I see him occasionally on my way home for work when the weather is decent enough for me to ride the Vélib bike home. So I stop and say bonjour. He has a lovely smile, and a soft approach to a hard life that I imagine took years to perfect. One of the stories he [...]
Today, as usual, the market was full of foreign tourists gawking at the lovely food and product displays. As the vendeuse was cutting the stems and wrapping up the flowers (she gave me some foliage for free), I saw out of the corner of my eye a tall, impatient American man, identifable by his khaki pants and [...]
It’s finally nice weather, and in Paris that means… demonstrations! Last week, besides the usual daily manifs, we had big pro- and anti-gay marriage demonstrations, before and after the French lawmakers passed the Mariage pour tous [marriage for all] act into law. Walking home down Avenue Montaigne (no, I don’t live there) the next day, [...]
Ah, spring! It’s finnaly warm enough for a relaxed strolls on Boulevard St. Germain. A picnic in the Jardin de Luxembourg. And stopping for a canoodle on the Pont des Arts. The pedestrian bridge synonymous with romance is famous for its padlocks attached to its bordering fence. The only thing sweeter than a lover attaching [...]
May first brings several French traditions. It’s the Fete du Travail, celebrating workers. Which also means protests over lack of work. They’re expected today at Opera, Bastille and Nation. If you’re a rare person who commutes by car in the city, you may want to give your bagnole the day off. And if you’re French, [...]
Transportation and baguette prices rise around July 1 each year. Apparently, it is less painful. You leave on vacation knowing already that prices will go up, relax on vacation, come back and the price-increase theory is fact. Since the French are back from vacation and do not want to stress out yet, the price increases [...]
Perhaps it is not altogether a bad thing that the French, in general, are not very branché Internet. It may be because they are close to their families and friends, don’t generally move far away from them, and prefer to do things in warmer ways, in person. But it’s true that compared to Americans of the [...]
Did you know there are two kinds of cops in Paris? The gendarmes, who are part of the army, and the Paris police, who are unionized. The police are national, not local, and most of the cops you see in Paris are not from Paris. If you ask them for directions, they’ll puzzle over the map [...]
French schoolchildren have some of the longest school days in the world, I believe; some of them start at 8h30 in the morning and don’t finish till 17h30 in the evening, although they might have two hours off for lunch at mid-day. What that buys is a great school holiday schedule, unless you’re a pair of [...]
It has been raining and even snowing a lot in Île-de-France, the Paris region. As a result, the Seine is much higher than usual and you can see big waves in the river. The authorities have had to close all the express roads along the riverbank. The standard I’m-a-Parisian measure of flooding in Paris is [...]
