For those of us who like to stay in town in August, la Rentrée can come as quite as shock.  During the last weekend of the month, you can still walk down the middle of Rue de Rivoli at midnight, marveling that le Marais looks like an abandoned movie set, but by the first week of September you will be flattened by platoons of Renaults, Citroëns, and unlicensed scooters if you try to put even a toe off the sidewalk. 

The quiet days of August are gone, but there is plenty to love about la rentrée: the return of your favorite butcher, the sudden delivery of long-awaited mail, two bank tellers instead of just one.  There is a palpable buzz in the air as friends catch up at the corner brasserie, neighbors exchange pleasantries, and newscasters egg everyone on by breathlessly reporting la rentrée as a major event. 

>more