April in Paris? Paris in Springtime? It's all yours (and his and hers and theirs), but not mine

Yes.  It's the same person that wrote that she didn't like Mont St. Michel and something else, but I can't remember what.  Oh yeah.  Prague.  Well, you can add April in Paris to the list.  Really.  I don't know if it's just that I spent Easter weekend here, or if it will do nothing but continue to get worse.  Either way.  At the moment, you can have it.

The banks of the Seine are packed.  The sidewalks are packed.  And the parks are packed.  I've never been to an Italian beach in the summer, but I've heard that you are on top of each other.  Well, it seems to me like every park in Paris in April is like every beach in Italy in August.  There are people EVERYWHERE.  Bodies touch, phones ring, wine spills, and conversations spread.  I think I would have liked it when I was sixteen, but then there were no cell phones and I didn't drink wine.  Is the fact that I don't like it now because I'm too old?  I hope not. There are plenty of old(er) Parisians that seem to like it.   I guess it's just that this older American doesn't.

The flowers are in full bloom.  The trees are green.  And pink.  And white.  And purple.  And yellow.  The store windows are beautiful.  And fashionable.  And creative.  And ever-changing.  The graffiti is brilliant, the lights are bright and the evenings are long.  It's April in Paris like so many of us have dreamt about.  But, this one might be better as a dream.

Instead of going to the park on a 75 degree Easter Sunday, I took a four-hour walk to the outskirts of Paris where I knew everything would be closed and I'd have the sidewalks to myself.  It was perfect.  I walked through Parc Monceau on my way home. I'd remembered that it was a park with  more authorized grass use.  Authorized grass?  In parks in Paris, instead of telling you where you can't go, they tell you where you CAN go.  It appears as though almost all of the grass is off limits.  So, when you are allowed on the grass, they put out a little sign. It's a little sign, for a little piece of grass, for a lot of people.  So, I kept walking through Parc Monceau and came out on the other side.  But I did laugh when I saw an old man (an OLD man) running for a bench.

The picture I've included doesn't make much sense without an explanation.  I think if I stayed in Paris much longer I might end up like this guy.  He was on the outskirts, just like me.  He took his chair and he found a piece of grass all to himself.  The funny thing is it was on a small triangle of land on the edge of a roundabout and an entrance ramp and an exit ramp.  But, it was grass and he was alone.  Maybe this is what happens if you spend one too many springtimes in Paris.