unlocked the door and, squinting at the sun, asked me what time it was. “Noon,” I replied.  “Come in and I’ll make us some coffee,” he said.

Soon I was drinking coffee at a table outside the door of the shop, gazing at what must be one of the most lovely views in Paris, while my host opened his mail.  I felt I should explain myself, but when I began he snapped, “No interrogations at this  time of the morning,” and went back to his mail.

Some  customers wandered in and he motioned me aside “I have some good news for you, dear.  I’m going to let you run the store while I take a shower.”  He handed me the cash box, warned me not to sell any books that didn’t have the price written on them and nailed up a “Black Power-White Power” poster on an outside wall.  Then he scrabbled around the messy desk looking for his soap, towel and a candle.  “To cut my hair.”  He lit the candle, ignited his hair, then beat out the flames with his hands, muttering,” Better than a haircut.”  Finally he donned a red-plaid sports jacket, leaped onto his bicycle and rode out the door to the public showers, leaving me with 25,000 second-hand books and the odor of burned hair.

 He never asked me my name and I never got a chance to ask his.

During the next seven hours, Whitman returned two times—just long enough to unload piles of books from the baskets of his bicycle. To my protests that I had to go, he’d mumble, “Lots of important errands to do, lots of people to see. Haven’t paid the tax on my bicycle.” And off he’d ride, red coat flapping behind him.  Meanwhile I sold about $150 worth of books in five languages and refused to sell what were worth about $100 more because they weren’t marked.  The most popular books that day were Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire, L’Anarchisme and anything by Ezra Pound.

By the time the sun was going down, I had been joined by two mini-skirted English girls who had run out of money, a starving French boy who wanted to sell his art books, a young American couple who couldn’t find the friends they were supposed to stay with, a fiery Frenchman with a broken leg who wanted to talk to Whitman about publishing his poetry, and Gerard, a soft-spoken American who had been on the road for seven years and was currently sweeping up the store in exchange for food.  Whitman himself popped in for a minute to say he was going to make potato salad—we must all stay for dinner—and he was just going to the grocery store. Much later, when he hadn’t returned, we raided the refrigerator, ate bread, sausages, cheese and yogurt on the table outside and watched shadows cover Notre Dame while the good bourgeoisie of the neighborhood looked at us with curiosity.  I handed the cash box to Gerard and set out on my Métro trip back to the Right Bank.”

Eventually, of course, I came back and eventually I got the chance to interview George.  One thing he said that I quoted in the article: “My favorite customers are seventeen-year-old girls.  I can’t think of anything more wonderful than  being seventeen and in Paris.  If a girl comes in on her seventeenth birthday, she can pick out any book she wants, free.”

That interview took place in 1969 when I was 28 years old, not seventeen.  When I turned 60 in 2001, I returned to Paris with my two daughters (both of them over 17 by then) and dropped by Shakespeare and Company to find it being tended by a young British schoolteacher.  She assured us that George was in fine health, reigning over his small kingdom as usual.  He just wasn’t in at the moment.

Now George is gone, but I suspect his ghost will still be sitting in the shadows of his dusty, overcrowded store which, according to the Times he called, paraphrasing Yeats,  “my little Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart.”

George Whitman lived a remarkable life.  I’m just sorry I never got a chance to thank him for one of my favorite Paris experiences.

Favorite Photo Friday: Patriotic Kids

 What I love about these three photos is the way the children embody the attitudes of their three different countries at the time the photos were taken.

Look at these three French siblings photographed in Paris. You can tell they are well-behaved, maybe somewhat stuck-up and very proud of themselves and their fine clothes.  The young man is wearing a derby and a silk scarf at his collar   The older girl has ribbons on her hat, a bit of lace at her throat and high- button shoes.  The smaller girl has sausage curls, lots of bows on her hat, fine lace on her collar and cuffs.   After magnifying what is on her chest, I think it is a pin representing the head of an ermine and some ermine tails.  (Feel free to disagree.)

 Although these French children are holding toys--a hoop, the stick for spinning the hoop, and a large ball in a web-like bag--you get the feeling that if they were taken to play in a park, say the Tuileries, they would never get their clothes dirty or scrape their knees.

 I’m showing the back of this cabinet card, because the photographer’s  advertisement for his “artistic photography” is interesting.  Chambertin is at 63 Boulevard Rochechouart beside the famous Circus Medrano (which these three no doubt attended) and facing the Concert Hall La Cigale (which is still on the same street, hosting various acts, most recently Cee Lo Green). I can’t figure out why the photographer posed these children so far from the camera and then vignetted the photo, leaving them surrounded by white space.  Maybe that was the “artistic” part.

Next consider these three German children, also posed in a photographer’s studio  (Karl Bechmann, in the town of Schonheide).  Props like the fence and vine behind the girl and the bench the boy is sitting on and the great three-wheeled wicker push-chair for the baby, give the impression they’re outside. The boy seems to be in a military uniform—with  a Prussian-style helmet and epaulets on the shoulders.  He looks ready to go to war, and seems protective of the baby.

These three blue-eyed children are sterling examples of the “Aryan race” that Hitler would talk about decades later, but  we can’t accuse them or their parents of being proto-Nazis, because this photograph, also a cabinet card like the one above, was taken sometime between 1870 and 1900.

 I tried to identify the helmet on the boy—with a buckle and some insignia on the front—but I had no luck.  If anyone out there could tell me more about the helmet or date the photo exactly, I’d be very grateful.

 Finally we have these two smiling American tots.  They are completely ready to go to war—the little boy even has his gun in its holster.

Many photo collectors specialize in military photos—from pre- Civil War to the present—and they would be able to tell me everything about these uniforms and what the insignia means.  But I’m woefully ignorant of militariana, so please fill me in.

 Clearly these American kids were photographed  about fifty years after the children in the French and German cabinet cards.  It’s an odd photo, measuring 3 by 5 inches and is mounted on tin. I wonder what event this photo was meant to commemorate?

All three of these groups of children are innocent representatives of the views of their parents and their countries.  They have no inkling of the devastating wars that will soon rend their world and kill huge numbers of their generations.  I just hope that these youngsters, so secure in these childhood photos, all lived to grow up.  

R.I.P. George Whitman—We’ll Always Have Paris

Photo by Simon Nofolk for The Telegraph

Today’s New York Times carried the obituary for George Whitman, who died yesterday, Dec. 14, in Paris in his apartment above his bookstore “Shakespeare and Company” at the age of 98. There was even a small photo of him on the Times’ front page saying “Heir to a Paris Legacy—George Whitman, owner and operator of the postwar Shakespeare & Company bookstore and a beacon, mentor and provider to generations of young writers.  Page B 17.”

I was immediately transported back to 1969, when, as a single “career girl” in my 20’s, I took two years off, quit my magazine job in New York and traveled, visiting friends from Vienna to Paris to Morocco to Rome and then settled into an editing job in London.

Like every writer of my generation (including Woody Allen) I harbored fantasies of being part of the Paris writers of the twenties, hanging out with the Fitzgeralds and the Hemingways.  I knew all about Sylvia Beach and her famous bookstore Shakespeare and Company, and I had heard it was now owned by a New England eccentric who was continuing Sylvia’s legacy and would offer food, board and books to anyone who wandered in off the street.

I was eager to write an article about him, but the first day I walked into the store, he refused to be interviewed.  When he finally did grudgingly agree to answer some questions, he mixed fantasy with fact, because he liked enhancing his legend.  He told me he was the “illegitimate grandson of Walt Whitman”, but the twinkle in his eye hinted that we both knew how unlikely it was that the poet left any progeny.

Looking today on Google for photos of George and his famous  bookstore on the Left Bank’s Rue de la Bucherie, facing Notre Dame, I discovered that dozens, maybe hundred of writers of my generation visited Shakespeare and Company and had experiences similar to mine and are now reminiscing on their blogs about the man who devoted nearly a century to carrying on Sylvia Beach’s store and her encouragement of writers.  (It's not the same physical store, but Sylvia  late in life gave George the right to use the name.) 

My article on George Whitman was eventually published in the April 1970 issue of the late, lamented Holiday Magazine. As I wrote in the lead, “Between the two world wars, a minister’s brown-eyed daughter named Sylvia Beach owned a famous bookstore called Shakespeare and Company on Paris’ Left Bank. She provided encouragement criticism and occasional handouts to struggling American writers …She published Joyce’s revolutionary Ulysses when no one in New York or London was willing to take the risk…Ernest Hemingway, in "A Moveable Feast", wrote about her:  ‘She had pretty legs and she was kind, cheerful and interested and loved to make jokes and gossip.  No one that I ever knew was nicer to me.’”

In the 1970 piece I chronicled the troubles Whitman had been having with the French Government, which had closed down the second floor of the store because he was using it as a free hostel for young people who wanted to crash there.  I quoted the sign in the window on the day I first entered the store:  “To Those Who Cherish Freedom, Practice Equality and Seek Justice –WELCOME.  We wish our guests to enter with the feeling they have inherited a book-lined apartment on the Seine which is all the more delightful because they share it with others.”

In the article I compared Whitman to “a modern Don Quixote.  He is the image of the knight of the woeful countenance—tall and painfully thin, with watery blue eyes in a doleful, hollow-cheeked face, unkempt red hair streaked with gray and a gray Van Dyke beard that juts out at the world like a defiant Brillo pad.”  (And that was 42 years ago, people, when I was very young and he was already an old man. Twelve years after I visited him the first time, George Whitman produced his only heir, a lovely blonde woman named Sylvia Beach Whitman, who has taken over the running of the store.)

 I found this photo of Whitman, posing with  his daughter Sylvia and  Bill Clinton on a blog  with the unlikely name of Palavrasqueoventoleva 

In “The Paris Magazine”, Whitman’s  attempt at a “poor man’s Paris Review” he wrote, “Why do people always come in and ask me is this your bookstore?  I consider it as much yours as mine ...Go ahead and kick off your shoes and lie in a bed and read…”

Here’s how I described my first meeting with him:   I was peering into the window when a bleary-eyed, bearded figure unlocked the door and, squinting at the sun, asked me what time it was. “Noon,” I replied.  “Come in and I’ll make us some coffee,” he said.

Soon I was drinking coffee at a table outside the door of the shop, gazing at what must be one of the most lovely views in Paris, while my host opened his mail.  I felt I should explain myself, but when I began he snapped, “No interrogations at this  time of the morning,” and went back to his mail.

Some  customers wandered in and he motioned me aside “I have some good news for you, dear.  I’m going to let you run the store while I take a shower.”  He handed me the cash box, warned me not to sell any books that didn’t have the price written on them and nailed up a “Black Power-White Power” poster on an outside wall.  Then he scrabbled around the messy desk looking for his soap, towel and a candle.  “To cut my hair.”  He lit the candle, ignited his hair, then beat out the flames with his hands, muttering,” Better than a haircut.”  Finally he donned a red-plaid sports jacket, leaped onto his bicycle and rode out the door to the public showers, leaving me with 25,000 second-hand books and the odor of burned hair.

 He never asked me my name and I never got a chance to ask his.

During the next seven hours, Whitman returned two times—just long enough to unload piles of books from the baskets of his bicycle. To my protests that I had to go, he’d mumble, “Lots of important errands to do, lots of people to see. Haven’t paid the tax on my bicycle.” And off he’d ride, red coat flapping behind him.  Meanwhile I sold about $150 worth of books in five languages and refused to sell what were worth about $100 more because they weren’t marked.  The most popular books that day were Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire, L’Anarchisme and anything by Ezra Pound.

By the time the sun was going down, I had been joined by two mini-skirted English girls who had run out of money, a starving French boy who wanted to sell his art books, a young American couple who couldn’t find the friends they were supposed to stay with, a fiery Frenchman with a broken leg who wanted to talk to Whitman about publishing his poetry, and Gerard, a soft-spoken American who had been on the road for seven years and was currently sweeping up the store in exchange for food.  Whitman himself popped in for a minute to say he was going to make potato salad—we must all stay for dinner—and he was just going to the grocery store. Much later, when he hadn’t returned, we raided the refrigerator, ate bread, sausages, cheese and yogurt on the table outside and watched shadows cover Notre Dame while the good bourgeoisie of the neighborhood looked at us with curiosity.  I handed the cash box to Gerard and set out on my Métro trip back to the Right Bank.”

Eventually, of course, I came back and eventually I got the chance to interview George.  One thing he said that I quoted in the article: “My favorite customers are seventeen-year-old girls.  I can’t think of anything more wonderful than  being seventeen and in Paris.  If a girl comes in on her seventeenth birthday, she can pick out any book she wants, free.”

That interview took place in 1969 when I was 28 years old, not seventeen.  When I turned 60 in 2001, I returned to Paris with my two daughters (both of them over 17 by then) and dropped by Shakespeare and Company to find it being tended by a young British schoolteacher.  She assured us that George was in fine health, reigning over his small kingdom as usual.  He just wasn’t in at the moment.

Now George is gone, but I suspect his ghost will still be sitting in the shadows of his dusty, overcrowded store which, according to the Times he called, paraphrasing Yeats,  “my little Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart.”

George Whitman lived a remarkable life.  I’m just sorry I never got a chance to thank him for one of my favorite Paris experiences.

A Vegetarian Gourmet in Paris

A newlywed friend of ours just went to Paris for the first time with her husband. She asked for advice on where to eat and where to go. And she’s a vegetarian.

My daughter Marina responded with the letter below. She lived there for two years after college, while getting her master’s degree in French and working, and she loves the city, going back whenever she can.

When I read it, I realized that this is the kind of insider’s advice that a travel magazine would pay big money for, but Marina agreed to let me put it on “A Rolling Crone” for free. It made me all nostalgic, remembering the first time I saw Paris when I was 18. This is a feast of Parisian travel and eating tips for anyone, vegetarian or not. Thanks Mar!

You can get great falafel in the Marais (4th arr., right bank) and in the Latin Quarter (5th, and 6th arr., left bank). Most take-away places have caprese paninis with delicious mozzarella, basil, and tomato pressed and toasted to order. You'll find those everywhere.

There are also a lot of really good Vietnamese take-away places that have a number of vegetarian options. If you like Italian there is a place called La Bottega di Pastavino that has the most amazing fresh Italian food. It is on Rue de Buci in the 6th which is a really cute street. Unfortunately it is also take -away but, if it's not too hot out, I would get some gnocchi (it's not like the gnocchi you're used to, it's large circular discs of deliciousness) and whatever else you want (it's all good and don't forget the wine and opener), have them heat it up, and walk it over to the Seine or the Luxembourg gardens (they are equi-distant from this place) and have a picnic.

For financial reasons and because I like being outdoors, I like to get take-away food for lunch and find a beautiful place outside to eat it. Now that they enforce the pick-up-your-dog’s-poop laws (thanks Sarkozy) it's even more pleasant. Most cafes have lovely "Chevre Chaud" salads. They seem to be a staple and are pretty much always awesome. Also, if you eat eggs, you can get an omelette any time of day at any cafe.

You ABSOLUTELY MUST have Berthillon ice cream while you are there. It is on the Ile St Louis on Rue St Louis-en-l'ile. It is so good that they close for the months of July and August (mental!). The vanilla is soooo good I have trouble getting anything else but the wild strawberry (as opposed to the regular strawberry) is delicious. So is the cantelope. The chocolate tastes like actual chocolate. I can’t even begin to describe how amazing it is. You'll find that cafes and restaurants advertise that they sell it but it is not the same as getting it at the source.

Another great vegetarian option are the crepes. Both savory and sweet, both portable and sit-down, crepes are delicious and you can find them everywhere. Try one with emental cheese, mushrooms and egg, or Nutella and bananas. I am literally tearing up thinking about my corner creperie. It was like Cheers, they knew my name and would let me pay them the next day if I forgot cash. They even recognized me when I went back years later with all my hair chopped off. They closed down a couple of years ago, otherwise I would send you there. If you find yourself in the 2nd arrondissement, although I don't know why you would, you should go to La Ferme on Rue St Roch.

Breakfast is one of the things that I remember most fondly about Paris. I'm not sure where you're staying, if it has nice windows and a nice view, and if you’d have a hot plate or a way to make coffee, but I'll tell you what I did. Every morning that I could, I would wake up, put the water on to boil, throw my coat on over whatever I wore to bed, run down the stairs and across the courtyard to the patisserie directly across the street and buy the most amazing croissant ever. Then I would go next door to the cremerie and get the most delicious yogurt of all time, the kind that just got dropped off by the farmer and is contained in those wonderful glass or ceramic pots with the foil on top. Any flavor was good. Then I would run back upstairs, pour the hot water in to the single-serve filter that rests on top of your mug, throw in a couple of those brown sugar cubes that look like eroding blocks from ancient ruins and a little cream. I would turn on some good music, open the giant windows that looked out over the courtyard, sit at the table right next to it and eat my breakfast so slowly and appreciatively that it would take hours. Don't forget to dip your croissant into your coffee. It sounds and looks gross but damn does it taste good.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that the most amazing thing about Paris is your surroundings so find a cute park, sit by the Seine or the Canal St. Martin (I highly recommend walking along this less touristy canal) and get some delicious, inexpensive chow, and enjoy!

As for dinner, the Costes brothers have made an empire of restaurants that are really interesting. The food is pretty good and the ambiance is quite unique. The best ones would be Bon in the 16th (there is absolutely nothing else around there so it might not be worth the effort of getting there) or Georges at the top of the Centre Pompidou. The latter is amazing for views.

Make a reservation, ask to sit outside on the terrace. I always get the langoustine risotto and the Sancerre, but their menu is pretty modern and would definitely have vegetarian options. If you like Ethiopian food Godjo in the 5th is awesome (make sure you sit downstairs, it's a totally different experience). From there you can take a lovely walk down Rue Mouffetad or go by the Pantheon and head towards the Crocodile. The Crocodile is kind of like a modern-day speak-easy. It barely has a sign so you have to know the address 6 Rue Royer-Collard. It is a tiny bar with a bar list that has a million drinks on it. It is right by the Luxembourg gardens. When you get there, there will be a door with no handle. Knock on the door. A guy who looks like he's been locked in a smoke-filled closet for 30 years will open the door, ask how many people you are and probably close it again, only to open it when there is enough room for you to come in. It is owned by a 90 year-old woman (if she's still alive) and there is a huge dog (mastif I think) that has free reign of the place. The tables and chairs are like old school desks. It used to be super smokey but now with the new laws it probably isn't. It's open from 10PM to 5AM I think and not open on Mondays or something like that. There are very few places open after 2 in Paris.



One of my favorite places is Place du Tertre in Monmartre (the 18th). This is a big hill at the base of which is the super seedy Pigalle area for strippers etc. BUT if you take the metro to Abbesse (SP? - take the elevator, you'll have plenty of more stairs to climb) and walk up the stairs to Place du Tertre there is a great Salvador Dali museum immediately on your left. Many artists live here and will try to draw, paint, sketch you for money but there is also some great, affordable art here too. At the end of the square Sacre Coeur is on your right. You should totally hit that BUT first, if you're not too tired, take a left down Rue Norvins, weeding through the tourists. Then take your first right on Rue des Saules. You should escape the tourists here. Walking down the hill you'll see the historic Maison Rose on your right, then you'll pass what I think is the last (tiny) vineyard in Paris, and then there's the Lapin Agile which is also a historic place. I've never eaten at either but the Lapin Agile is very old and has a great history so they could be good for dinner (I'm not sure if they are open for lunch).

Eleni told you about the Mosquee de Paris. It has spa days that alternate based on gender (it is totally nakedness everywhere in the spa so not good if you’re shy but it's really cheap... at least it used to be). Nobody is allowed in the Mosquee unless you're Muslim but in the back you'll find the spa, store, restaurant and the tea room (mint and rose teas are passed around and you can get pastries and sit at a table in their broken glass garden while looking across at the Jardin des Plantes and the Natural History Museum).

It gets packed on weekends so try to go on a weekday. Also, the side street that it is on has a bunch of little shops with inexpensive Morrocan/North African wares that are usually cheaper than what they sell at the store in the Mosquee. You could go from there and walk through the Jardin des Plantes (veering to the left). You'll pass a couple of museums and botanical gardens. Lastly, exit by the petting zoo and walk over to the Institut du Monde Arabe. It's a super cool building that is made of hundreds of glass squares that have camera shutter-type things in the windows so they can control the amount of natural light that enters the building. Paris has a law that there cannot be buildings built over a certain height. This is one of the exceptions. I've never gotten to do this but I've heard that it has great views from the roof and that you can get drinks there and watch the sunset but I'm not sure.

The Rodin Museum is cool in the 7th arr. because it is in what used to be his home and many of the works are in the gardens so if you’re over by the Eiffel tower you should check it out. Actually, you should go there first, get a snack of baguette, cheese, and wine, sit on the grass by the Eiffel Tower and watch the sunset. Then go up to the top. I think it may be cheaper after dark.

Be careful of pick pockets in the subways. If the subways are smelly in the summer (I've heard that is a problem) the busses are pretty good but there are also these new bike stations everywhere. I'm not too sure how it works but they're coin automated so you just put coins in to unlock it, ride it where you need to go, and lock it up at another station (or something like that).