Dan and I got settled in the apartment we rented just in time for the
rain to start. The woman who owned the apartment said that it had been
gorgeous and sunny for the last week and we just missed it. Of course.

We could happily have spent the evening in some romantic cafe but I
had of course purchased non-refundable tickets for a bike/boat tour
running from 7pm-11pm. The website said "rain or shine" so we put on
all our clothes and headed over.

In spite of the freezing weather and intervals of pouring rain, this
was the best introduction to Paris I could have imagined. One minute
we'd be riding furiously down the street - me with foggy glasses and rain in my eyes -
dodging puddles and rocks in the middle of a bus lane - our tour guide
was from San Francisco, and his motto was "Dominate the road" - and the
next we'd be at the Eiffel Tour, or the Louvre, or the Notre Dame. They were all as beautiful as I had hoped they'd be.

Of course the last hour of the tour was a boat on the Seine. We stood
huddled under a cover in the rain, drinking red wine and talking about our travels. Definitely not the sunset and music-filled
romantic moment I had been expecting, but in many ways it was a lot
better.