One Boring Afternoon

I am a really boring person.  All I like to do is sit!  I sit and read.  I sit and sew.  I sit and watch movies. I sit and eat.  I sit and talk.
So yesterday, when I was given leave to leave at three in the pm and I packed my bag and took off, I didn't know what to do with myself.  I took a train to the Seine (sitting and reading), I walked to the Left Bank (and sat and sewed)...  but by five pm I was about to go crazy with boredom.

Luckily, an acquaintance of mine was getting off of work just as I was about to give up and go home (to sit and sew and watch the Cosby Show).  We decided to get dinner together (sitting and eating and talking) and we discussed some really deep and wonderfully interesting topics, such as the reasons we were disappointed by the recent movie, Brave, and how much break-ups suck.  I feel we have built bridges between our souls.

Also during these five-odd hours of being out-of-doors, I saw some interesting things that I would like to share with you.

This is a bookstore of used books in English tucked away in an alley near the church of St. Severin in the fifth arrondissement.  The place is tiny and it is absolutely chock-full of books.  Books are stacked in huge piles, only the top few of which are actually visible and thereby sellable.  Each wall is plastered with bookshelves, and there are even rolling shelves maybe six inches deep that slide along in front of the stationary shelves.  Then there are ladders leaning on the shelves because of course the books go up to the ceiling.  It is a very precarious set-up.  I worried that if I touched the wrong book, or even sneezed, we would all be buried in the ensuing book-avalanche.  

It was a book-lover's dream. 

The problem was that the books were grossly overpriced.  I made my way to the one or two dress history titles (I have an internal radar system) and found that The Medieval Tailor's Assistant, which retails (NEW) at $45.00, was being sold in this USED bookshop for 50 Euro!!  The sticker that said 50 Euro was right next to the barcode on the back of the book, above which the regular retail price was printed for all to see.  Highway robbery!  And a teeny tiny Penguin copy of Charlotte Bronte's Mina Laury, which advertised itself for 90 pence, was being sold for 3 Euro.  Once I started seeing this trend, I escaped as quickly as I could.

Now this, this is Paris Plages or "Paris Beaches", a program started about ten years ago by the mayor of Paris.  The highway that runs along the Seine is blocked off, palm trees and sand are trucked in, and a beach is created for the unlucky Parisians who can't manage to escape to the south for the month of August like every other self-respecting Frenchman.

It is a sight to see and causes a ton of traffic congestion.  I can't imagine anything like this happening in America.

And for another example of the Parisian government providing free entertainment to it's constituency, the square in front of the Hotel de Ville (the city hall) sports a huge screen, rolls out orange ground cover, and invites everyone to come and watch the Olympics!

The government does all kinds of things in France..