PARIS, ONE LAST TIME

In a few hours I leave for the airport to return home. It is a clunky and awkward return because I have to navigate the subway with the suitcase, computer, bag, and now an additional sack because of the repacking that the painting necessitated. All this during morning rush hour on the metro. It can be done!

Last night I ate dinner outside, listening to street music, people watching to the hilt. (The street musician came around for his handout. I thought he deserved it. So did the waiter who called him over to give him some money as well. When I looked on with interest, the waiter explained that these guys rid him of his salary each evening, but he doesn’t have the heart not to pay, they are so good.)

I can’t not post a single food item from my last dinner, so I’ll post the salad for a change (with little crustacean tails thrown in; it did not take long to get used to French food again!).



This morning I get up at dawn and walk endlessly. It is a cliché, but I really do love watching cities wake up on a regular work day. In Paris, I have a perfect vantage point in a café that I know is close to an elementary school. There, I even took a photo of it -- one can see left-over croissant pieces at my table of choice.



I watch the parents walk the kids to school and I try to listen in on the conversation of a handful of women that gather here afterwards. The men routinely stand at the bar for their swig of espresso and a quick friendly exchange, the women stay at the tables, housewives obviously, seemingly privileged, for this is the 6th arondissement. It’s a ‘left bank’ sort of privilege, not quite the ostentatious wealth of the right bank, but everyone certainly is dressed well. And the children! Oh, the clothes on the youngest children are so carefully assembled, so navy, so tailored! The girls and boys are learning early about the aesthetics of appearance. (You can tell there's a parental hand in this because as they get older they lose the dresses and the tailored pants in favor of a toned-down (as in the photo below), though still polished, appearance.)



Just a closing photo of a 'sight,' not just any sight, taken from the vantage of the Place des Invalides, home of my first green ice-cream cone. And now I’m off, to post again, from Madison, on Tuesday.