Nothing beats biking for getting where you have to go, but only walking lets you see where you are. Thanks to a sprained wrist from twisting a knife out of an aggressor’s hand (...in Krav Maga class) I decided to give my bike a rest and hit the road with my black suede boots. 

That's how I got to notice witty signs, like "Les Deux Pensées" (a flower shop, meaning "two thoughts" but also an allusion to the flower: pansies) and Archi Bar (a café on rue des archives, with a play on archi which is slang for "very!").

I decided to walk down the Canal St. Martin to watch the boats navigate the network of locks and bridges.  The canal has been in operation for almost 200 years, but no where nearly as frequented as the Seine.  Now you can see what you tourists have been missing: