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Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of welcome visitors swarmed around the usual places that the city government, the hotel and restaurant industry, the ministry of culture, and the Disney Corporation, have organized for catering to swarming visitors.
In the week between the last 'Grand Depart' and the 'Ultimate Grand Depart,' your reporter observed, what must have been local citizens packed like sardines into a local swimming pool. These were obviously the... The... What could they be? They were not suntanned! It's been a beautiful summer in Paris this year and it is hard to imagine anybody not suntanned, if not burnt. Maybe they were Icelanders - it being so far up there, here is as far as they could get. (There are a lot of swimming pools open in Paris; but very few of them are open-air. - Ed's note.)
Away from the main visitor areas, the strips of attractions lining both right and left banks of the Seine, Paris looks almost deserted. Parking metres are turned off. The parking ticket ladies are gone. The shutters are down on apartments, the shops below them are likewise shuttered - signs proclaiming 'Fermature Annuelle' are more common than open laundries - Pressings- or boulangeries - bakeries.
Are you one of these people standing in line for fresh baguettes?
Think of it: visitors come from half the world away to have a famous baguette with some really stinky brie, to wash it down with some really fine red, white, pink - Rose - wine and what do Parisians do? Do they hang around to sell all this good stuff? No. They bung off to campsites in obscure provinces where they eat so-called 'hot-dogs' with soggy thin 'frites' for a month and probably drink local 'vin ordinaire' out of the litre-sized 'five-star' bottles with plastic corks - hah, 'plastic' cork is an oxymoron - that the supermarkets charge deposit on.
It may save somebody's life, so here I will remind readers that supermarkets are indeed open. In fact, quite a few of them have quality wines and cheeses, not to mention fresh baguettes. Also, if you are in urgent need of a bit of a cool-off, zip on in to one for a refreshing half-hour. Beer and white or rose wines stored in coolers will seldom be found in these places; but you might try any open grocery store, if you can find one. They often keep a small refrigerated stock - but not at supermarket prices.
For some reason, the burglar's union does not permit its members to take their annual vacations in August. Many of these industrious fellows, who have been spending the inclement months off in the sticks burglaring vacation residences, arrive on trains that will be turned around for the 'Grands Departs' of their victims. With lists of addresses in hand they infest the dozing city with their industry - often renting real-fake, or is it fake-real? - moving vans to arrive, like real movers do, at dawn, to deplete an apartment or house of its contents. A passing mailman may notice this activity, but he or she is a summer replacement and sees no notice for alarm.
This is Harry Stein. He is looking for a laundry in Paris in
August. Yo Harry! Found one yet?
Meanwhile, the police - not on vacation - do not respond to the incessant howl of burglar alarms that heat alone is triggering; it has been rumored that burglars will in fact set the alarms off on purpose, as a perfect cover for burglary.
I often lie awake nights wondering what happens to all the stuff that gets boosted. Where does it go? In September, you would think that the flea markets would resemble 90-floor department stores, with their new stock. But no. And where do all the car radios go? More car radios have been stolen than there are cars. Have you ever been some place where a stranger says, 'pisst, hey buddy, you wanna buy a car radio?' and flings open his genuine - stolen - Burberry trench coat, showing 32 stereo-CD car radios with amps and nice speakers, hanging inside? Bet not. So where do the things go? If you find out, do not tell anybody. If you do, insurance companies will not be able to raise their premiums, and manufacturing will fall off by 50 percent.
Gripe, gripe, gripe. That signals it is time for my own 'Grand Depart.' I am going where I will not lie awake nights worrying about the unemployment that might ensue if burglars stop stealing other people's stuff. I am going where there is practically no nothing, and it is right here, handy in crowded downtown Europe. You might be able to find it if you look hard enough, but please don't bother.
Au revoir Paris.
Return to Richard Erickson's Paris Journal
Updated 07/95